Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning into the loser kid pinball podcast. I'm excited. It's a Keith Elwin reveal and team. We're excited to have the guys on today. If you want fallout, you've seen this.
Speaker: I know you're excited. Scott, where do they go to get this game? So I ordered mine through flipping out pinball and I got an L E. So if you want one, good luck. Cause I think they're sold out, but you can always try to hunt around for them.
Speaker: You know it. So I'm excited. Our unofficial official third host is on Keith Elwin, and he's brought Rick and Harrison Drake with him. Guys, you guys are amazing when it comes to pinball machines.
Speaker: Here's another one. This one has to be the most ambitious game I think you guys have produced so far. We're excited to have you on. Tell us. I don't know where to start, Scott. You're there. You're there in Chicago with them.
Speaker: I am. I am here in Chicago. So, okay. The first thing is Fallout. So when Fallout's pitched, this is the game that you guys are doing and you guys get on the Fallout team.
Speaker: Like what's your history with Fallout? I had played the mobile game for some time. And then when this license was being pitched about, um this was right when the show was starting, about start.
Speaker: um He actually loaned me his copy of Fallout 4. I haven't gotten it back. oh I logged like 200 hours on that thing. it was i was It was a blast. And I was like, all right, I got to try, you know, New Vegas, 76. I kind of jammed a lifetime of Fallout playing in roughly three, four months.
Speaker: And then when the TV show, you know, kind of took off up to season one, so I was like, yeah, I that definitely want to do this. Yeah. Well, you certainly have the visuals and the the show is. Now, let's talk about this.
Speaker: This is a little bit more of an adult theme. i mean this is This is not Pokemon. no So so here's here's the question. like how ah Now, there's also multiple things. So you have the Amazon, the the series that's going on right now, and you also have the video games.
Speaker: How do you find a way to marry those worlds and to tell a story in the Fallout universe through pinball? it was If you play the games, you realize it's all about survival and the wasteland.
Speaker: That's the commonality of all all the Fallout games, the TV show. regardless of the storyline, there there's there's the bottom line. So that's that's just kind of the path you took.
Speaker: Choose your character, you know each character has certain traits, certain special abilities right off the bat. Then you're just hitting the wasteland. Surviving, collecting stuff, bartering, collecting cops. It's yes everything that encompasses the entire Fallout universe.
Speaker: rather than, all we're going to focus on a story from this game or a story from the show. It's just all-encompassing. Yeah, the thing that's you know unique about Fallout is, like every especially from the gamer's perspective, like I've been playing it for 20-something years at this point, it's like everyone's Fallout experience is kind of their own choosing. right it is It is, to some degree, choose your own adventure. So you know to to start with a plot from the show that was such a faithful recreation of game elements and game story plot points without it being, you feeling like a stereotypical video game show.
Speaker: It was the obvious place to start for story writing and mode development. as sort This is the challenge when you're doing the game because you always have to have modes and mode based games. So what are the different modes in this game?
Speaker: Well, we have the the main quest is basically like a scene from each of the, like a good action scene for from each of the episodes of the show. So we have like the wedding day one where there's like a big, the readers come in and there's a big, big fight. And then there's like the rad scorpion encounter. And then there's the there's there's basically six of these main quests that you'll play through all. And those are make up them the basis of the main quests.
Speaker: And that your timer is basically like a health monitor. Yeah, pretty much everything else, because we have the main quests, which are these show assets. And then and we have all these little other quests available in the game, like exploring vaults, exploring the wasteland. Those are all kind of based on game assets. So that's kind of how we married them.
Speaker: And now you mentioned there's there's three characters ah that you mainly focused on. So now you're not locked out if you choose one of the characters because you said you can you can make up for it in different ways, but it does give you a little bit of a head start if you're if you're choosing to do that. So don't you lead us through the three characters and what what advantages they have?
Speaker: ah So Lucy, we kind of started her as the default character because we figure... You know, if you're a novice player, you want to see, I want to see this vault lower play field. So ah her main trait is she can get into that vault mode easier.
Speaker: She's also good at stealing. um And what other things she That's a U and Wilk thing. Yeah, we should have Wilk's in here. He knows he's very But ah so basically, yeah, if you choose Lucy, you're going to focus on getting into a vault mode sooner.
Speaker: If you choose the ghoul, the ghoul is immune to radiation. In fact, it kills him. So we have these stand-up targets around the play field that are rad roaches. So, I mean, you do want to hit them because they lead to extra ball and the glowing rad roach boss.
Speaker: But they also give you radiation, which kind of lowers your mode time. So if you choose the ghoul, having him during a mode actually is Very helpful because every time you hit me these red roaches, it gives you more time in the motor.
Speaker: And then Maximus is, ah he's really good at the power armor. So we have this feature that you're building up a a fusion core, which is what charges, you know, keeps the power armor running.
Speaker: You can either buy it the store or you can you start with an empty one and the pop bumper targets fill it up. He's really good with that. So you get longer time in in the power armor.
Speaker: as well as you can use it at any time, whereas the other characters, it has to used to build up further and they let it. yeah So Josh, you're kind of in this in this position where I'm with the design team. I've actually played the game. I actually had one-on-one time with the game.
Speaker: So i I'm curious what aspects, as you haven't played the game, but you're trying to figure out if you're going to buy it. So what are the questions that you are wondering about that you didn't see on the ah the quick release thing that we've had?
Speaker: So here's the thing is it's so packed. It's hard to fully understand the ball paths and whatnot because you've got the pit boy on the left side. You've got the upper play field on the right.
Speaker: it just honestly it is almost confusing of how magical the ball is moving around this play field. Um, I just, I guess, how did you approach doing this layout and was it, was it all past first and then you stuck in the mechanics or, or the mechanisms or was it like, no, I'm doing the mechs first and then we're working around that.
Speaker: Oh, you never want to start with all paths and then shoehorn next. Never. Um, yeah, we definitely, uh, so this was the hardest game to design because as I you know found out, it was like, oh, I really want to do a gun game. It was like, well, then that pretty much means the entire, middle of the play field has to be kept clear of ramps and whatnot that could hit the ball. but So that was the first hurdle. So you know I've always wanted a game that launches you know launches a ball to an upper play field with targets you know based on like a shooting gallery. So I designed that. ah We did kind of a really white one. Harrison's like, oh, this fat man won't fit on the right side. we have to move it to the left side.
Speaker: There's a shooter lane over there. i don't know if you guys know this. Yeah. that was I was impressed though, when, when I first walked up to the game and Josh, I will point out for those who are concerned, actually, when you step up to the game, the pathways are a lot easier to visualize than in the trailer video.
Speaker: And when when I first looked at the Fatboy Launcher, I was wondering, i like how is this thing going to go going to get loaded? Because that was that was a big question. I looked at it and then when I loaded it it just kind of moved over and just loaded and then just got back in into position. I was like, oh, that's yeah it's actually a pretty pretty brilliant way of doing it. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that thing was a ton of fun to develop. So there's there's been a ton of ah there's been a ton of cannons in pinball over the years. T2, PCVC. I'm sure there's others, but those those are kind of the big two people point at. and Star Trek? Yeah, TNG.
Speaker: You know, and with Keith wanting to shoot to that upper playfield, you know, he pointed out the restrictions that imposes on a playfield, right? Because all of those, every single one of those cannons has been just parallel to the playfield. Right.
Speaker: Yeah. So there's left, right. So, you know, what that means is if you want to do a cross playfield shot, you need to completely open playfield all the way to the back. Right. um So one of the first things we pointed out is like, you know, we we can put a multi-axis drive on this, right?
Speaker: um So, you know, basically all of the shots, the upper playfield, it's actually launching. It's, you know, it's doing a parabolic shot up there. But then that also affords us the ability to lower back down, shoot main playfield targets.
Speaker: As far as I know, this is the first one that can actually shoot downhill so very slightly on a pinball machine. yeah but Yeah, it can also shoot back up the ramp that feeds Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: If you get a misload, it'll actually shoot back into its own pit boy and then reload it. If we actually wanted to feed the upper upper flipper from the famine, we can do it. It'll just fire back go fire back up the ramp and feed the upper. So it's it's a super, super dynamic mech. don't if we want to do that. Yeah, go ahead. So so they they brought toys. So this is the beautiful part about coming here. So look at this thing. This is the actual entire...
Speaker: Fatman assembly from the game. um It actually gets that's impressive. So the bottom half comes in the top half comes in. But this is our rotation. You can see how much range of motion this thing's got. It can basically go past 90. And if you're wondering the size of it, just think of about two thirds of the Godzilla tower underneath the play field for this thing.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a nice thing's massive. This is a massive. me Yeah. So, you know, It's been a it's been a day of repeating the same story. But um the backstory on this was, you know, we had known we were doing Fallout for a really long time, like almost two years at this point.
Speaker: um And, you know, Keith had the the shooting gallery gun concept, you know, one of the first things like we're going to make the game run this. um And, you know, we had already started about multi axis. We were experimenting with multi shot, like whole bunch of things.
Speaker: Um, and I was at the time D and D was under development and, you know, there's obviously the dragon on that game. Um, and we were, you know, staring at the direct, you know, I was in the Emmy meetings every week, looking at the dragon, this kind of just bit of a struggle, bit of a struggle. Like they couldn't quite get it right. And I was staring at it going, you know that's what we want to do on fallout. Like that's almost the same mech.
Speaker: Um, so I kind of, I jumped over, i assigned myself to that project to help out, ah Got a first pass of that mech together, and they handed back over the D&D team to kind of close it out um to Thomas, who's yeah finished that dragon.
Speaker: um And they kind of built up the software, proved the mechanics for us, and then when it came time for us to roll off Kong onto Fallout, we already had a really solid foundation of a mech um that we could iterate on and refine and then ultimately turn into the fat man that shipped on the final product.
Speaker: Hey, and right now, if you want a Loser Kid hat like the Snapback or what Scott's wearing, grand.blue is Patreon exclusive. We have a form in the description.
Speaker: Go there now. We're going to sign up. You've got a month. So the 28th of September is when we're shutting down the list. Whether you're going to explore, or you want these shipped to you, go to the form, fill it out, grab yourself a Loser Kid hat. Only happens once a year.
Speaker: Okay, but that's not the only crazy man. He actually brought some more. ah Yeah, we got some other some some other things that we can talk about. so can Can we talk about the Pip Boy? Because that thing's insane. like So it's a four-way diverter, but it also has a screen, and you guys worked with like the Wand Company. like Tell me all about this.
Speaker: um That was mostly him. I kind of strong-armed George and Seth a little bit into this one. um But it's like, it's Fallout. It's a Pip-Boy. Like, every single Vault Dweller yeah has has one on their wrist, right? Like, and LCDs have been done on pinball, in my opinion, not well um before. Like, you know, we've we've had everything from just, like, little flip books to iPads, and it's nothing quite as really, like, fun, in my opinion.
Speaker: So we're like, all right, Pip-Boy, obvious thing. We can do instructions. We can do you know statistics, timers, that sort of thing. um Obviously, Fallout's a pretty popular property right now. It's in a lot of merch development. the amazon like Our licensure at Amazon, is that's his job, is find people to make Fallout merch.
Speaker: um And one of the things he commissioned was with a company called the Juan Company. um I highly recommend looking up their stuff. They've done the overlap with Our properties that we typically do and their properties are nearly one-to-one. They actually helped us out with Pokeballs on Pokemon. they like We're having issues getting the right shade of red.
Speaker: um And they, of course, have licensed Pokeballs that you can go buy. we're going to call them up. How did you guys get through? And they're like, oh, you know use this color. Tell them it's this process and you'll be good. Fallout, same story. They they' had actually done, and I have one here. This is the one off my desk.
Speaker: a fully functional prop replica pit boys. So you can like wear these, they're little desk clocks. They have all the knobs work. There's actually a radio in there. I've never gotten the radio. If you like static, yeah you like static it's great.
Speaker: but um Yeah, they make some really high quality replica props. They've actually since then done the the in-game Fallout 3 Pip-Boy that I've actually got on my desk. Nothing's sweet. Yeah. um um like And you feel this thing. It's like it's substantial.
Speaker: They did a really good job. It's it's die-cast. It's properly decoed. And I was like, hey, ah George, this is nearly exactly what we want to do. We should call these guys and figure out what's going on.
Speaker: um So we got Seth, looked him up on LinkedIn, reached out to him, scheduled a meeting, and they were 100% down to clawing with us on getting their product in a pinball machine.
Speaker: um So this this is this actual Stern version. So we can do little side by side here. It is identical. It is off the same tools. It's made on the same production line. um So it was ah it was a full like joint company collaboration. So all the knobs work. Granted, they don't actually do anything in game, but It's cool though. you can yeah I'm just playing with it and twisting the knobs. And yeah, it feels like could rip this out of the game and put it on your wrist. Yeah, it is.
Speaker: I mean, they were super open. They handed us CAD models, technical data sheets, whatever we needed. um So Stern's responsibility on this was we we made our own back casting. So this is obviously not a wrist, but we made our own back housing for it and then designed the internal electronics.
Speaker: um And they did all the front half. So we had a complete and we're the supplier. um So was a complete joint company collaboration to to pull this off. and And this is aluminum. it's I can't remember if it's zinc or aluminum, but it is a die cast front housing. It is metal.
Speaker: um So it's cold, right? Yeah. It's like cold at the time. You can feel the difference when you're holding it because the how it looks great. You can't really tell, ah but you can definitely feel the metal in the front and the the mounting in the back.
Speaker: So this is probably one of the heaviest pinball pieces. I guess eye candy that you can, it's ever been made. It's yeah. It's yeah. It was an absolute, i mean, dream. Like I was kind of like a ah moonshot, like, Hey, let's just call these guys. See, see if they're down. And I i think it turned into a really helpful, you know, business partnership between the two of us. And, you know, I'd go through their catalog cause they got some really, they have like Harry Potter lines. They've got a ton of Pokemon. They've got Star Trek. They've got Dr. Who. Like there's a huge overlap between them.
Speaker: You know, our license isn't there. So yeah. So here's a Loser Kid exclusive we haven't discussed yet. You know, design a game, a certain shot around this. I told Harrison, he's like, oh, I want to do a ah two-way ramp.
Speaker: So it has a both a ramp up, a little loop, and then ramps back down. And I want the Pip-Boy to be somewhere in the middle with a magnet that grabs it. So we can, you know, we can use it to load the Fat Man, or if we even need it to kick out the other way to the upper flipper, we can do that.
Speaker: That was actually probably one of the hardest things to design. that was That was a pain in the ass. That's why that's why not too many people do two-way ramps. It was really chug. What made it really hard, too, was its wire form entrance and then sheet metal exit, which means you have to have that junction between the two.
Speaker: in the middle that has to work in both directions. um So that was that was a huge pain in the butt to figure out And then, of course, you had the ramp under the Pip-Boy that goes over, kind of through the helix, through the back panel. So it was that is easily like the number one most difficult area that we've had to work out. it was Yeah, you thought the back left corner of Kong was a puzzle. that was That was just ramps on top of ramps. This was just like ramps through ramps with mechs. We went through yeah a few iterations.
Speaker: And he was worried that, oh, one way is going super clunky. It's like, no, they ended up. It's in a good spot. It's pretty smooth. It's in a good spot. going to say in the video too, you guys said diverts four ways. Like how, how the craft does that work? Cause right now it only sounds like it diverts two. think it's, well, if, if you use a certain other pinball companies counting methods, I think it's six, but um so it's like left ramp in out the back, doesn't touch the magnet. You can go left ramp in down to the exit.
Speaker: Left ramp end down at the Fat Man. can go at the top ramp down to the normal exit, top ramp to the Pip-Boy, top ramp and then back out to the upper flipper. Yeah, there's some creative accounting in shots. it feels It feels natural, though. When you're playing it, I'm not wondering where the ball's coming. um not like the The ball like goes in what I would consider a predictable pathway to say, hey, I'm shooting this and I'm expecting it to go here. Yeah, yeah it's either going to let it go through, catch it, continue with it on its way, or catch it and divert it.
Speaker: Yeah. The nice thing, too, is there's a screen on it so we can put a big arrow that says, hey, it's going to go that way. Right. Well, I liked what you talked about screens on pinball machines, because I've always felt that when you look at pinball machines, a lot of times there are some games. There's one game where I went and i said they put an iPad mini on there.
Speaker: And I don't understand why, but okay, if we're doing that, or it's a cell phone that you just kind of slap on there and creatively edit it. So it doesn't look like a cell phone. I mean, the the Stern 2017 Star Wars 2, like the only thing that shows up on that is a TIE fighter image. Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like, LCDs are cool, but like, what's the next level? Right. So. So to to a point note, I do want to talk about, this is probably in your area. So why don't we pull out the portal?
Speaker: Okay. The vault door? maltar Yeah. so Sorry. the Yeah. The vault door. So look at this. This is super amazing. This is so when when you hit it in the back, this is in the back box there and it pulls out and then it's a gear. And so it actually rotates as it moves over to open up.
Speaker: And this is that's pretty fancy there. Yeah. it's It's awesome. Like when when he got this actually working, I was like, how does it work? And I tried to like move the thing and it's actually gears on the play field that turn it.
Speaker: He just uses mechanical, mechanical leverage. So it's basically one coil to pop it out and then a motor that drags it over. The coil that pops it out is the bearing the door actually rotates on. yeah So it's all the same part.
Speaker: And it counts as a bash toy too, right? Yeah. ah Pinball feature matrix accounting. Yes, it's a bash toy. There you go.
Speaker: But there's also now you we didn't mention that there are from modes, but there's also five vaults to explore, right? Right now. yeah yeah Right now. So so let's talk about like how is one vault different than another?
Speaker: Well, you want to take this? Yeah, he probably doesn't know. Okay. I'm the mech guy. So basically getting all this stuff working, there's like seven mechs in this game. And so basically all my time in this game is basically programming mechs, getting the test fixtures or or the text the test diagnostics working and and the mechs actually working. And I had to bring on... um Andrew Wilkening and Raymond Davidson are on this project just to do like the rule stuff, the mode stuff and stuff. And and it's kind of a nice because they're like lead caliber guys that can come in and just do do stuff. um And then ah we also have Brett Rubin on the light shows, which who's been on all of our our games in the past. But yeah, he's an artist.
Speaker: yeah he's ah He's a light show wizard. I'm impressed that. Stern allowed you to put seven individual mechs in a game. just I'm just thinking of a bill of material wise or possible complications.
Speaker: this ah This has to be twice as difficult as any other game. Indeed. Because once you add one more mech, you actually get exponentially more difficult. Yeah. And the problem with this game in in particular is everybody wants the same mech at the same time. So you get a certain mode to a certain place and then this one wants it. So you have to have like arbitration like, oh, this one has priority over that one. And it just becomes a big mess unless you have like all those rules in place. Glowing Radroach was the bane of this project's existence. ah Yeah, it didn't play nice with the other Fat Man shots for a long time. that It works now. Yeah. Yeah, this is our vault, whatever vault lower play field.
Speaker: ah This geometry never changed. Oh, gosh, this is heavy. yeah It's using Magnaflip. And the way this differs from previous Magnaflips is it actually acts like One, it acts like ah a regular flipper. So the longer you push the button, the longer the magnet fires.
Speaker: And two, if you press and hold, it'll actually grab the ball at the magnet. So if you need to hit this his target and the ball's like whizzing around, you could just press and hold. It'll go suck up the ball, drop straight down, and can hit it.
Speaker: So we have something called a flippo meter, or he calls it a flippometer. Flippometer or flippometer? I think it says flippometer. There's a series of lines on a decal on this ball guide. And and The way this works is obviously wherever the ball's resting down here, it's going to go the opposite direction once the magnet pulses. So that's actually how you aim.
Speaker: you know If you go straight up, you shoot there. If you need it over here, you fire when the ball's over here. Same over here. And then this loop, you know you you're kind of somewhere you know down here.
Speaker: um Yeah, this geometry never changed. It's something I prototyped a long time ago. and I was like, hey, this is actually pretty cool. Because my Whitewood prototype was actually using just regular flipper code. And i was like, oh, look, I can press and hold it and catch it. So that's something they probably wouldn't have thought of if I wasn't just using the flipper code to test it.
Speaker: And so this is themed as you're doing in the fallout world. All the vaults are a social experiment. So each of these modes is going to have a different social experiment. Okay. Different, slightly different rules. So there's some like a radiation leak in one of the vaults. you have to try to get out by a shooting the loop. The other one is invaded by Raiders. You got to,
Speaker: you know kill all different Raiders, each of the life bars for the Raiders, and get your lunchbox. Whenever you complete Vault experiment, you get a lunchbox, which contains goodies. Vault 108.
Speaker: Vault 108. Vault 108 is in the game. if you If you know, you know, Todd Howard insisted it went in. And I don't think he realized how funny it was going to be until for us. There's like there's an Easter egg in Vault 108 for sure. Yeah. But well yeah, we'll save that.
Speaker: Yeah. If it happens on the stream, it happens on the stream. not So you've mentioned Todd Howard a few times. So talk about his connection to the game. ah Todd's ah the Todd father, if you will. okay He's obviously like, he's the head crew. He's the George of Bethesda, effectively.
Speaker: Guy's a legend of the industry, huge in Elder Scrolls, Starfield, and Fallout, of course. um You know, it's George has told me but a couple times that Bethesda's pitched Stern on doing Fallout for years. And finally, once the TV show happened, I think it clicked for the non-Fallout fans and like how big this property actually is.
Speaker: And, you know, we signed up for that. Anywho, George has some industry friends um over at Microsoft that invited George as a ah keynote speaker to an event in Chicago for the Xbox Game Studios. And, you know, George is speaking about pinball development, kind of the old days of Midway and in the audience and at his dinner table was Todd Howard.
Speaker: um So you got George getting dinner with Todd right as we're kicking off the Fallout project. um And, they you know, they get together and You know, there's a lot of pinball fans over at Bethesda. I think his name's Jaws is like their head technical engineer, huge pinball fan.
Speaker: um So they they get talking and, you know, the Bethesda team's pumped and, you know, next thing we know, we're sitting, you know, me, he's like, 32 year old fallout fan for 20 years is sitting in a zoom meeting with Todd Howard, pitching him a fallout game. It was, it was just kind of a surreal moment, but um you know, they they've been crazy supportive, anything we wanted from the games, they got it. um You know, been doing a lot of our licensing reviews, pitching things like.
Speaker: Yeah. They, did they weren't just hands, hands off. They were actually helpful and, you know, no, yeah, no, you oh you need to do this here. We'll get that for you. So, yeah. Like, the I mean, the three that come to mind, right? Like Todd was super insistent that it was a fat man, not a junk jet.
Speaker: um He actually overruled some Amazon restrictions we had really in the project. They were understandably a bit, no pun intended, gun shy about doing some nuclear themes. then or um And, you know, we tell Todd, hey, you know, they told us no nukes. It's like, what?
Speaker: what are you talking about? Like, of course you need a nuke. It's fallout. Like it's the whole thing the whole point is a new, a nuclear explosion. Yeah. So, I mean, there was that one. He was a big, big supporter of vault 108.
Speaker: Um, and then yeah the l LA shooter and I was the other one that was just like one of those, like, Todd's just like, just do vault play. We're like, yeah, I guess we could just do vault play on the vault. yeah we lived We never thought of that. like oh Somehow it never crossed our mind. It was like the dumbest possible thing. it was just,
Speaker: Okay, but he also, didn't he have ah a suggestion about the LE theme, right? With the Valtech Corporation, like, making it look like it was something from them? Yeah, they were yeah there was there was a lot of, the show and the games, obviously, very different art directions. Like, they're both faithful, both from the same universe, but, um and you know, there was there was a little bit of an internal licensor debate, but um you know, we're ultimately we settled on you know, pro premium. That's going to be the show games, right? It's, you know, there's 80 plus million viewers of the show. It's still iconic to fall out. There's still iconic elements, but um you know, Todd put his foot He's like, no, it's, it's a vault tech Ellie. Like if it's not,
Speaker: you guys don't know this property. We, we agreed a hundred percent, um, that, you know, you need to make that one. You need to make that special. Um, no, I got no pun intended, but sound like Travis now,
Speaker: but, um, yeah, no. And, you know, uh, Jeremy, uh, Mr. Yeti, um, and actually his daughter, Haley Packer is now working here. And, um, she was a, she was a big, uh, or kind of the main artist working on that Ellie package, compositing that together. And, um,
Speaker: making it what it is. Yeah, obviously, there's very, very contrasting art styles between the two. Yeah. If we figure Jeremy and Haley perfect for the Vaultic, which is like vibrant, you know, yeah, you know, blues, yellows, propaganda stuff. And then for the dirty nitty gritty stuff, we use the guy named Sam Gilby.
Speaker: no He was great to work with. You know, he's very fast. We're like, He would say, hey, yeah can you show me this scene? So we'd show him that scene, and he'd have something sketched up like an hour later. was crazy. The seven-hour time difference, because he's based in London. so we kind of got into a cycle at one point where we're like we'd send notes in the morning, keep work on in the afternoon. We'd send notes again later in the day, and then we'd have an update before we walked in the door the next morning.
Speaker: oh So we could we could get like multiple revisions a day of tweaks oh just because of the time zone difference. Now, there's, so there are 770 of the LEs, right?
Speaker: Yes. Okay, so so talk about that. what Why 770? Do you have a guess? Well, I know the answer, so. Okay. George and george Gomez ah said the answer, so I. This was actually Harrison's suggestion. seth Seth said one number. Harrison's like, no, it's got to be this number.
Speaker: And then when he explained it, Seth's like. oh yeah Yeah, it's it's always kind of a fun, like, we've obviously been doing this for a couple years now. D&D was like 740 or something like that. Kong was 932. So it's like, we always try to find a fun number, make it so it's not just blanket 750. But um at one point, it was going to be 760 because of Fallout 76. But after all we had gone through with Bethesda about, like, don't make it specific to a game, make it a universe thing. I was like,
Speaker: The bombs dropped in 2077. So that became the number. So it's it's like a it's like a negative 50th anniversary edition. Oh, there you go. So we have something to look forward to. Yeah, yeah to count it's a countdown to...
Speaker: 50 years from now. so but But it's also, no, this isn't, this is almost like a a divergent universe though. It's like, it's kind of like has very similar things up into about early 20th century. And then it kind of takes a different path in this, in the storyline. Right?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. There's a, I don't know if there's a hard date. It's somewhere in the that there's a divergence. So like World War Two has happened, but it's obviously some music has happened in world. But beyond that, you know, the the world start start dividing.
Speaker: The transistors never invented everything's vacuum tubes, steam. Yeah, kind of aular kind of a steampunk man vibe. Yeah. Yeah. That's what that's one of the things i love about the yeah the whole universe.
Speaker: This game is super packed. I know a lot of people are going to want this for their home because it's just insane, but it is a very mature theme and you can tell from the trailers and stuff like that. Will there be some kind of, I don't want to say family friendly, like a PG 13 mode. Cause I think that's about as where you can get it.
Speaker: Yeah. that we We do. It's quite funny. yeah If have to do it, that's like, if you're gonna do something, make it funny. And i was like, all right, well, You're going to leave that for an Easter egg for people to figure out. Oh, they'll see it when it comes out. The challenge was make it something that someone would would want to turn on voluntarily yeah because it's that good. Just to see it.
Speaker: Yeah. Phil Gullett, one of our 2D animators, he was basically handling all of our custom ball boy drawings for the game. And, you know, we tasked him with that. And I think he, yeah, we got, we got the first version. I just absolutely nailed it.
Speaker: He went nuts. It's like, I'll ask for an animation. Hey, we need a match animation. He comes back with like eight different ones. and we're like Oh my God. Yeah. it It reminds me a little bit of what the kid rock song where he says, my only words of wisdom. And it just says radio edit. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. It's a, I laugh every time. I mean, that Phil story was, it wasn't unique here. There was, there was some, there was serious levels of enthusiasm in this office making this game. I'm just like,
Speaker: Everyone that knew it was coming was like either waiting for their turn to get assigned to work on it or like desperately trying to shoot it again. Yeah, to shoot some work in. It was crazy. I i haven't seen it since Godzilla. It was, i mean, truthfully, like the entire office was pumped about this. And David Liskovich, our main 3D animator for this project, is a huge Fallout guy. So he approached me.
Speaker: um sometimes Sometime during Kong, it's like, oh, I heard you're doing Fallout. That'd be cool if i got to work on it. so ah I was like, oh, you you're a fan? And he's like, oh yeah, you know I love the games and this. So I went and talked to his boss and said, hey, I want this to be our lead.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, take them. and So yeah, David was like, he was so pumped to be on this project. He was just in my office every couple of hours. Hey, what what do you think about this and this? And I got these you know these assets from Bethesda, I can do this. And I was like, yeah, man, yeah go nuts. You know the problem, I don't have to explain it to you. It's great. Yeah, with Bethesda being so open, it was, I mean, basically the the email literally said carte blanche. Right. like yeah was It was literally the email. We actually took their their propaganda film from Fallout 4, which explains all the specials. You'll see it in the game, all the black and white videos. Yeah.
Speaker: It was like, oh, can we have this too? Great. So we chop those up and put and put those in the game too. yeah This seems like an interesting thing because what we hear outside the industry a lot is that there's a lot of challenges with licensing. And and I get it from a ah From a standpoint of the licensor, they want to make sure something is true to how their vision is, and they want to make sure that it's it's done correctly.
Speaker: And then there are other things where, at least I've heard the story, Metallica said, hey, make an awesome game and then just let you guys run with it. exactly um But this almost seems like a collaborative thing where it's not like they were limiting you. it was almost like they were on the team saying, hey, you guys should do this. You guys should consider this. Yeah, no Todd Howard literally in our kind of some of our meetings. yeah Yeah. Not only hearing what we were saying, but he's like, that's cool. but How about this, too? it was i mean, this game is really unique in that it was a game studio licensing from a game studio. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Right. Like they absolutely got it. It's like, what's the best thing for the product? OK, well, no restrictions. Go make it happen. And that was just kind of the theme through everything. And the the kilter folks on the show team to have been just incredible with open sourcing stuff like the we can talk about the deathclaw bit. but Yeah, I was calling it the Balrog, but it's not. the ball Yeah, it looks it looks like a Balrog. By the way, when I buy my Lord of the Rings, I'm going to put this in. um So we were, you know, there's a little bit of a difference between the the show Deathclaw and the game and the old Fallout Deathclaw.
Speaker: um very It's very minor cosmetics. I don't know if the nerds will notice, but, um you know, Kilter, the show folks were like, hey, can you make that look like our Deathclaw? And like, sure, do you have a model? And the next thing I know, I got an email download for the actual like show hero like CG model.
Speaker: um So it was like a 20 gig ZBrush file that was the like hyper detailed show death clock. Download. Here we go. No problem. oh yeah We got ah the T60 armor as well. that Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So they've been super. Lynette and Noreen are the two producers that were all out you know kilter producers, but also kind of our licensing contacts. And they they hooked us up with whoever had whatever we asked for. We actually just got stuff.
Speaker: You know yesterday from we asked for like the end credits background animations and they gave us like the raw uncompressed 4K models. Just like, hey here we go. No problem. So we like there's stuff that's to coming later that didn't quite make the pack code that'll still get added. so Oh, yeah. Exactly.
Speaker: I have to applaud you guys though. Um, looking at this game and I could be wrong, but it seems like everything that you guys have put into this game, whether it's a mech, whether it's a sculpt, whatever interacts with the ball in one way or another. Was that a conscience effort to say, hey I don't want anything static. I want everything that is in this game to have a purpose.
Speaker: So when you have a mech that doesn't interact with a ball, that just tells me that you designed the layout first. Like I was talking about earlier. Oh, where's this going to go? hu And the back panel, you know?
Speaker: So, yeah, to me, if if I have a mech in a game that costs money, I want it to do something with the ball. Obviously, that's not always the case. You know, sometimes, you know, just for reasons, reliability or whatnot, you can't do that. But and yeah, in this case, i wanted everything to interact with the ball.
Speaker: So this kind of begs the question. And the vault eats the ball. Yes. The vault does eat the ball. Yes. Oh, okay. I actually want talk a little more about that. So it opens up and it shoots in there and it does go in there and disappears. And it's a cool effect.
Speaker: Is it a, is it a physical ball story? it Like what is the, the whole mechanism back there? The purpose? Because and it it does look like it goes in. I actually wish he would have brought that back panel. It's insane.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I have a photo I can send you. It is the back panel assembly for this game is probably 60% the game. it It looks pretty – because it looks like – usually when you see a ball that disappears, it just – it's kind of like a little hole and just kind of disappears. And you're like, oh, okay. just It just went – this – Josh, this thing looks like it's it's going into like a cinematic diorama that you're going back And so one thing you probably – didn't see if the vault door is open and you shoot the left ramp, you can actually see the ball go through the vault. We left. ah Yeah, because there's Yeah, let's listen. there So if you do shoot the ramble of all doors up, can see the ball go past through it. Yeah, but from the front, it drops down to like kind of this big funnel and goes underneath. But all you know, this back panel, so do you guys these photos, but these, oh, this is the like, the actual assembly.
Speaker: Yeah, we're going to clip and paste these in. Oh my gosh, this is insane. This looks like an under play field. Yeah. Like like looking at. It's like an entire play field. Can you text them to me and that way I can put them in? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll send them an email. I figure we can edit it. yeah they'll They'll send a picture of his the ultrasound baby photo too. Congratulations. Thank you.
Speaker: But no, it's. I'll just turn it around. We'll find out. Yeah. But what was Keith saying? he Oh, yeah. So this back panel, not only does have the vault door, it's got the ramp that goes through it.
Speaker: The left ramp actually feeds through their back panel. And then it's got the upper play field all attached. So this back panel, winter and because that's one of the last things they put on an assembly. these Like half the game goes on at the last minute.
Speaker: It's insane. So that this does beg the question. This game is... so complete and it's not like a batman 66 where you're just having like the the one version you you found a way of doing a a pro version you know just it was just targeted for locations i that had to be almost impossible to figure out how you're going to tailor the game because seven max you're not going to get seven max so how did you retool it for a pro uh a pro bill
Speaker: um but I mean, you just take the stuff out and then you're like, what do we replace it with? Yeah. So the mechs are kind of they're in pairs. So you have the vault door, which opens and closes, which then activates the lower playfield. So, you know, obviously one goes, the other has to go.
Speaker: The Fat Man, the primary use of the Fat Man. See, my approach was I don't want to take a mech that's existed for a long time and just recycle. So if I can do it better, I don't want to do it. So I didn't want to just have a gun that went back and forth. I wanted a gun that could pivot up and shoot to it a different playfield.
Speaker: So if I didn't have that upper play field, then i want to I went to. So like both of those max are in pairs. So you can't if you remove two, then you got to remove the other two. So the pro kind of just made it soft. that But it's I will say the pro still seems like you look at the pro and it looks like any other pro that you guys are going to make, which would be like it looks.
Speaker: Yeah, we kept getting burned on the line. Go grab me a card from ah a premium. So I went over there and grabbed it. No, I said a premium. Oh, yeah. We were just like, because they they keep them like masked up in the line too. So they're just white boxes with play fields in them. And we kept confusing them while we were out there trying to like work on stuff. Yeah. it's like Because, you know, at first glance, it just looks like everything's in there. and Yeah, obviously, you're really looking for, oh yeah, no, this is, yeah.
Speaker: In the video, you talked about the inverted upper or flipper hasn't been done for 75 years. Where'd you get that inspiration from and and why this game for that? um So the original layout had the fat man on the right side.
Speaker: And this is my dream was to make a two flipper three play field game. that That was my goal. That's where I started. And then Harrison pointed out something stupid and obvious in my CAD, which was the the fat man was like encroaching with the shooter rod.
Speaker: So I was like, you know, you know, when Homer's swear jar, that was me. So basically kind of had to scrap everything but the upper play field and start over. And when I redesigned it, i yeah I ended up with some space. i was like, well, you know, I'm going to have have flipper here.
Speaker: And so I put it in a normal flipper. with a loop shot. And the problem is with that the Pip-Boy was kind of like it's pretty close there. The ball would just come flying from underneath that Pip-Boy right to your flipper so fast you couldn't react. i was like, oh, this kind of sucks. So I was just kind of, hmm, what if I put it in backwards?
Speaker: The spin will reverse and kind of just naturally slow down. and so I tried it and I had everyone else try it. I'm like, oh my God, that's cool. So the inverted flipper was resurrected.
Speaker: It's a nice little callback to a 50s game anyway, so I kind of ran with it. We spent way too much time trying to figure out the last time it had been used. Oh, yeah. And the best we've got is like a 1951 Genco game, like one of those games they put like yeah four themes on one play field. I think Gottlieb quickly figured out, oh, yeah, these should actually go the other way.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay, but i I will say after playing it, though, this made the upper flipper very repeatable like being it because when you're flipping it josh and think about it when you're flipping up like this it actually creates more spin on the ball which accelerates it i mean think of like the loops in iron maiden i don't know how i'm not good enough to do more than two or three on those things that's just that inertia just it keeps building and it gets out of control yeah but when you're doing it this way you're actually doing a slight reverse spin on the ball as it's going around
Speaker: And so it slows it down where you can get, like I could get three or four pretty repeatable on that loop with that. What what are we calling the mutant flipper? Yeah, mutated flipper. yeah And then you can use it as a diverter to if you have Nuka quantum, we'll get that thing, the left lane, which doubles your XP for 60 seconds.
Speaker: ah You can just hold the flipper up and it will divert down to your lower left flipper. Yeah, that that felt a little bit of a callback from Kong because you had that option you know when you're kind of going down the river. yes yeah Yeah, it's definitely not the first to do it, but I think it's the first to do it in a while. yeah I think one thing you can look at on this play field that is right in front of your face because it's right there in the middle is the Nuka-Cola cap spinner.
Speaker: Why did you decide to make it to where it goes up and down and it's only in-game play every so often? what what was What was the thought process behind that? ah I really just, I was intrigued about a spinner that is like right juicy right in front of the flippers. But if it's just there all the time, you get sick of it.
Speaker: You know, it's kind of a callback to the old like, Williams wildcard, whatever, like any of those games, Surfer that has a spinner like right there in the middle. And you're just like, oh, I'm going to rip this spinner. And it's just, well, then that just becomes the whole game. ah What if it is actually on a coil?
Speaker: And when it comes down, he's like, all right, you got like 10 seconds to get as many spins out of this as you can. And that's the direction we went. And it's like, this has to be a bottle catch. And this has to be, because in the games you're finding cap stashes, which can be you know a few caps or a bunch of caps. So it's kind of a perfect random play mechanic we could use.
Speaker: Oh, you found a cap stash. the spinner. OK, you got 40 spins. You got 40 caps. you know It just kind of worked out perfectly in the the Fallout universe. So yeah, I think this is the first game ever that has two spinners you can't shoot with the flippers at GameStop.
Speaker: Which is amazing. I got to ask, though, so you're talking about caps and about currency. I mean, obviously, it's currency in the video games. um You talked about there's a shop in this game, and you you have the ability to steal from the shop with consequences later.
Speaker: um how does How does that all work? um So it depends on your perception. if you have the perception perk, which Lucy starts with, you can steal any item in the shop.
Speaker: If you do not have that, then you can only steal one item in the shop. So as you're scrolling through the items for sale, there's five. Every time you go to the shop, Mr. Handy's sundries, there's five items. And if you go down to the bottom line, you will see purchase or steal will be highlighted in red. So if you don't have the caps or if you're just bored, you can just click steal, try to steal the item.
Speaker: And it actually gives you a percentage how successful you will be. ah So if you're successful, then you not only get that item, you get a bunch of XP for successfully steal.
Speaker: But if you get caught, Mr. Handy catches you. and He says, hey, come back here. And then it kicks the ball back out of the scoop. And you have 15 seconds to shoot the right ramp to get away. Now, if you get away, um you get the item, but your your reputation is soils and that all the prices get raised ah just on you.
Speaker: ah if you If he catches you, not only do you lose the item you stole, but he steals any caps you have left and what a fusion core you have. So it's definitely a risk-reward part of the game, but it's kind of a fun mechanic.
Speaker: That was actually Harrison's idea. He's like, ah you know what? You should be able to steal out of the sundries. I'm like, oh, yeah. Because that's a big part of the game. There's been stores, but you can never rob them.
Speaker: Yeah. right and So why not? Yeah. In the game, it's like, yeah oh, yeah, I think I'll just steal this. Hope I don't get caught. I will point out, I tried to steal, and I was unsuccessful.
Speaker: Yeah. say If you start with Lucy, I think you have a 30% chance to steal. Yeah. yeah wilk was a Wilk was a big fan of the stealing too. Yeah. Yeah. We have all these call-outs from Mr. Handy. Just kind of, a hey, get back here. You have to pay for that.
Speaker: Now, there's ah everybody's always going to talk about accessories. Now, George, in his presentation, that you guys weren't there. He did talk about that we should be seeing or we should anticipate seeing them sooner than later.
Speaker: ah Yes. I don't know if I can rigidly say announcements, but if we don't have... That was what George said. George said we're we're aggressively trying to get them as close to launch as possible. I'll tell you, the Finnish shooter rod in Arbor is 15 feet behind you. Oh. ah Yeah, yeah. I'll be right back. Yeah. Topper going to be quite cool.
Speaker: It'll be very, very cool. We're finalizing some art, oh which of course affects mechanical parts, that sort of thing. But once that's locked down, I mean, that should be coming very, very shortly.
Speaker: I just want to give a shout out to Kogan Benarian. He's one of our newer mechanical engineers here, and he's kind of just completely revitalized our entire accessories department. So, you know, everything for the last you know year plus has been going through his desk in some way, and he's just been absolutely killing it. Yeah. So, yeah.
Speaker: um One thing your team is known for is releasing games that are actually pretty well developed on, you know, at the start. So tell me about the process because you guys have consistently released games that are above, i would say your cohorts and not just, not just at Stern. I'm just talking about everywhere in pinball.
Speaker: So how do you guys do that to keep You know, the release date product, something that people are like, yeah, I can buy it now because I can see the product now. I don't have to pretend like in a year it's going to be updated.
Speaker: Yeah, i think I think the secret to these, how how we work and how our team works is basically they will have the game mostly finished before I even mechanical mechanically, before I start even coding rules.
Speaker: So basically the rules for this game didn't start until like the first of April or something. Like we had a code update for Kong in March sometime and then I was still 100% on Kong. um still doing like um you know weard wizard modes for that and and other things um so yeah i mean basically it's it's it's just doing like yeah it's stuff from there like the thing i see on other game teams is um and this isn't necessarily their their fault or anything it's just kind of how the project schedules work out but
Speaker: Like if you're trying to do rules, actual rules development and integration and LCD content while you're also still trying to make a play field and that play field is also still trying to hit cost targets. So it's kind of a moving target.
Speaker: Like it's just impossible to hit it. um You know, we've been working together for damn near a decade at this point. And it's kind of waterfall where it's like Keith starts three months before I do and I start six months before Rick.
Speaker: um then we You know, we're kind of in that overlap period right now where we're all on the project, but that that's sort of just kind of cadence of, you know, Keith starts and I start, then Rick starts spreads out the work that you know Keith and I can hand like a 95% accurate to shipping final Whitewood products by the time he ever starts writing code. Yeah. I think the beginning of this game started out like you guys had ah an Iron Maiden hooked up just because it had four flipper drives. Yeah. You were using one for the magnet. And the spike two got it. So it was just running a Maiden and I didn't really have to do anything initially. But then we had to get like the fat man online and the pit boy and stuff online.
Speaker: And much to the chagrin of my producer, i hold off writing rules until the eleventh hour because I got to make sure this thing's shooting great and these mechs are staying and I can visualize in my head, okay, this is going to do this, this is going to that. ah If you try to write your rules too far in advance, assuming some things,
Speaker: But by the time you did they actually get wasted time written, it's like, yeah, this isn't fun because this shot's really hard to hit. So, you know, i <unk> I'll write this bare bones rule set, you know, I'll give it to Rick. Rick will put in this bare bones rule set and we'll we'll just flip the game for weeks. And then it's like, OK, yeah, we got the bare bones going. Now we can start cutting.
Speaker: Rather than trying to write the entire thing at once. and just throw it it all in there. Well, this works, this doesn't. Let's throw this out. Well, you just wasted someone's time, bunch of someone's time. that's one of the i think that's one of the things that helps us you know have so much close to the start button at launch.
Speaker: Obviously, we have like one wizard mode in this game, and we're missing like seven or eight. But yeah it by the time you actually do get to where you' you're the wizard mode that you got to, we will yeah we'll have it It really is peeking under the hood of a car and seeing how it's made, because unfortunately, we as pinball enthusiasts, we see the pretty parts. yeah We see the, you know, the wood that's been painted with all the lights. And until you actually work on a pinball machine and lift up the play field and see how unbelievably complex it is. And then, hey, just no small feat. Hey, let's let's write video game code at the same time with integrating with this mechanical thing.
Speaker: And it's ah it's it's just a pleasure to see how everything comes together. And this is why I don't think pinball will ever die just because it is something so different than anything else we do. It's kinetic art. It's kinetic. That's what I tell people. And and that's that's why I think engineers get get pulled to it because it is something that we are like mechanical engineers like seeing things move. We like seeing things go around. It's like I can go make ah my my job before this was I made I worked at international Navistar. So international. I made that the panels that covered diesel tanks on semis. Yeah.
Speaker: boring as really fun oh it was so for bor riing ri super boring. and I knew Elliot outside and he was like, hey, hiring for an ME. You want to come in? I'm like, yes, please, Don. there Sign me up tomorrow. It's a good thing i i didn't know about this job 30 years ago because otherwise I probably would never gone to med school. It's a good choice.
Speaker: Well, and yeah, and you ran an arcade forever, right? and Operator, yeah. Yeah, so Keith's been an operator for years, so he knows how. And actually, that's super important when you're designing a game because I guarantee you're not going to design a game where you say someone in a bar, in a dim lit bar, has to climb under there and fix it.
Speaker: That has to be so nerve wracking. That's the nice thing is I don't need to do that because our lab tech will follow him around and said It took me 10 minutes to take this ramp off. Why didn't you do this? Why you do that? Dave Cadeau is a name that probably doesn't get credited nearly as much, but um he's kind of our, like the the last bastion of like us shipping really stupid stuff out into the real world. Like if Dave's complaining at your desk, you probably screwed up and yeah he'll let you know. And honestly, that probably, ah you know, it fixes most of the problems before they get multiple. Not only he does does he build the white ones, he takes them apart, so.
Speaker: yeah it took me forever to get this ramp out here why can't you put the access hole over here yeah oh yeah right the golden the golden test you know you got a good game if dave buys one yeah after building all the prototypes if he's got it in his basement it's probably gonna be dead so and if it's really good he buys the le right yeah i know he steals the parts to build his own le is what happened he called us that's my kind of guy yeah Awesome. Well, we appreciate, i know it's a busy day. you got a ton of people there. We really appreciate taking your time out of your schedule to join us here on Loser Kid.
Speaker: um Yeah, thank you. ah I guess I'm not going to really ask how people get ahold of you because I know I've asked that a million times you've all been on. So if they really want to get ahold of you, just, just call Stern, I guess. If you want to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com at loser kid pinball on all the socials. If you want one of the hats, now's the time to get them. You only got like a month or so left so to reserve it.
Speaker: Go next. We'll bring it with you Come to expose. You can play fallout and jam on this amazing game. Thanks again, Scott. Give us our last words from Chicago. Alright, follow up, thumbs up.
