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Ep 157: Stern's D&D with Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan
25 Plays2 months ago
Stern Pinball's new game, Dungeons and Dragons The Tyrant's Eye, is here and we have Brian Eddy (Game Designer) along with Dwight Sullivan (Lead Coder) to walk us through this new pinball adventure!
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Transcript
Introduction and New Releases
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
We are on episode 157.
00:00:11
Speaker
I am Josh Roop.
00:00:12
Speaker
With me, my co-captain... Scott Larson.
00:00:14
Speaker
And Scott, it is an epic day.
00:00:16
Speaker
It is new pinball release day.
00:00:18
Speaker
We've got some amazing guests on, and we're going to talk about Dungeons & Dragons.
00:00:22
Speaker
I know you're eyeballing that Dungeons & Dragons.
00:00:24
Speaker
Who are you buying yours from, Scott?
00:00:26
Speaker
So I'd kind of die.
00:00:26
Speaker
Zach and Nicole Minney at Flipping Out Pinball.
00:00:28
Speaker
They are always great, including all the accessories.
00:00:31
Speaker
And so if you want to get in on LEA Premium Pro...
00:00:34
Speaker
They'll be able to work that out.
00:00:36
Speaker
And we are excited about this game because we are exploring different directions in pinball.
00:00:42
Speaker
But that is 100%.
00:00:44
Speaker
Just reach out to them flipping out pinball.
00:00:47
Speaker
Definitely.
00:00:48
Speaker
And if you're looking for some sweet swag, because you're watching us on YouTube right now, I know you are.
00:00:52
Speaker
Loser Kid Pinball, this Attack from Mars shirt.
00:00:56
Speaker
It's Attack from Loser Kid shirt.
00:00:58
Speaker
Logo.
00:00:59
Speaker
Loser Kid Attack.
00:01:01
Speaker
It's the Attack from Mars font, and it says Loser Kid Pinball, which is pretty boss.
00:01:06
Speaker
But go to silverballswag.com slash loserkid.
00:01:09
Speaker
You can pick up all your gear there.
00:01:11
Speaker
We got shoes.
00:01:11
Speaker
We got shirts, anything your heart desires.
00:01:14
Speaker
You can deck out from head to toe in loser kid.
00:01:16
Speaker
We got new swag coming soon too.
00:01:19
Speaker
Also, if you're watching via YouTube, hit like, subscribe, all that jazz.
00:01:22
Speaker
You know that.
Community Announcements and Guests
00:01:24
Speaker
And, uh, one last thing that the Twippies are back.
00:01:27
Speaker
So they just announced you can start voting today.
00:01:29
Speaker
Go hit up their website, twippies.com, uh, and vote for your favorites.
00:01:34
Speaker
Uh,
00:01:34
Speaker
Now, Scott, would you like to introduce our guests that we have?
00:01:37
Speaker
I would love to introduce our guests.
00:01:39
Speaker
So we have a team up of epic proportions.
00:01:43
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.
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Speaker
which is Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness.
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Speaker
He also designed the shadow and then took a little break for a while.
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Speaker
And then Stern was able to bring him back
Dungeons & Dragons Pinball Insights
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Speaker
in.
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Speaker
And so it's great to have Brian Eddy back in the game.
00:02:12
Speaker
I own multiple of his games and you just picked up a cherry shadow.
00:02:16
Speaker
That's home use only.
00:02:17
Speaker
It's one of the few in existence that you could get, find that nice.
00:02:21
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.
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Speaker
He's the nicest too, man.
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Speaker
Absolutely.
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Speaker
And his, his expo,
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Speaker
Like the family feud, we have the win loser or what was it?
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Speaker
Let's make a deal last time.
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Speaker
So Dwight, we know that Dwight is passionate not only about rules, but also about gaming, which makes this a perfect mix.
00:02:53
Speaker
So we have Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan teaming up to bring us Dungeons and Dragons, which is pretty iconic.
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Speaker
So I'm going to start off with the first thing.
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Speaker
So the theme Dungeons and Dragons.
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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.
Game Design and Story Elements
00:03:17
Speaker
And so here's my question.
00:03:20
Speaker
What drew both of you to the theme of Dungeons and Dragons?
00:03:26
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know.
00:03:26
Speaker
For me, I think it's such an iconic brand that's been around for like, what, 40 years, 50 years or so.
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Speaker
So it's very well known.
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I played back in high school.
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Speaker
Dwight can tell you some even more in-depth things about his experience in D&D.
00:03:42
Speaker
And it's just such a rich theme.
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It's got so many different monsters and locations.
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There's so much you can do with it.
00:03:49
Speaker
We're super excited once we got the chance to be able to do it.
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And with its rise in interest, too, Stranger Things, I think, helped pump up D&D, too.
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Speaker
And there's more people playing today than there's ever been.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
We were super excited.
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Speaker
Dwight?
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Speaker
Yeah, I started a D&D club in the 80s.
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Speaker
I was like 18, 19 years old, and I formed a little club in my small town where I grew up.
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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.
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Speaker
Now, the one thing about Dungeons & Dragons is there's been a lot of ways that this theme has been implemented.
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Speaker
So back in the 70s when it came out, a lot of these were kind of a role-playing game.
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So it used your imagination.
00:04:39
Speaker
You would have a dungeon master who would come, and they would know this rule set.
00:04:43
Speaker
So you'd have a book that actually led you through, okay, you
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Speaker
And people know about these a little more.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yep.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yep.
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Speaker
Those things.
00:04:51
Speaker
So people know about a little more with character development.
00:04:55
Speaker
So back before video games, you would do this on paper.
00:04:59
Speaker
You would say, okay, my strength is going to be this.
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My charisma is going to be this.
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And so it really hinged on someone being able to be a compelling storyteller to be the dungeon master.
00:05:11
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And you'd get people.
00:05:12
Speaker
Now,
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Speaker
The question I have, though, is that is the basis from this.
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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.
00:05:30
Speaker
Now, here's my question.
00:05:31
Speaker
I've been familiar with Dungeons & Dragons forever, and I've also been familiar with pinball forever.
00:05:37
Speaker
Now, help me align that Venn diagram.
00:05:40
Speaker
How are you going to overlap that?
00:05:42
Speaker
Because especially in pinball, your game times typically tend to be like maybe 3 to 10 minutes,
00:05:53
Speaker
And, you know, 10 minutes is if you're having a really good game.
00:05:56
Speaker
And if you have an epic game, you have 30 minutes.
00:05:58
Speaker
Well, some of these campaigns can go on for years, literally.
00:06:03
Speaker
So how are you going to implement that philosophy into a pinball machine?
00:06:09
Speaker
So that's, that's a good question.
00:06:11
Speaker
You want me to take that Brian or?
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead.
00:06:14
Speaker
So it's a two part question.
00:06:18
Speaker
The first part is how did we integrate pinball and D and D and,
00:06:21
Speaker
First thing we did was we, so back in the beginning, Zach Prost
Gameplay Mechanics and Innovations
00:06:27
Speaker
and I, Zach Prost is our writer, he and I, so we decided, let me start at the beginning.
00:06:31
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.
00:06:40
Speaker
Well, where are you going to draw all that from?
00:06:42
Speaker
Because we don't have a movie.
00:06:43
Speaker
We don't have, like, a TV series or anything.
00:06:46
Speaker
So in order to draw from something, we needed to make a story first.
00:06:50
Speaker
So we decided that the first thing we needed to do is make a story.
00:06:53
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.
00:07:01
Speaker
And, um...
00:07:03
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.
00:07:14
Speaker
That was the first half of your question.
00:07:15
Speaker
The second half of your question is sort of taps into how are you going to compare it to a campaign?
00:07:22
Speaker
Well, we have Insider Connected, right?
00:07:24
Speaker
So we have, because of Insider Connected, because you can be logged in, you can pick up where you left off.
00:07:30
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.
00:07:40
Speaker
Pinball.
00:07:40
Speaker
But then on your next game, you're going to start wherever you left off on that map.
00:07:45
Speaker
And your accomplishments and the things you did in the past will still be there.
00:07:49
Speaker
And your level, if your character went up a level, he's still up a level.
00:07:51
Speaker
And if you had, you know, a thousand gold, you still have a thousand gold and so on.
00:07:56
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.
00:08:13
Speaker
No mortal person I know can do it, but maybe like immortals like Keith Elwin and so forth, right?
00:08:18
Speaker
Those guys, they can probably get to the end maybe in one game, but...
00:08:25
Speaker
But with the help of Insider Connected and picking up where you left off, everyone eventually will get to the end.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, and from my standpoint, it's similar, right?
00:08:32
Speaker
I wanted to bring the classic elements of D&D from a mechanical standpoint onto the playfield.
00:08:38
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.
00:08:46
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,
00:08:54
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.
00:08:59
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.
00:09:05
Speaker
We have the elements there, I think, for everybody who are going to have a good time.
00:09:11
Speaker
Definitely.
00:09:11
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.
00:09:21
Speaker
So that way, it's still a person walks up to it and they're intrigued.
00:09:24
Speaker
They see the giant dragon head and they're like, oh, I want to see what that does.
00:09:28
Speaker
Or what is that big cube in the back?
00:09:30
Speaker
I want to try that out.
00:09:32
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.
00:09:42
Speaker
The question I have is, this is called the Tyrant's Eye, and if I'm correct, that is an actual campaign.
00:09:46
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.
00:09:55
Speaker
It's something we made up.
00:09:55
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:09:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:59
Speaker
It's a story that we wrote and then we just use that story to make everything we needed in the game.
00:10:08
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.
00:10:16
Speaker
So the entire world- Of course, it does take place in the D&D universe, right?
00:10:20
Speaker
So the map is Faeran, which is in the D&D universe.
00:10:23
Speaker
The monsters from D&D are in the game, but it's our story.
00:10:28
Speaker
Very cool.
00:10:28
Speaker
So it's Stern's version of D&D while using all of Dungeons & Dragons assets.
00:10:34
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:10:35
Speaker
I love it.
00:10:35
Speaker
It's a custom campaign.
00:10:37
Speaker
Like if you're playing D&D, we've made the same campaign.
00:10:38
Speaker
Just like all D&D anywhere is.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah, all D&Ds are custom campaign depending on your storyteller or your dungeon master.
00:10:45
Speaker
So, okay, Brian, I want to get into the layout.
00:10:50
Speaker
So when you're looking at the layout now, you have some iconic layouts of pinball, especially medieval madness and attack from Mars.
00:10:59
Speaker
The shadow is, it's, it's one of those outliers where you have that, that upper play field and,
00:11:06
Speaker
Now, this time you have, what is it?
00:11:08
Speaker
It's three flippers in the game, right?
00:11:11
Speaker
Now, how did you engineer the flow on this game?
00:11:14
Speaker
Because now walk me through it really quickly because it's hard to find an overhead shot right now of the play field.
00:11:21
Speaker
But you have a dragon on the left and the gelatinous cube on the right, which, by the way, I love.
00:11:27
Speaker
I'm a big fan of Onward.
00:11:30
Speaker
And the fact that in Onward, the gelatinous cube came out in that one, it's an awesome thing.
00:11:35
Speaker
So lead me through what is the philosophy on the shots of this game?
00:11:39
Speaker
Hold on just two seconds.
00:11:41
Speaker
If you want to follow along with what Brian's talking about, you can hit up naparcade.org.
00:11:48
Speaker
And on there, he has posted the top-down views, all the art, everything for Dungeons & Dragons, the Tyrant's Eye.
00:11:57
Speaker
So if you'd like to head there now while Brian's all explaining this.
00:12:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, so to me, most games are about flow.
00:12:05
Speaker
There has to be some flow that feels good for you to make combination shots that go in a pattern.
00:12:10
Speaker
And it just feels great when you complete two, three, four in a row, right?
00:12:14
Speaker
And I haven't done a three-flipper game since Shadow, so it's been a while.
00:12:19
Speaker
So I thought this would be an interesting theme to expand upon that.
00:12:23
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.
00:12:31
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?
00:12:39
Speaker
They forget it's there, they miss it and they don't always take full advantage of it.
00:12:46
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.
00:13:00
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.
00:13:08
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.
00:13:15
Speaker
which is pretty varied, right?
00:13:18
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.
00:13:29
Speaker
So there's a lot of options with the upper flipper.
00:13:31
Speaker
So I really wanted the player to be able to get into using it a lot.
00:13:35
Speaker
So to me, we have all the flow of like the lower flippers that can lead to various shots smoothly.
00:13:43
Speaker
And then when you combine that with the upper flipper, that's, I think, when it takes on another level.
00:13:49
Speaker
So now the question is also your focus.
00:13:52
Speaker
Oh, go ahead.
00:13:52
Speaker
Go ahead, Josh.
00:13:54
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.
00:14:03
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.
00:14:14
Speaker
Is there like a ball save to kind of accommodate for the brutality of where this is located?
00:14:18
Speaker
There's something even better than a ball save.
00:14:20
Speaker
There's a shield, a player-activated shield, that pops up between the middle of the flippers.
00:14:26
Speaker
And whenever it's lit, the player can activate it.
00:14:28
Speaker
Just tap the action button really quick, and it pops up.
00:14:32
Speaker
And it'll stay up for different amounts of time, depending on what character you're playing, what class you're playing.
00:14:38
Speaker
And that can change throughout the game as you level up and such.
00:14:41
Speaker
Well, and also...
00:14:43
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead, Dwight.
00:14:45
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.
00:14:54
Speaker
So that's one of your defenses against it.
00:14:57
Speaker
Dwight, go ahead.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, so the other thing is, during Dragon Multiball, during Dragon Battles, the ball save is running the entire time.
00:15:06
Speaker
During the battle, he's spitting balls out at you constantly.
00:15:10
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.
00:15:15
Speaker
And the whole battle is about...
00:15:17
Speaker
how many times can you hit him in the jaw before you drain 10 balls or before you drain 15 balls?
00:15:23
Speaker
Before the dragon makes you drain 15 balls.
00:15:26
Speaker
So he's trying to shoot them down the middle.
00:15:28
Speaker
He's trying to shoot them out of out lanes.
00:15:30
Speaker
He's shooting balls all over the place.
00:15:31
Speaker
Trying to mess up your ass.
00:15:33
Speaker
Meanwhile, if you hit this three bank,
00:15:37
Speaker
Or if he comes down, if you hit his three bank, he comes down and tries to protect the three bank.
00:15:42
Speaker
And then you can hit him in the jaw.
00:15:43
Speaker
Or he comes down to shoot out another ball.
00:15:47
Speaker
Either way, when he's down, hit him in the jaw from any of the three flippers.
00:15:51
Speaker
And if you hit him in the jaw like six times, you know, depending on the settings...
00:15:57
Speaker
then you win.
00:15:57
Speaker
You go into town celebration mode.
00:15:59
Speaker
And if you drain X number of balls, like right now it's 15, then you lose.
00:16:05
Speaker
And the ball saves running the entire time.
00:16:08
Speaker
You're trying to get his gold, right?
00:16:10
Speaker
The three bank is gold, so you're trying to steal from his hoard.
00:16:13
Speaker
So he's not happy about that.
00:16:16
Speaker
so it's not really a ball.
00:16:17
Speaker
It's a ball counter.
00:16:18
Speaker
Really?
00:16:18
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.
00:16:32
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,
00:16:44
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.
00:16:53
Speaker
And so, you know, how are you going to balance that?
00:16:55
Speaker
Because typically a dragon battle in a dungeons, that's like more of an end goal type thing.
00:17:02
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?
00:17:12
Speaker
So we're not that concerned about that.
00:17:15
Speaker
We're concerned about having a blast while playing against the dragon, the dragon toy.
00:17:19
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.
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, we actually had this discussion with me and Blake quite a bit at the beginning.
00:17:35
Speaker
We have lots of excuses why he might fly away or whatever, but right now it's so much fun.
00:17:44
Speaker
We don't care much about that.
00:17:48
Speaker
And he's the first thing you want to do.
00:17:50
Speaker
Well, the first multiball you want to do, the one that's closest to the start button.
00:17:55
Speaker
And it's a blast.
00:17:57
Speaker
So I think fun wins, right?
00:17:59
Speaker
It's the rule of cool.
00:18:01
Speaker
Because you're 100% right.
00:18:02
Speaker
In real D&D, right?
00:18:04
Speaker
You wouldn't battle a dragon for a long time, right?
00:18:06
Speaker
This may be a year-long campaign until you level up high enough to even have a chance at battling a dragon.
00:18:11
Speaker
Right.
00:18:11
Speaker
Now we have, so that's the dragon battle.
00:18:13
Speaker
That's the dragon feature.
00:18:15
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.
00:18:24
Speaker
Sure.
00:18:25
Speaker
And it might make more sense.
00:18:26
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.
00:18:36
Speaker
Is that, is, is that, is that on the philosophy?
00:18:39
Speaker
No, he won't.
00:18:40
Speaker
So the dragon multiball kind of lives outside that realm.
00:18:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:45
Speaker
And it doesn't really matter what your party level, your character level.
00:18:50
Speaker
All that really matters is can you hit him in the jaw X number of times before you drain 10 balls or whatever.
00:18:55
Speaker
And then there are, it's more of a pinball thing than it is a D&D thing.
00:18:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, the battles do get more intense, obviously, as you play them in a game.
00:19:04
Speaker
Level 1, level 2, level 3.
00:19:05
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.
00:19:24
Speaker
But he has unique modes within the storyline, within the dungeon crawl, various areas, too.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:30
Speaker
There's a couple of climaxes in the story where the red dragon shows up and he's involved.
00:19:39
Speaker
And what level your party is does matter at that point.
00:19:43
Speaker
So one question I have is pertaining to the dragon.
00:19:46
Speaker
I know that Gomez said in a recent interview that like,
00:19:49
Speaker
Dungeons and Dragons was to play because of some technical issues.
00:19:52
Speaker
And that's why kind of X-Men was bumped ahead and whatnot.
00:19:55
Speaker
Is that because of this dragon mech?
00:19:57
Speaker
Because this is a pretty cool mech.
00:19:58
Speaker
It looks like it's very well done.
00:20:00
Speaker
I just didn't know if you guys could speak to that.
00:20:04
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if it's particularly because of that, right?
00:20:06
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?
00:20:16
Speaker
He can move up and down, left and right.
00:20:19
Speaker
He can spit pinballs out at any point.
00:20:22
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.
00:20:28
Speaker
So we put a lot of time and effort into the dragon.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker
I don't know if it necessarily delayed us, but... Yeah, there was no point in time when the dragon slowed us down.
00:20:40
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?
00:20:52
Speaker
They're coming out of his mouth.
00:20:54
Speaker
They're coming out of his mouth.
00:20:55
Speaker
Endless balls will come out of his mouth in all different directions all over the game.
00:20:59
Speaker
Really?
00:21:00
Speaker
He breathes spitballs.
00:21:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:05
Speaker
That was a question.
00:21:07
Speaker
That was unsure to me when I was watching your little teaser, your six-minute reel thing.
00:21:14
Speaker
We can auto-fill the dragon from the shooter.
00:21:18
Speaker
We can keep as many balls in him as we have.
00:21:21
Speaker
When the game's at rest, it has eight balls in it.
00:21:24
Speaker
Five are in the lower trough, and three are in the dragon trough.
00:21:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:28
Speaker
Now tell me, because this is an advanced mech.
00:21:32
Speaker
How are you going to modify that for a pro?
00:21:36
Speaker
Okay, so a pro, we still obviously have the big dragon.
00:21:39
Speaker
He looks very similar, the sculpt and the cave that he lives in and such, but he does not spit balls.
00:21:46
Speaker
So he is mainly a bash toy, and he's either up or down.
00:21:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:51
Speaker
So when he comes down, that's the battle.
00:21:52
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.
00:21:58
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.
00:22:06
Speaker
So we'll play with that on the pro, but he doesn't spit balls.
00:22:10
Speaker
He doesn't have the diverter in the back that feeds the dragon.
00:22:12
Speaker
And he can't move up, down, left or right, just up or down.
00:22:17
Speaker
Right.
00:22:17
Speaker
On the premium, he's two stepper motors, so he can move left, right, up and down asynchronously of each other.
00:22:24
Speaker
And so he's just very smooth movement in all directions.
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, and he'll look around the play field where you're shooting and make comments.
00:22:31
Speaker
He's a big character in the game, too.
00:22:33
Speaker
And he can block shots.
00:22:34
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.
00:22:41
Speaker
That happens from time to time.
00:22:43
Speaker
So a lot of variety.
00:22:45
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.
00:22:55
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
00:23:02
Speaker
But you've still got the shield, you've still got the magnet and the gelatinous cube that I can tell.
00:23:06
Speaker
What is different?
00:23:07
Speaker
Because I almost feel like the pros are just as good as the premium.
00:23:10
Speaker
Besides, I mean, that articulating head is amazing.
00:23:13
Speaker
I don't want to discount that.
00:23:14
Speaker
That's pretty cool.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's a pretty sophisticated toy.
00:23:18
Speaker
Well, you also spit out balls or hold balls.
00:23:21
Speaker
So that whole underground trough and the diverter in the back, all of that's gone.
00:23:26
Speaker
Is the dungeon still there that pops up to grab the ball and stuff?
00:23:29
Speaker
That's gone too.
00:23:30
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.
00:23:37
Speaker
So we use that in various modes within the game too.
00:23:40
Speaker
So you don't get that.
00:23:41
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.
00:23:48
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
Industry Trends and Collaborative Efforts
00:24:03
Speaker
rule set is.
00:24:03
Speaker
And I'm assuming that's what you're trying to do with this too.
00:24:07
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
00:24:36
Speaker
The map changes every Sunday.
00:24:38
Speaker
Can you kind of explain?
00:24:39
Speaker
The map doesn't change.
00:24:43
Speaker
So the random numbers in the game change every Sunday.
00:24:45
Speaker
And anything that's affected by the random numbers change every Sunday.
00:24:49
Speaker
What's the random numbers?
00:24:50
Speaker
And what do they do?
00:24:51
Speaker
Well, anything in the game that would be random.
00:24:53
Speaker
Like with normal.
00:24:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:56
Speaker
You're touching a Venom cabinet, but I'm assuming you have a... Okay.
00:25:00
Speaker
You have a D&D play field in there.
00:25:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:03
Speaker
All right.
00:25:04
Speaker
All right.
00:25:04
Speaker
Just making sure on there.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yep.
00:25:07
Speaker
So when you say map, I'm just wanting to be clear.
00:25:11
Speaker
The play field has a map in the middle.
00:25:13
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.
00:25:22
Speaker
None of that changes every week.
00:25:25
Speaker
What changes every week are things like the dungeon crawl.
00:25:28
Speaker
So the dungeon crawl feature is sort of this pinball feature that's part video mode, part pinball, but mostly pinball.
00:25:37
Speaker
And what it is is you make shots and go down hallways and turn corners and go through doors.
00:25:43
Speaker
And every time you come to a decision point, the ball is held and you've got like three seconds to decide.
00:25:48
Speaker
Are you going to go left?
00:25:49
Speaker
Are you going to go right?
00:25:49
Speaker
Are you going to go straight?
00:25:50
Speaker
And then the ball is released and you're making more shots again.
00:25:53
Speaker
Sometimes you come across a room with monsters in it.
00:25:55
Speaker
And sometimes you come across a room which is like an award room or stairs or a trap.
00:26:02
Speaker
And that dungeon is pre-generated.
00:26:06
Speaker
It's generated on Sunday for all the games all over the world.
00:26:12
Speaker
everyone will play the exact same, and there's actually five levels to the dungeon.
00:26:16
Speaker
So everybody everywhere will play the exact same dungeon for that week, and then it changes on Sunday.
00:26:24
Speaker
Stuff like that, the things that are more virtual that can change do change on Sundays.
00:26:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:33
Speaker
Now speak to that, because I will say just from a...
00:26:38
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
00:27:06
Speaker
I generate a new seed and then that's the seed, that's the random seed I use for that week.
00:27:13
Speaker
And everybody, all the games everywhere use that exact same seed for that week.
00:27:17
Speaker
So it's already in the code.
00:27:18
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.
00:27:25
Speaker
And it presents that in the game, right?
00:27:29
Speaker
Right.
00:27:29
Speaker
The only, right.
00:27:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:33
Speaker
And that bases the dungeon layouts and, you know, where the extra ball is that week.
00:27:37
Speaker
Somebody will find it, talk to their friends and say, hey, go left, left, left, right, and you'll find the extra ball.
00:27:43
Speaker
But then next week it'll change again, so...
00:27:46
Speaker
But everything that can be affected by it has changed.
00:27:50
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.
00:28:03
Speaker
And you get four in the beginning, and then you get three more.
00:28:07
Speaker
Every time you finish a campaign, you can unlock another character.
00:28:11
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.
00:28:17
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?
00:28:24
Speaker
So the other characters, so all the characters have a bonus.
00:28:29
Speaker
Like, that's the wizard.
00:28:29
Speaker
The wizard has longer shield time.
00:28:32
Speaker
The dragonborn paladin, he's better against dragons.
00:28:36
Speaker
And, like, each of the classes has a different boon like that.
00:28:40
Speaker
The rogue has more luck.
00:28:43
Speaker
Luck is one of the things you can have.
00:28:45
Speaker
And he gets more luck.
00:28:47
Speaker
And luck affects how much treasure you get when you get treasure.
00:28:51
Speaker
And so on.
00:28:52
Speaker
So the Cleric is good against undead monsters.
00:28:55
Speaker
We have like, right now we have like about over 30 monsters in the game.
00:28:59
Speaker
And we're getting more all the time.
00:29:01
Speaker
So some of them are undead.
00:29:03
Speaker
And so if you're playing a Cleric, he's going to help you.
00:29:06
Speaker
He's going to be more powerful against all the undead monsters in the game.
00:29:13
Speaker
Now with Dungeons and Dragons, it typically is a, it's a cooperative game.
00:29:17
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.
00:29:27
Speaker
How is it possible?
00:29:28
Speaker
Now you have made hints at progressing things like that.
00:29:33
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.
00:29:43
Speaker
Is there a way for us to do a cooperative campaign or play like that?
00:29:47
Speaker
Is that in the cards?
00:29:50
Speaker
Not currently.
00:29:52
Speaker
I'm assuming you mean like you playing at your basement and Josh in his basement.
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's currently not in the cards.
00:30:02
Speaker
Like all the past games I've done, both of you are in the same basement.
00:30:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:06
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.
00:30:16
Speaker
And the two of you could play together on a campaign that starts from the beginning.
00:30:19
Speaker
Yeah, and then you'll progress together and your successes will be shared and all that.
00:30:25
Speaker
So we'd love to obviously do online play, but yeah, we're not, we're not there yet.
00:30:30
Speaker
That would be crazy complex.
00:30:32
Speaker
That's why I'm asking.
00:30:33
Speaker
Cause I'm like, that would be, that would be interesting thing.
00:30:35
Speaker
But you are saying that say Josh comes over to my house.
00:30:38
Speaker
I have a dungeons and dragons.
00:30:40
Speaker
We both log in and we both bring our shared achievements.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yep, your characters.
00:30:48
Speaker
So Josh could come play his paladin and maybe his fifth level.
00:30:51
Speaker
And you guys have chosen co-op from the gameplay menu, right?
00:30:55
Speaker
So now you could play your seventh level wizard.
00:30:58
Speaker
And the two of you could play together.
00:31:00
Speaker
The game would assign two more characters to be part of your party.
00:31:03
Speaker
Every party has four characters in it.
00:31:05
Speaker
So then you'd have two other characters that wasn't the two of you.
00:31:09
Speaker
And then the four of you would play throughout both games as both of you played.
00:31:14
Speaker
And if you had four players, obviously, all the spots would be filled by real-life players, whatever their characters are.
00:31:21
Speaker
So, Eddie, you took a break from pinball for a little bit, and you came back.
00:31:25
Speaker
You've done Stranger Things, Mando, Venom.
00:31:27
Speaker
Now we're doing Dungeons & Dragons.
00:31:29
Speaker
How has it changed making pinball at Stern versus the days at Bally Williams?
00:31:34
Speaker
That's what I want to know.
00:31:35
Speaker
Well, every company is different in the way they do things, right?
00:31:38
Speaker
So it takes a while to learn, you know, what are they good at and how does the whole process work?
00:31:42
Speaker
So there's a little bit of a learning curve there.
00:31:45
Speaker
But I think probably the biggest thing, to tell you the truth, is the world has changed and social media is now here.
00:31:52
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.
00:32:00
Speaker
And the number of people who buy games for their homes, right?
00:32:03
Speaker
I think those are the things that probably have changed the most since the 90s when I did pinball before.
00:32:10
Speaker
And it's only propelled the whole industry, right?
00:32:13
Speaker
And the fan base out there is really exciting to bring everybody together like that.
00:32:18
Speaker
Do you feel like there's been kind of a learning curve coming into this modern era of pinball?
00:32:23
Speaker
A little bit.
00:32:24
Speaker
I mean, games are deeper now, right?
00:32:26
Speaker
They're much more involved and a lot of games go into homes.
00:32:29
Speaker
So we want to have a lot of depth and a lot of variety of different ways to play.
00:32:34
Speaker
And I think that's great, right?
00:32:35
Speaker
I love the ability to add all that stuff to a game.
00:32:38
Speaker
So to me, that's a big plus.
00:32:39
Speaker
It's a lot more work than we had before in the 90s and
00:32:43
Speaker
We also have three different models now, right?
00:32:45
Speaker
We have the Pro Premium and LE.
00:32:47
Speaker
So that's more things to do.
00:32:48
Speaker
And now we have Insider Connected.
00:32:50
Speaker
So that's more things we can add to the game.
00:32:52
Speaker
So from my standpoint, it's all a positive.
00:32:54
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.
00:33:03
Speaker
What enticed you to come back to pinball?
00:33:08
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.
00:33:15
Speaker
It would be great to have you back in the game.
00:33:17
Speaker
And I absolutely love doing pinballs in the 90s.
00:33:20
Speaker
Right.
00:33:20
Speaker
If pinball wouldn't have taken the dive, it kind of did toward the end.
00:33:24
Speaker
I would have loved to continue making pinball.
00:33:26
Speaker
But.
00:33:27
Speaker
you know, I have to eat and, you know, have to have a house, you know, things like that.
00:33:31
Speaker
So I took, I moved over to video, which I love all types of games.
00:33:35
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?
00:33:43
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?
00:33:49
Speaker
We have video, we have
00:33:50
Speaker
physical elements.
00:33:51
Speaker
We have all different materials on the play field.
00:33:53
Speaker
We have different rules we can make.
00:33:55
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.
00:34:05
Speaker
So there's such a variety of cool things to work on.
00:34:08
Speaker
They're just, they're amazing to do.
00:34:10
Speaker
And I absolutely love it.
00:34:11
Speaker
It's a blast.
00:34:13
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?
00:34:19
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?
00:34:26
Speaker
Because D&D can be pretty complex and understanding all the rules, but this has to be a fun pinball experience.
00:34:32
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?
00:34:39
Speaker
That's what they pushed us to do.
00:34:40
Speaker
We didn't want an exact duplicate of all the rules and exactly.
00:34:43
Speaker
We had to make a fun experience in our medium.
00:34:46
Speaker
You know, which, like you had mentioned, is only a few minutes a game for most people.
00:34:50
Speaker
So I think we spent a lot of time talking about that up front.
00:34:53
Speaker
And we've simplified as we've gone down to the core elements that we think would be fun in a pinball.
00:34:59
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.
00:35:04
Speaker
Yeah, there was a learning curve there.
00:35:07
Speaker
Remember the flow chart?
00:35:08
Speaker
It was massive.
00:35:11
Speaker
So Zach Prost, we had him.
00:35:13
Speaker
So he had all these ideas, and he didn't really understand pinball, but he understood D&D, and he's our writer.
00:35:19
Speaker
And I said, listen, I'm not quite following you.
00:35:22
Speaker
Start making a flow chart.
00:35:23
Speaker
And then I kind of ignored him for a day or two, and then I went back to the whiteboard.
00:35:26
Speaker
We were doing this on a virtual whiteboard that I love to use.
00:35:29
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.
00:35:38
Speaker
And I'm like, that's awesome, but we need to back it down a bit.
00:35:42
Speaker
It was really impressive.
00:35:46
Speaker
Someday we'll show that, I think.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah, we will show that at some point.
00:35:51
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.
00:35:59
Speaker
Keep that flavor of D&D in it, but not overwhelm the player, right?
00:36:03
Speaker
And keep those core elements that are fun, that we can make fun in pinball.
00:36:09
Speaker
So you have quite the cast of people in here for voice talent, too.
00:36:12
Speaker
You've got the critical role people with Matt Mercer, Laura Bailey, and Marshall Ray.
00:36:18
Speaker
I, the one that caught my eye was Kevin Smith, AKA silent Bob.
00:36:22
Speaker
I mean, how, how do you write a script for these people?
00:36:25
Speaker
And then on top of that, like, do they improv at all?
00:36:28
Speaker
Is there every time they're like, we're going to say this and okay.
00:36:30
Speaker
You're leaving out Michael Dorn.
00:36:32
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:36:32
Speaker
Michael Dorn, man.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:34
Speaker
I just, the list goes on.
00:36:37
Speaker
Well, you're going to miss some people.
00:36:38
Speaker
Cause there's like 10 different voice actors in this game.
00:36:41
Speaker
It's insane.
00:36:41
Speaker
It's cool.
00:36:42
Speaker
It's really insane.
00:36:43
Speaker
Amazing cast.
00:36:45
Speaker
It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun.
00:36:50
Speaker
We wrote, we spent a few days writing script, Ryan, right?
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah, at least.
00:36:56
Speaker
Plus, we had writers helping write, too.
00:36:58
Speaker
Oh, right.
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah, Chris.
00:37:00
Speaker
Right, so Chris Pronovsky, he helped write a lot of scripts.
00:37:04
Speaker
We created all of the buckets.
00:37:07
Speaker
I call them buckets.
00:37:08
Speaker
All of the places in the game where we want speech.
00:37:11
Speaker
the different events that happen.
00:37:13
Speaker
And we're like, okay, this mode is happening and during this mode, we're gonna need speech here, here, and here.
00:37:18
Speaker
When you get an award and when you make this shot and whatever.
00:37:21
Speaker
And so we create this huge spreadsheet of all the buckets.
00:37:25
Speaker
And then, so that's one axis.
00:37:29
Speaker
And then the other axis is all the different characters we have in the game and who might talk during these different events.
Art and Storytelling in Pinball
00:37:35
Speaker
And we ended up having a lot of characters.
00:37:37
Speaker
We have 18 characters or
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, thousands of lines of speech.
00:37:44
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.
00:37:53
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.
00:38:00
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
00:38:11
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.
00:38:21
Speaker
And I'm like, I'm kind of surprised he didn't throw his hat in the ring too, just because.
00:38:25
Speaker
Wait, is he the magic mic guy?
00:38:26
Speaker
The magic mic guy loves D&D.
00:38:29
Speaker
He is obsessed with, it's funny because like someone had posted like,
00:38:34
Speaker
a picture of themselves like cut at the gym.
00:38:36
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, I don't play Dungeons and Dragons.
00:38:38
Speaker
And Joe posted a picture like cut man of the year.
00:38:41
Speaker
And it's like, but I do.
00:38:43
Speaker
So ladies hit me up or something like that.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:47
Speaker
The demographic has definitely changed over the last 50 years.
00:38:49
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
00:38:51
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:38:52
Speaker
And that's great to see, right?
00:38:53
Speaker
There's so many people enjoying it now.
00:38:56
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.
00:39:06
Speaker
And it's co-op, right?
00:39:08
Speaker
So there's no pressure.
00:39:09
Speaker
So all you need is one person who's really into it.
00:39:11
Speaker
He's the game master, and he's worked out all the details, and he knows the story.
00:39:16
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.
00:39:25
Speaker
We have one of the best DMs out there as our DM voice, Matt Mercer.
00:39:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:32
Speaker
And he was incredible.
00:39:33
Speaker
And DM Dungeon Master for those who don't speak Dungeons and Dragons yet.
00:39:39
Speaker
So you asked also about improv.
00:39:43
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.
00:39:56
Speaker
They would say a line and then say the exact same line again.
00:40:00
Speaker
but add on a little laugh at the end or something and it made it completely different.
00:40:04
Speaker
And that was great.
00:40:06
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.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's just more variety for the player.
00:40:17
Speaker
I think it's cool to hear different takes.
00:40:20
Speaker
And I told them all, I said, just have fun with it, right?
00:40:24
Speaker
Like, if you think your character, this character, wouldn't say this, then change the words.
00:40:29
Speaker
Rewrite the script.
00:40:30
Speaker
And they did.
00:40:31
Speaker
They would often just change it and roll with it.
00:40:34
Speaker
So speaking of the community out there, so just randomly over Christmas Eve, I was talking to some friends.
00:40:40
Speaker
I was at their house.
00:40:42
Speaker
And I said, yeah, there's a game coming out.
00:40:46
Speaker
And it's...
00:40:47
Speaker
rumored to be Dungeons and Dragons.
00:40:49
Speaker
And they said, oh, well, you should follow just someone I grew up with.
00:40:54
Speaker
Their son has a fan page and I pulled it up.
00:40:58
Speaker
It's called MyDND.
00:40:58
Speaker
It has 274,000 followers.
00:40:59
Speaker
So tell me about how has the community reacted to this and
00:41:13
Speaker
And how is it, you know, how, how have they seen this?
00:41:17
Speaker
Because I know some people, I told the story before, they always have three questions when they get exposed to pinball.
00:41:25
Speaker
The first question is, they still make that every time.
00:41:29
Speaker
That's the first one.
00:41:31
Speaker
Second time there's like, can I come play it?
00:41:33
Speaker
And then the third question is, can I buy one of these?
00:41:37
Speaker
So it's interesting.
00:41:39
Speaker
How has that, how has the reception from the D and D community been?
00:41:45
Speaker
I don't think we completely know.
00:41:47
Speaker
Do we do it?
00:41:47
Speaker
I mean, it's just launched today.
00:41:49
Speaker
It launched like, like minutes ago.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:52
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:41:53
Speaker
But there, there, okay.
00:41:55
Speaker
I get it.
00:41:55
Speaker
This is the official launch.
00:41:57
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.
00:42:07
Speaker
Right.
00:42:08
Speaker
So I've been watching sort of the rumored threads, you know, on different forums, and it's all been pretty positive.
00:42:16
Speaker
And everyone has ideas about what the ball could do and what the toys should be.
00:42:20
Speaker
And some of them were close to the mark and some of them were not.
00:42:24
Speaker
Most of those, I think, are pinball people, right?
00:42:27
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.
00:42:35
Speaker
And there is a crossover between them.
00:42:37
Speaker
Like a lot of the board game shows, I mean, Dwight goes to a number of them.
00:42:41
Speaker
They have rows of pinball there.
00:42:44
Speaker
So that world is aware of it, those people who play D&D and play other types of board games.
00:42:49
Speaker
they enjoy pinball too.
00:42:51
Speaker
So we think we're going to bring them some new players, which is awesome.
00:42:56
Speaker
So one question I have, I know that licensors can sometimes just be notoriously hard to work with.
00:43:01
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.
00:43:14
Speaker
Can you kind of speak to how the licensor was to you guys?
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah, they were great.
00:43:19
Speaker
I mean, they make games.
00:43:21
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.
00:43:28
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.
00:43:36
Speaker
So they were a great support all along the way.
00:43:39
Speaker
There are certain things right in their universe they want.
00:43:42
Speaker
to be right, right?
00:43:44
Speaker
The red dragon has this number of scales on his body, right?
00:43:47
Speaker
It needs to be that way.
00:43:49
Speaker
But they were things that were pretty straightforward for us to be able to implement.
00:43:57
Speaker
You had Dwight counting the scales on the dragon to make sure it was all correct.
00:44:02
Speaker
Right.
00:44:02
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.
00:44:14
Speaker
And, you know, but other than that, they were very, very great.
00:44:18
Speaker
In fact, we would give them tons and tons of stuff and, you know, like storyboards and story and whatnot.
00:44:26
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.
00:44:34
Speaker
And then they would come back with dozens of ideas and notes.
00:44:38
Speaker
And I'm like,
00:44:43
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
00:45:06
Speaker
No, I don't think so.
00:45:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:45:10
Speaker
Right, from turtles.
00:45:13
Speaker
No, I... Oh, come on.
00:45:15
Speaker
Just say yes.
00:45:15
Speaker
Just say yes.
00:45:18
Speaker
The gelatinous cube ate a turtle.
00:45:21
Speaker
Exactly.
00:45:22
Speaker
Ate a turtle, and that's where they... That would be hilarious.
00:45:30
Speaker
There are nunchucks in the gelatinous cube.
00:45:32
Speaker
Confirm or deny.
00:45:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:36
Speaker
I do have to ask the floor.
00:45:37
Speaker
I promise.
00:45:39
Speaker
The one thing that is so important to dungeons and dragons is the art.
00:45:45
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.
00:45:57
Speaker
So, so it was the art that sold us on the book cover on the,
00:46:03
Speaker
you know, on the video game, even though it was like an 8-bit video game, it was terrible.
00:46:08
Speaker
Tell me about getting the right artist to draw this.
00:46:15
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.
00:46:21
Speaker
I had worked with Vince Prost on video games in the 2000s, and he was just an incredible artist.
00:46:28
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.
00:46:40
Speaker
And so...
00:46:42
Speaker
He's really made a name for himself in developing monsters in these dark worlds and stuff.
00:46:50
Speaker
And he also, within that time frame, he's done work for D&D.
00:46:53
Speaker
He's a D&D artist, and he's done tons of things for D&D and Magic the Gathering.
00:46:58
Speaker
So it's like there couldn't be a more perfect guy.
00:47:00
Speaker
We know this guy, worked with him before.
00:47:03
Speaker
We all get along really well and he totally gets it.
00:47:07
Speaker
And that's part of somebody doing art for a theme is do they understand it?
00:47:10
Speaker
Do they understand the feel and what we're trying to achieve?
00:47:13
Speaker
And Vince just gets it.
00:47:15
Speaker
And the guy is so talented, he can draw anything.
00:47:17
Speaker
He's just amazing.
00:47:18
Speaker
He's fast.
00:47:20
Speaker
He's great.
00:47:22
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.
00:47:28
Speaker
It's his first pinball that he's done the art package for.
00:47:31
Speaker
He has done a little bit of work for Stern in the past.
00:47:33
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.
00:47:39
Speaker
And I think he knocked it out of the park.
00:47:42
Speaker
Oh yeah, this thing looks amazing.
00:47:44
Speaker
I'm loving it.
00:47:46
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.
00:47:56
Speaker
It looks great.
00:47:57
Speaker
It's one of those play fields.
00:47:58
Speaker
You keep looking at it and you'll see different things every time you look at it, which is fun.
00:48:02
Speaker
If you just look at all of the troops at the bottom of the play field, they're all different.
00:48:08
Speaker
And like George would say, Vince probably named them all.
00:48:11
Speaker
They all have a backstory and a bio and a history.
00:48:15
Speaker
There's like 200 of them.
00:48:18
Speaker
So is Stern going to get their own manual now for D&D just for this game?
00:48:26
Speaker
We wish.
00:48:28
Speaker
That was something we would have loved to have.
00:48:31
Speaker
That's the trade-off.
00:48:33
Speaker
Does the LE come with a Stern D20?
00:48:35
Speaker
Because that would be awesome.
00:48:39
Speaker
It would be.
00:48:39
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?
00:48:50
Speaker
Laser lights?
00:48:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:52
Speaker
We're thinking more flames.
00:48:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:56
Speaker
Okay, that would be awesome.
00:48:57
Speaker
You know how people did a whirlwind?
00:49:00
Speaker
They hooked up like a leaf blower.
00:49:01
Speaker
Can you imagine having a fireball blower on top of a game?
00:49:05
Speaker
That would be so great.
00:49:06
Speaker
It would be dangerous.
00:49:08
Speaker
Okay, but in seriousness, I'm assuming you guys have started developing the accessories because at some point the accessories will come out.
00:49:20
Speaker
Are they close?
00:49:21
Speaker
Far?
00:49:22
Speaker
Somewhere in the middle?
00:49:23
Speaker
Pending release tomorrow?
00:49:25
Speaker
What?
00:49:27
Speaker
They are in development.
00:49:30
Speaker
They're moving along.
00:49:31
Speaker
We'd like them as soon as we can after the launch of the game.
00:49:35
Speaker
So we're trying hard to get that as close as we can.
00:49:39
Speaker
It's above my pay grade.
00:49:44
Speaker
We haven't released the Venom Topper yet.
00:49:47
Speaker
You can release them simultaneously.
00:49:49
Speaker
Exactly.
00:49:50
Speaker
Why can't they be the same thing?
00:49:52
Speaker
That would be awesome.
00:49:54
Speaker
I got to say, I do like that you guys went unique with the shield.
00:49:57
Speaker
Because when I think of a pop-up between the flippers, you think of just the round.
00:50:02
Speaker
Like Champions Pub, I know you're aware of that one, Dwight.
00:50:04
Speaker
You may have worked on that one.
00:50:07
Speaker
But this looks like a legit shield.
00:50:09
Speaker
Was that part of the beginning process?
00:50:12
Speaker
We got to incorporate this into the theme?
00:50:15
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:50:17
Speaker
It moved a bit on the play field.
00:50:19
Speaker
I think really early on, it was a huge shield that was way up front, but that was just way too complicated.
00:50:26
Speaker
And I think where it ended up is a perfect place because it has a few other benefits too.
00:50:31
Speaker
Well, the nice thing about it is it's rounded.
00:50:33
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.
00:50:41
Speaker
And so it really sets up shots poorly.
00:50:43
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes those annoy me that they mess me up more than they actually help.
00:50:47
Speaker
Yeah, they're not helping.
00:50:48
Speaker
Yeah, this one definitely helps.
00:50:51
Speaker
Yeah, so with the rounded, it actually moves it over to an actual good shooting position.
00:50:57
Speaker
Yep, exactly.
00:51:02
Speaker
It was part of Brian's original dream, right?
00:51:06
Speaker
He brought tons of ideas to the original, like right in the beginning, and most of them aren't there anymore, but
00:51:12
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.
00:51:22
Speaker
Yeah, Delightless Cube, I think, was there too.
00:51:26
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
00:51:38
Speaker
is how they've illuminated games and used lights to emphasize and to be thematically immersive in the game.
00:51:47
Speaker
So tell me how you used the lights in Dungeons & Dragons.
00:51:53
Speaker
So, I think, is that me?
00:51:55
Speaker
So we have two different color GI.
00:51:58
Speaker
We have white GI and blue GI.
00:52:01
Speaker
And then we have four...
00:52:03
Speaker
orange big domes, big flasher domes, and I use those as GI as well.
00:52:09
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.
00:52:25
Speaker
Plus we do have a lot of RGB lights on this game too, that allows us more flexibility too.
00:52:32
Speaker
So I got to know, you've got the beholder, that giant flying eye Medusa thing.
00:52:37
Speaker
The eye thing, yeah.
00:52:39
Speaker
Is that, is the beholder in the game as well?
00:52:40
Speaker
I mean, he's obviously in the artwork, but have you tied him into the game as well?
00:52:44
Speaker
No, that's Xanathar.
00:52:45
Speaker
That's one of the big bads in the D&D world.
00:52:49
Speaker
So that's one of our three endings.
00:52:51
Speaker
So the game, like you have four different places you can start on your campaign.
00:52:54
Speaker
And as you work through the different modes and you work your way toward the end of the campaign, um,
00:53:00
Speaker
He's, he's, that's Xenathar.
00:53:02
Speaker
He's, he's a known character and, and he's one of the three main endings of the game.
00:53:08
Speaker
So the three main bad guys is a Lich, Xenathar and Balador, which, which is like an evil paladin.
00:53:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:17
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.
00:53:24
Speaker
And they're usually one of the big story elements are tied to one of the scenes.
00:53:29
Speaker
Right.
00:53:29
Speaker
Like everything, everything you could see is points to somewhere in the story, somewhere in the game.
00:53:34
Speaker
Yep.
00:53:35
Speaker
And it was great in this because it was a collaboration between the writer and the artist too.
00:53:40
Speaker
And since one was the father and one was the son, right?
00:53:44
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.
00:53:53
Speaker
So it was really cool collaboration.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:56
Speaker
So are you telling me there's multiple optional endings, kind of a choose your own adventure depending?
Game Development Challenges and Features
00:54:02
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.
00:54:15
Speaker
But you are saying that you are developing a game that has multiple different options for the boss level.
00:54:24
Speaker
There's three nulls.
00:54:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:27
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.
00:54:35
Speaker
And the great thing about that, too, is if you succeed at those endings, you unlock a new class of character.
00:54:42
Speaker
No, even.
00:54:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:54:43
Speaker
You have to succeed.
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:45
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?
00:54:59
Speaker
Or do I go save my friend over there and I have a choice?
00:55:03
Speaker
And then you're prompted, you know, to do this or do that.
00:55:05
Speaker
And you got like three seconds, make a choice.
00:55:07
Speaker
And then that determines your path on which ending you're going to do.
00:55:12
Speaker
Wait, do you get a play?
00:55:13
Speaker
So for those of you who are not familiar, I'm going to briefly explain character generation.
00:55:21
Speaker
So you typically have good, neutral, evil.
00:55:26
Speaker
And then in each of those areas, you have lawful or chaotic.
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah, or neutral.
00:55:32
Speaker
Or neutral, yeah.
00:55:33
Speaker
So it's basically a grid of nine.
00:55:36
Speaker
Does that factor into the storyline at all?
00:55:39
Speaker
It does not, no.
00:55:41
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:55:42
Speaker
Because if you could be an evil wizard, oh, man.
00:55:44
Speaker
We explored that for a while.
00:55:46
Speaker
We did.
00:55:46
Speaker
We didn't know how to make it work in the time we have and the resources we have.
00:55:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's the complexity side, I think, one of the things that kind of whittled down.
00:55:55
Speaker
It would be pretty hard.
00:55:56
Speaker
I totally agree.
00:55:57
Speaker
I was just curious to see if you were able to find a way of implementing that.
00:56:01
Speaker
As it is, this game has turned out to be the most ambitious game I've ever been a part of.
00:56:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:56:08
Speaker
That's more content than any game I've ever done.
00:56:12
Speaker
So I've got to ask, I know code is just a number.
00:56:15
Speaker
Tell me, Dwight, what is already in the game at shipping?
00:56:18
Speaker
I know it's probably like.81 or whatever it is.
00:56:21
Speaker
Shipping, when we ship tomorrow, it's not really tomorrow, but it's going to feel like tomorrow, it'll be.8 code.
00:56:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:56:32
Speaker
And what does point A include?
00:56:33
Speaker
Does that include mini wizard modes?
00:56:35
Speaker
Like, what are we going with?
00:56:37
Speaker
Is there any endpoint currently in the game?
00:56:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:56:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:56:43
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.
00:56:52
Speaker
So as you wander around the map, the map itself has like 12 modes and six wizard modes.
00:57:00
Speaker
Six dungeons, I call them.
00:57:03
Speaker
So you play these quests.
00:57:06
Speaker
There's quest givers in each town, and they're giving you quests and things to do.
00:57:10
Speaker
And then when you complete all of the modes around the town, you can play the dungeon of that town.
00:57:15
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.
00:57:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:26
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.
00:57:35
Speaker
So it sounds like you have a lot to chew on here.
00:57:37
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.
00:57:42
Speaker
There's more content in the game now than some of the games I've completely released.
00:57:49
Speaker
Nice.
00:57:50
Speaker
There's going to be a lot of variety.
00:57:51
Speaker
There's a lot more coming.
00:57:53
Speaker
And realize that, right, we have the save system, pin save system, and you pick up where you left off.
00:57:59
Speaker
So we want the adventure to be longer, to be more interesting.
00:58:03
Speaker
And there's three different endings to that.
00:58:05
Speaker
So you're going to want to play it three times.
00:58:07
Speaker
So this game has so much content to keep you occupied.
00:58:10
Speaker
You're going to want to win it three times.
00:58:12
Speaker
Yeah, win, too.
00:58:13
Speaker
Yeah, you have to win it three times.
00:58:15
Speaker
So in order to lock a character, you have to win that final boss.
00:58:19
Speaker
And you might not be high enough level.
00:58:21
Speaker
You might not, you know, maybe you drain too many times, but... This is hints of what you started exploring with Venom.
00:58:31
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?
00:58:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:42
Speaker
So one... Well, I don't... So one thing I really want to communicate is...
00:58:50
Speaker
Venom has two great ways to play it.
00:58:52
Speaker
It has... I can play saved mode, or I can play not saved.
00:58:57
Speaker
And both are fun, and both have different things to do.
00:59:00
Speaker
You can go after Null, and then you can just keep hammering and hammering and hammering until eventually you beat Null.
00:59:06
Speaker
Or you can play from the beginning every single time and just see how much you can get done.
00:59:10
Speaker
This has that too.
00:59:11
Speaker
This has one-shot mode, we call it.
00:59:14
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.
00:59:26
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.
00:59:32
Speaker
One is you can use your saved characters and play through the game and try to unlock more characters.
00:59:38
Speaker
And another is just play one shot right from the beginning and see how far you can get without a saved character.
00:59:44
Speaker
And I think both are extremely fun.
00:59:48
Speaker
What else did we learn, Brian?
00:59:50
Speaker
I think it's, you touched upon it.
00:59:52
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.
01:00:02
Speaker
And you kind of were locked into that for a while doing that pattern.
01:00:06
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.
01:00:14
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.
01:00:26
Speaker
You start the campaign over.
01:00:29
Speaker
Your character doesn't go away or anything.
01:00:30
Speaker
It stays.
01:00:31
Speaker
You're now like 17th level or 15th level or 12th level or whatever.
01:00:35
Speaker
But win or lose, you're not stuck in that final battle forever.
01:00:42
Speaker
And then your second time through, you can make different choices and decide which way you want to go.
01:00:46
Speaker
Or play with a new character.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah, or play with a new character.
01:00:48
Speaker
Start another campaign with a new character.
01:00:51
Speaker
Well, and you both have kind of alluded to this.
01:00:53
Speaker
This is the, I mean, you've flat out said it.
01:00:56
Speaker
This is the most ambitious game that you guys have done.
01:00:59
Speaker
And I feel like each game has been upping the ante.
01:01:02
Speaker
Every time you guys have started a new game, like with Venom and Mando,
01:01:05
Speaker
And now, you know, D&D, it seems like you're upping the ante more and more.
01:01:10
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.
01:01:19
Speaker
Do you already have plans on how to up the ante for going forward after this?
01:01:25
Speaker
I cannot confirm or deny.
01:01:28
Speaker
I don't know.
01:01:29
Speaker
We...
01:01:33
Speaker
Right now my mind's so full of this game I don't have any thoughts on it.
01:01:36
Speaker
It's hard to think past it.
01:01:37
Speaker
But yeah, somehow we always do.
01:01:39
Speaker
We get into a new theme and we come up with new ideas and we're excited and we want to implement them.
01:01:44
Speaker
And the thing just grows.
01:01:46
Speaker
We can't help it.
01:01:47
Speaker
We're game makers at heart and we want everybody to have that.
01:01:52
Speaker
different, but kind of the same experience and mix it up and give you something new.
01:01:57
Speaker
So yeah, I'm not sure either.
01:01:59
Speaker
I will do that, but somehow we'll find it.
01:02:03
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.
01:02:08
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.
01:02:14
Speaker
Right?
01:02:14
Speaker
So, you know, the player was Mando.
01:02:16
Speaker
Well, you were.
01:02:17
Speaker
You were Pedro Pascal.
01:02:20
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?
01:02:28
Speaker
And where does that go from there?
01:02:29
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:31
Speaker
The theme really helps point us in the right direction.
01:02:34
Speaker
If the next theme doesn't, then we won't go that way.
01:02:39
Speaker
Tell me about the LE.
01:02:41
Speaker
How many numbers?
01:02:42
Speaker
And what are the special things that people get if they up for the LE?
01:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, and what's the 740 number?
01:02:48
Speaker
That's what I want to know.
01:02:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:53
Speaker
In 1974 was when the game came out.
01:02:56
Speaker
I think that's what... So Seth was torn on several different numbers.
01:03:02
Speaker
And 1974, I think, is when the game first was invented.
01:03:05
Speaker
So he picked on, you know, 74, 740...
01:03:08
Speaker
I think that's where that comes from.
01:03:10
Speaker
I think that's where it comes from.
01:03:13
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:14
Speaker
Okay, tell me about the R-Blades.
01:03:16
Speaker
You have custom armor on this.
01:03:18
Speaker
You have...
01:03:20
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.
01:03:31
Speaker
It's got mirror on it, and it has sparkle.
01:03:34
Speaker
It was the first time we've done a sparkle, so the Dungeons and Dragons has a sparkle to it.
01:03:40
Speaker
That's actually really cool to see in person.
01:03:42
Speaker
It really catches your eye.
01:03:45
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.
01:03:51
Speaker
Yeah, that is.
01:03:53
Speaker
Now, usually I think sometimes I actually like the premium or the pro bar.
01:03:59
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.
01:04:11
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.
01:04:20
Speaker
You have to see it in person.
01:04:21
Speaker
And yeah, it looks stunning.
01:04:24
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?
01:04:32
Speaker
I think we covered the big things, right, Dwight?
01:04:34
Speaker
We got Dragon Dungeon.
01:04:36
Speaker
What's been your favorite thing about working on this game?
01:04:40
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.
01:04:52
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.
01:05:00
Speaker
Eventually the gelatinous cube will grab the ball and hold it and freeze it and then kick out another ball.
01:05:05
Speaker
And then you have a chance to try to
01:05:08
Speaker
get another ball locked underneath the cube.
01:05:11
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.
01:05:28
Speaker
It's actually a really fun task to do once it starts up.
01:05:32
Speaker
And then that's where some of the blue lights are used and the lighting dims down.
01:05:36
Speaker
And the graphics are really fun.
01:05:39
Speaker
The sound is really fun.
01:05:43
Speaker
Yeah, this thing looks so epic.
01:05:45
Speaker
And like Scott was saying earlier, gelatinous cube is so iconic.
01:05:49
Speaker
And it's funny.
01:05:51
Speaker
And the bottom line is there are things about pinball that make you want to play again.
01:05:57
Speaker
And a lot of it's humor.
01:05:58
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.
01:06:04
Speaker
And I would say an element of the gelatinous cube because it's so ridiculous.
01:06:09
Speaker
It really, the storyline is so ridiculous, but it's hilarious at the same time.
01:06:14
Speaker
Love that element.
01:06:17
Speaker
I, I am, I'm excited to get to try this game out.
01:06:21
Speaker
It, because of the complexity of it, it is one that,
01:06:26
Speaker
I think it would probably really shine in a home collection because you really do want to explore all the different options.
01:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of depth for a homeowner.
01:06:36
Speaker
And that's what I think Dwight and I in all our games, we really try to provide that for him.
01:06:40
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 have a great time.
01:06:49
Speaker
So I think we're covering both worlds.
01:06:51
Speaker
At least that's what we're aiming for.
01:06:53
Speaker
And that was very important to us.
01:06:55
Speaker
You don't need to know anything about D&D.
01:06:57
Speaker
You could just walk up and you choose a character.
01:06:59
Speaker
And the right-hand side is very clean of when you're choosing a character.
01:07:03
Speaker
It just says, like, Paladin, good against dragons.
01:07:06
Speaker
And you're like, I'll choose that.
01:07:08
Speaker
He's cool-looking, and I want to fight dragons.
01:07:10
Speaker
And I'm going to choose a Paladin.
01:07:12
Speaker
You don't have to know anything about anything else.
01:07:14
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.
01:07:27
Speaker
Right.
01:07:28
Speaker
And then you can even move around.
01:07:32
Speaker
Like you can, your characters come with you.
01:07:34
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.
01:07:45
Speaker
Well, that is in keeping with Dungeons and Dragons.
01:07:48
Speaker
That's what people do.
01:07:48
Speaker
They get together once a week to play.
01:07:50
Speaker
So this plays into it.
01:07:52
Speaker
Now you did have the 20 side to die in the teaser.
01:07:56
Speaker
Does that play into the rule set at all?
01:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, there's dice.
01:08:02
Speaker
So when you're in a battle, so battle is something we didn't really talk about.
01:08:07
Speaker
Like, there's lots of monsters in the game.
01:08:09
Speaker
You're often fighting a monster when you're in a mode.
01:08:12
Speaker
Modes are often about, like, there's a monster that you have to fight.
01:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, there's a monster you have to fight, and then maybe some other goal you have to do.
01:08:21
Speaker
And sometimes there's just a monster, or two or three or four monsters or more.
01:08:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:25
Speaker
So when there's a battle going on, shots are lighting up red.
01:08:31
Speaker
And what was the question?
01:08:38
Speaker
The 20-sided die.
01:08:40
Speaker
How does that play into your coding?
01:08:41
Speaker
So then...
01:08:43
Speaker
It's pinball, so you don't have to roll to hit like you would in D&D.
01:08:47
Speaker
You have to make a shot.
01:08:48
Speaker
If you shoot one of the red shots, you hit automatically that monster that's associated with that shot.
01:08:54
Speaker
But your party shoots automatically.
01:08:57
Speaker
You're automatically spotted like three more shots.
01:09:00
Speaker
So every time you make a shot, you really make four shots against the head guys.
01:09:05
Speaker
And then on the screen, they roll dice.
01:09:07
Speaker
And then if they hit or miss, it shows you right there whether or not they hit or miss.
01:09:11
Speaker
and then it shows you how much damage is done on the monsters.
01:09:13
Speaker
Okay.
01:09:15
Speaker
So is co-op already in the game too?
01:09:18
Speaker
Co-op is in the game.
01:09:20
Speaker
Every co-op game starts from the beginning of the game.
01:09:25
Speaker
But I can bring whatever character I want and whatever level he is.
01:09:31
Speaker
You can bring your saved characters to the co-op game.
01:09:33
Speaker
Yeah, I just know with Ninja Turtles, you added it later.
01:09:36
Speaker
So this is out the door.
01:09:37
Speaker
You're getting co-ops.
01:09:39
Speaker
You can already start your own D&D stuff.
01:09:41
Speaker
When we go in a box, yes.
01:09:43
Speaker
Awesome.
01:09:43
Speaker
It works now, but I have to finish testing some things.
01:09:47
Speaker
Do some tweaks.
01:09:48
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.
01:10:00
Speaker
That is actually huge.
01:10:01
Speaker
And I tell people about that.
01:10:02
Speaker
I say, it's kind of fun.
01:10:04
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.
01:10:13
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.
01:10:21
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.
01:10:32
Speaker
And then three people drain balls.
01:10:34
Speaker
Well, not only that, like the accessing the wizard modes from the main menu and playing those as a mini mode.
01:10:42
Speaker
You did that first with Ghostbusters.
01:10:46
Speaker
Are you a god?
01:10:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:49
Speaker
Somebody asked you.
01:10:51
Speaker
Would somebody ask you if you're a god?
01:10:53
Speaker
You say yes.
01:10:57
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
01:11:04
Speaker
we are at where we are now because of you two driving and trailblazing stuff like this.
01:11:12
Speaker
So, well, thanks.
01:11:12
Speaker
I mean, we're having a blast doing it.
01:11:14
Speaker
So, you know, we want every game to be something new and unique and hopefully we do that.
01:11:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:20
Speaker
And we, we certainly, we've had Dwight on, we know he's a great talker.
01:11:24
Speaker
We, we are so excited that Brian, we're so thankful that you came on too.
01:11:28
Speaker
This is our first interview with you, but,
01:11:30
Speaker
It's always fun to meet the people who create the stuff that you love and consume all the time.
01:11:38
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.
01:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, it was awesome.
01:11:47
Speaker
I had a great time.
01:11:48
Speaker
So anytime you guys want to talk, I'm here.
01:11:51
Speaker
Actually, I have one final question and you can tell me no.
01:11:54
Speaker
I've got to give a little history because I was listening to Eclectic Gamers Pinball Podcast
01:11:59
Speaker
a week or two ago, and they stole a game from Slam Tilt Pinball.
01:12:03
Speaker
I know that Eddie's been on there before, but they have this game called Make It Pro.
01:12:08
Speaker
So they take a Bally Williams game
01:12:11
Speaker
And if it were made at Stern today, what would they take out of it to make it pro?
01:12:15
Speaker
And since I've got a game designer and a game coder that does this for a living, I have to ask.
01:12:20
Speaker
So the game they did on Eclectic Gamers last time was Twilight Zone.
01:12:25
Speaker
So give me just your 30 second.
01:12:28
Speaker
What would you do, Eddie, to turn it into a pro?
01:12:32
Speaker
What would you take out of Twilight Zone to make it pro?
01:12:35
Speaker
Same with you, Dwight.
01:12:37
Speaker
That's hard.
01:12:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's hard.
01:12:39
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.
01:12:47
Speaker
So I think you'd have to diminish everything but the Powerball and the things the Powerball needed.
01:12:53
Speaker
Yeah, that was pretty unique.
Design Evolution and Future Ideas
01:12:55
Speaker
The little guy that pulls it down from the center, I'd probably pull that.
01:12:59
Speaker
I mean, it's a clever device, but it's not for it.
01:13:02
Speaker
So like the clock wouldn't move.
01:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, the clock wouldn't move.
01:13:06
Speaker
Right.
01:13:07
Speaker
So you're talking about the lever.
01:13:10
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.
01:13:17
Speaker
So maybe that whole playfield comes off.
01:13:19
Speaker
It could be, yeah.
01:13:20
Speaker
If we really had to make a pro and we had to make a street piece, yeah.
01:13:24
Speaker
And then the ramps just return the ball to the flipper.
01:13:28
Speaker
I don't know, that upper play field, though, is pretty iconic to that game.
01:13:33
Speaker
That's the thing about a pro versus a premium.
01:13:35
Speaker
You get something more.
01:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, and we have to make those choices all the time, and it's tough on our side, too.
01:13:42
Speaker
Okay, Josh.
01:13:44
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?
01:13:53
Speaker
I'm going to give you a challenge of make it pro, premium, and LE.
01:13:58
Speaker
and I'm going to give you medieval madness.
01:14:01
Speaker
It's been 25 years.
01:14:03
Speaker
What would you do to make it a current release?
01:14:07
Speaker
What are the epic things you would do?
01:14:09
Speaker
What are the things you would do to make it a, a, a pro level game go?
01:14:15
Speaker
Wow.
01:14:15
Speaker
That's a tough one.
01:14:16
Speaker
So I believe them.
01:14:20
Speaker
Go ahead, Dwight.
01:14:21
Speaker
I think the 90s pins, I think we put some more stuff in games now.
01:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, you do.
01:14:26
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:14:28
Speaker
It's a pro game.
01:14:29
Speaker
It's a pro game by default.
01:14:31
Speaker
Well, it's somewhere in between.
01:14:32
Speaker
In order to make a premium, you have to add things to the medieval madness.
01:14:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:36
Speaker
So what was your hand, Brian?
01:14:38
Speaker
Yeah, good God.
01:14:40
Speaker
To make it a premium.
01:14:41
Speaker
That's like 20-some years ago.
01:14:43
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?
01:14:49
Speaker
Either they're not as fun as you think or they're too expensive.
01:14:53
Speaker
Wasn't there a different multiball that you guys were experimenting with?
01:14:56
Speaker
I think that was from Attack from Mars because you originally talked about the
01:15:01
Speaker
the spaceship actually articulating out kind of thing.
01:15:04
Speaker
But I think there's also even like a different multiball from, from medieval madness.
01:15:08
Speaker
I've heard the stories before, but you know, who knows?
01:15:13
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:13
Speaker
I don't know if I remember that.
01:15:14
Speaker
Like we built upon the rules of attack from Mars doing that, right?
01:15:18
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.
01:15:24
Speaker
So, but they're very similar.
01:15:25
Speaker
So I don't know if I would change that much about the rule set other than,
01:15:29
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.
01:15:39
Speaker
Plus you have all those different ways of playing.
01:15:41
Speaker
Like I'd love to make challenge modes in those games, right?
01:15:44
Speaker
And focus on certain elements that you have to do.
01:15:47
Speaker
And those would be a lot fun.
01:15:49
Speaker
We didn't have anything like that back then.
01:15:52
Speaker
But as far as mechs and stuff, Medieval Madness is pretty packed on the playfield as far as square inches of things.
01:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, you've got the catapult, you've got the right ramp, you've got the old castle.
01:16:04
Speaker
You've got the peasant ramp, you've got the castle lock shot, you've got the drawbridge.
01:16:10
Speaker
Maybe the drawbridge doesn't do its thing.
01:16:13
Speaker
Yeah, maybe it only does one function up and down the gate.
01:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, no motor.
01:16:17
Speaker
You'd probably have to take the motor out of it coming down.
01:16:19
Speaker
It would just be the gate that goes up.
01:16:23
Speaker
Maybe the catapult goes away, you know, and something simpler that kicks out.
01:16:28
Speaker
But that's tough.
01:16:29
Speaker
I don't want to think about that.
01:16:30
Speaker
That's horrible.
01:16:31
Speaker
No, no, no.
01:16:34
Speaker
That's why I gave you the option of making it LE.
01:16:36
Speaker
Make it better.
01:16:37
Speaker
Make it more blingified.
01:16:39
Speaker
Right.
01:16:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:43
Speaker
I'm sure we'd come up with a ton of interesting things to add to it.
01:16:46
Speaker
Maybe we'll do a remake one day.
01:16:48
Speaker
Who knows?
01:16:48
Speaker
There you go.
01:16:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:50
Speaker
Well, I do got to ask, did Mievel Madness play into Dungeons & Dragons at all?
01:16:55
Speaker
Was there anything you took from that and put in this?
01:16:59
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.
01:17:08
Speaker
It's not really the same exact world, but it's kind of in that fantasy genre.
01:17:13
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.
01:17:18
Speaker
We've got to put this in D&D.
01:17:19
Speaker
I think Dwight and I, we always start from a scratch.
01:17:22
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:24
Speaker
Brian, we added some speech.
01:17:27
Speaker
There is some speech.
01:17:29
Speaker
We added some speech from lots of different games that people are going to recognize.
01:17:34
Speaker
Perfect.
01:17:35
Speaker
We couldn't resist.
01:17:36
Speaker
Did
Team Acknowledgments and Listener Engagement
01:17:37
Speaker
you get Tina Fey to voice anything for Dungeons & Dragons?
01:17:40
Speaker
We would have loved to have Tina Fey.
01:17:43
Speaker
Because I always say, without pinball, she would have had no career.
01:17:47
Speaker
100%.
01:17:49
Speaker
Her career is her pinball.
01:17:51
Speaker
It is irrefutable that she did that and then her career took off.
01:17:56
Speaker
Straight up, right?
01:17:57
Speaker
I think it's obvious.
01:17:59
Speaker
Use pinball as a stepping stone.
01:18:02
Speaker
She must have been busy, I think.
01:18:03
Speaker
I don't know.
01:18:04
Speaker
It's crazy.
01:18:07
Speaker
Before we wrap it up, though, I got one thing.
01:18:09
Speaker
Okay.
01:18:10
Speaker
Go ahead, Dwight.
01:18:10
Speaker
So I want to shout out to Paul Chemotkin and the entire LCD team.
01:18:16
Speaker
That's something we didn't really talk about.
01:18:19
Speaker
So there's way too many people to name and they're all stellar and they're all stars.
01:18:24
Speaker
I could name off, you know, so...
01:18:26
Speaker
So Paul Chamontkit is the lead, is sort of my counterpart.
01:18:30
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.
01:18:40
Speaker
And eventually this project has soaked up and vacuumed up like the entire LCD art team of Stern Pinball.
01:18:48
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.
01:18:58
Speaker
So, you know, a big shout out to the entire LCD team led by Paul Shemotkit.
01:19:05
Speaker
And, of course, you know, Chuck Ernst is the director of LCD teams.
01:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, great call.
01:19:10
Speaker
They went over and above.
01:19:14
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.
01:19:28
Speaker
We have dozens of places that you can fight monsters, and then we have
01:19:32
Speaker
All of the monsters had a pipeline.
01:19:34
Speaker
There were several artists that worked on every monster, right?
01:19:38
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
01:19:47
Speaker
could use.
01:19:47
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.
01:19:57
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.
01:20:06
Speaker
Anyway, back to art.
01:20:08
Speaker
Then like, um,
01:20:10
Speaker
Then Cory has taken all of the monsters and put them in the game so that you can fight them.
01:20:15
Speaker
And that's been a lot of work.
01:20:17
Speaker
And that's just the monsters.
01:20:18
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.
01:20:28
Speaker
It's just been an amazing amount of LCD art work.
01:20:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:33
Speaker
I think that's a good job.
01:20:35
Speaker
Absolutely right.
01:20:35
Speaker
They did an incredible job, that whole team.
01:20:37
Speaker
And I mean, in the same way, we should shout out to the mechanical guys, Tom Malcolm and John Rothamil.
01:20:44
Speaker
And even I think everybody at some point played some part in the game mechanically at Stern Harrison and Elliot even.
01:20:51
Speaker
They gave their input.
01:20:52
Speaker
They worked on some mechs and we wanted to make sure this game was solid.
01:20:56
Speaker
So the whole team was there to help make sure.
01:20:58
Speaker
And the mechanical shooters were always so excited.
01:21:00
Speaker
Like every time the dragon would do something new or they'd
01:21:02
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.
01:21:10
Speaker
And, you know, then they would go off and they would fix it and they would, you know, it was pretty awesome.
01:21:15
Speaker
Okay, the dragon shooting the ball out of the mouth, that is, that's pretty epic.
01:21:21
Speaker
And the up, down, left, right ability of it to shoot it, that's, visually, that is awesome.
01:21:28
Speaker
You have to play it to really experience it.
01:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
01:21:31
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.
01:21:39
Speaker
And he got to work with Chris Velasco, who's another guy that I've worked with in the past on video games.
01:21:44
Speaker
And he did this epic soundtrack to the game that just fits D&D so perfectly.
01:21:51
Speaker
We are really honored to have him on the project, too.
01:21:54
Speaker
It sounds like it was all hands on deck for this game.
01:21:55
Speaker
It was a team effort.
01:21:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:59
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.
01:22:08
Speaker
Yeah, we're, yeah, we'll do that.
01:22:11
Speaker
And we've been thinking about it and are working on it since then.
01:22:16
Speaker
Awesome.
01:22:18
Speaker
Well, if, if you want someone to get ahold of you, Dwight or Eddie, or you don't at all,
01:22:23
Speaker
You can tell us now, but if you do want them to get ahold of you, how do they get ahold of you?
01:22:27
Speaker
Oh, feel free to write me at Dwight.Solomon at SternPinball.com.
01:22:31
Speaker
Yep.
01:22:32
Speaker
And I'm similar, Brian.Eddie at SternPinball.com.
01:22:35
Speaker
Thanks.
01:22:35
Speaker
Be happy to answer questions.
01:22:37
Speaker
I, I, I'm going to do the, the feature at shout out.
01:22:41
Speaker
So this, this is just a content creator focus.
01:22:44
Speaker
If you guys are into D and D or,
01:22:47
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
01:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, I can't.
01:23:10
Speaker
If you check them out and you find one that's really funny, send it to me because there's a lot.
01:23:15
Speaker
That's my focus of the day.
01:23:17
Speaker
So if you want to get a hold of us, we are LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com.
01:23:22
Speaker
Like Scott was alluding to, you can hit us up on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram.
01:23:27
Speaker
I guess it's X. Sorry.
01:23:29
Speaker
YouTube, all that stuff.
01:23:30
Speaker
Hit us up.
01:23:32
Speaker
All at LoserKidPinball.
01:23:34
Speaker
Also, like I said, we got our Silverball Swag stuff.
01:23:36
Speaker
SilverballSwag.com slash LoserKid.
01:23:38
Speaker
Scott, give us our last words.
01:23:41
Speaker
You know what?
01:23:41
Speaker
Go and play Dungeons & Dragons and definitely level up.
01:23:50
Speaker
you