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Ep 59: The King of Flow, Steve Ritchie
61 Plays4 years ago
Steve Ritchie joins us on this episode to talk about his dream theme, Led Zeppelin. Also we talk about the Williams days and some of the awesome people he has met in pinball over the years!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sponsors
00:00:06
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
This is episode number 59.
00:00:10
Speaker
I am Josh Roop.
00:00:12
Speaker
With me, my co-host as always.
00:00:14
Speaker
Scott Larson.
00:00:15
Speaker
And Josh, let's get the friends of the show out of the way first before we get to our featured guest.
00:00:21
Speaker
Want to start off with Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:23
Speaker
If you want to get that new machine in your house, go ahead and check out Zach and Nicole at Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:31
Speaker
My last delivery was Led Zeppelin Premium, and I'm enjoying it a lot.
00:00:34
Speaker
Just upgraded the code.
00:00:36
Speaker
Next, if you're looking for this week in pinball, go ahead and check out Jeff Patterson's site.
00:00:42
Speaker
It gives you a top five rundown of all the things going on in pinball.
00:00:46
Speaker
Also, Pinball Supernova, another resource that you can go to with links of tips of how to tune up your game and also other resources to discuss all things pinball.
Pinball Accessories and Resources
00:00:56
Speaker
If you want to get a different translate for your classic Williams Valley game, go ahead and check out Flyland Designs.
00:01:04
Speaker
I have the Medieval Madness alternative trance light and I just got the blades in.
00:01:09
Speaker
Also, if you want to display those trance lights that are collecting dust in your attic, go ahead and check out Brad at Lit Frames.
00:01:16
Speaker
Perfect way of displaying all those trance lights and it's easy to swap them out.
00:01:20
Speaker
If you just want to get a few of them and keep mixing up the ambiance in your game room, go ahead and check out Brad at Lit Frames.
00:01:28
Speaker
Uh, pin shades.
00:01:29
Speaker
If you want to see those games a little better, especially on location, they are polarized lenses that you can play a little better, especially with those, uh, on location, all those, basically all those, uh, glasses tend to have some glare on them.
00:01:42
Speaker
So it'll take that out.
00:01:44
Speaker
Uh, if you want to learn how to play that game, go ahead and check out Rayday Pinball, uh, currently world number one.
00:01:49
Speaker
And also is a, uh, uh,
00:01:52
Speaker
works at Stern.
00:01:53
Speaker
So he's also designing and helping work on the rules and the coding there.
Interview with Steve Ritchie Begins
00:01:59
Speaker
You can check out the pinball loft, which is my buddy's site.
00:02:02
Speaker
It's his personal blog on that.
00:02:05
Speaker
Also, we have streaming Josh, are you still doing any streaming?
00:02:10
Speaker
I'm getting hopefully a new computer so we can start streaming again.
00:02:13
Speaker
So we'll, we'll see where we're going with that.
00:02:16
Speaker
All right.
00:02:16
Speaker
Sounds good.
00:02:17
Speaker
And Josh now,
00:02:19
Speaker
Who do we have on the podcast today?
00:02:23
Speaker
So this man has been in pinball for many, many years.
00:02:26
Speaker
His designs have helped influence and start new generations of designers.
00:02:32
Speaker
His high speed is regarded as one of the best games that was ever made and inspired a lot of people to get into designing their own pinball machines.
00:02:40
Speaker
Also, he was the voice of Shao Kahn in the Mortal Kombat series.
00:02:44
Speaker
With us today is the king, Steve Ritchie.
00:02:46
Speaker
How are you doing, Steve?
00:02:48
Speaker
I'm doing great.
00:02:49
Speaker
How are you guys doing?
00:02:50
Speaker
Well, we're doing great.
00:02:51
Speaker
It's a beautiful springtime day here in Utah.
00:02:54
Speaker
How is it in Chicago right now?
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's a little overcast.
00:02:58
Speaker
It was raining earlier, but I don't care.
00:03:00
Speaker
We're inside.
00:03:01
Speaker
I'm happy to be here.
00:03:03
Speaker
Well, Steve, we appreciate you taking your time out.
00:03:06
Speaker
I know it can be a little difficult to record for you, so we appreciate being able to set this up.
00:03:13
Speaker
I've told the story many times how I bumped into you.
00:03:16
Speaker
You were staying across the hall at the Rocky Mountain Pinball Show and came out and bumped in and we ended up having a little adventure.
00:03:27
Speaker
That's when you started telling me about the Black Knight topper and how it had an articulating head that moved around and insulted you.
00:03:37
Speaker
And I knew immediately as soon as that topper came out, I was going to get that.
00:03:43
Speaker
Cool.
00:03:44
Speaker
I didn't do all the work on it.
00:03:46
Speaker
I want to make that clear.
00:03:48
Speaker
The idea is mine.
00:03:49
Speaker
I got a document written up.
00:03:51
Speaker
I wanted it to speak.
00:03:52
Speaker
I wanted it up and down.
00:03:53
Speaker
I wanted it to be able to nod its head up and down and shake its head sideways.
00:03:57
Speaker
When you have those two abilities, you can also mix them in together.
00:04:01
Speaker
You have a lot of different positions.
00:04:05
Speaker
The head can be in a lot of different expressions.
00:04:09
Speaker
I have to say thank you to quite a few people.
00:04:15
Speaker
Elliot, Elliot Eisman is a great mechanical engineer.
00:04:18
Speaker
He really did, you know, the work on it to make it work.
00:04:23
Speaker
I didn't really, I dispected, I didn't make it work.
00:04:26
Speaker
But one of my flame, you know, my flame boards was in there, two of them, I'm sorry.
00:04:31
Speaker
And I just, and also Tim, Tim Sexton, who's a great programmer and a good friend.
00:04:38
Speaker
And it's like, we're mutting Jeff.
00:04:39
Speaker
I am 71 years old going deaf.
00:04:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:42
Speaker
He's like 28.
00:04:43
Speaker
And he's like, he's like me.
00:04:45
Speaker
He loves pinball.
00:04:47
Speaker
And the way we work together is like, just so nice.
00:04:51
Speaker
That's what I can say.
00:04:52
Speaker
You know, we didn't really argue or anything.
00:04:54
Speaker
There wasn't many, there just wasn't much, you know, we just, just got along and picked the best thing for the game.
00:05:00
Speaker
And that's always the most important thing.
00:05:02
Speaker
Can't have people's egos getting in the way you got to, you know, you got to spread it out.
00:05:06
Speaker
You got to make, make those things happen.
00:05:08
Speaker
And it's going to take the best of the best from where it comes from.
00:05:11
Speaker
If somebody has a good idea and they want to give it to me,
00:05:14
Speaker
I'll take it.
00:05:14
Speaker
I will say thank you.
00:05:16
Speaker
But I also reserve the right to say, no way, no way, no way.
00:05:21
Speaker
Like that.
00:05:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:22
Speaker
Anyway.
00:05:24
Speaker
Do you know how many games you have designed over your career?
00:05:28
Speaker
No, but there's a lot.
00:05:30
Speaker
It's like not all pinball either.
00:05:32
Speaker
Like I had two slot machine designs, a couple of redemption games, novelty games.
00:05:39
Speaker
Once I was worked on a magnet game, it's,
00:05:42
Speaker
It was weird.
00:05:45
Speaker
I don't know.
00:05:45
Speaker
It's 30 something probably, or maybe, maybe up to 40, somewhere in there.
00:05:49
Speaker
So on the topic of black, black night, sort of rage, what made you want to go back and do another black night game?
Challenges in Pinball Design
00:05:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:58
Speaker
I'm going to say this as delicately as possible.
00:06:01
Speaker
I was looking to run away from the misery of dealing with licensors two in a row that were just very frustrating for me.
00:06:10
Speaker
It,
00:06:12
Speaker
it probably wasn't such a great choice because I probably could have done better with a movie theme or whatever.
00:06:17
Speaker
Young people today don't even know what black night is, but once you play the game, I don't know.
00:06:22
Speaker
I don't think it matters.
00:06:23
Speaker
That's, that's my feeling.
00:06:25
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:26
Speaker
For me to play that game is like, it is the most intense pinball machine ever made.
00:06:31
Speaker
And, and I played them all.
00:06:32
Speaker
It just is.
00:06:33
Speaker
It's like, it's quite, it is what I wanted to, it is exactly what I wanted.
00:06:38
Speaker
And, you know,
00:06:40
Speaker
Tim again.
00:06:41
Speaker
We did two games in a row together.
00:06:43
Speaker
So it's like Tim did a great job on it.
00:06:45
Speaker
And it's just, you know, good fun rules, speech.
00:06:49
Speaker
Nobody would tell us what to do about anything, you know.
00:06:53
Speaker
Run home to mother maggot.
00:06:56
Speaker
I don't know if they'd let me say that, you know.
00:06:58
Speaker
It's like anybody, any licensor, okay.
00:07:01
Speaker
But anyway, we kind of cut loose.
00:07:03
Speaker
There isn't any bad words or anything, but maggot isn't very nice, is it?
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:10
Speaker
It's perfect.
00:07:11
Speaker
The thing I thought that was nice about it is it was the first game that I played that won...
00:07:19
Speaker
it felt accessible to a younger audience because it felt like they were playing a video game.
00:07:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:26
Speaker
And kids are more used to the video game aspect of it.
00:07:30
Speaker
And so I felt that was a very easy way for them to say, oh, I understand.
00:07:35
Speaker
I know what I'm supposed to do.
00:07:36
Speaker
I'm fighting this monster and I need to shoot these shots.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:40
Speaker
And I have to speak to that too.
00:07:42
Speaker
Our artist group is incredible.
00:07:43
Speaker
And that was led by Chuck Ernst, but the artist, his name is...
00:07:49
Speaker
Danai, and he is so talented.
00:07:52
Speaker
He's incredible.
00:07:53
Speaker
He's here today.
00:07:54
Speaker
Very few people are here today.
00:07:55
Speaker
I am at Stern in my office full of garbage.
00:07:58
Speaker
It isn't really.
00:08:00
Speaker
You would think it's full of treasure.
00:08:03
Speaker
Any pinball person would.
00:08:04
Speaker
But if you're a pinball designer, you're surrounded by parts.
00:08:09
Speaker
I mean, you can't see them all.
00:08:11
Speaker
My whole desk is covered with parts and junk.
00:08:15
Speaker
Not really junk.
00:08:16
Speaker
Good stuff.
00:08:16
Speaker
But anyway.
00:08:18
Speaker
We were talking about Black Knight.
00:08:21
Speaker
And it's like somebody said, you know, there's nothing new on the game.
00:08:27
Speaker
And it's just, I don't know how you could say that.
00:08:30
Speaker
I just don't.
00:08:31
Speaker
I think it's a lot of fun.
00:08:32
Speaker
My friend down the street, he has an LE and he has the topper as well.
00:08:39
Speaker
And when you crank up that soundtrack, it rocks the house and it's hard.
00:08:45
Speaker
It's one of the hardest games because you miss a shot and it's coming back at you really fast.
00:08:50
Speaker
I got scores about 550 million.
00:08:52
Speaker
And it's like, you know, I just got that like last week.
00:08:55
Speaker
I have one in my living room.
00:08:57
Speaker
I have a premium with the topper.
00:08:59
Speaker
But it's got some nice special parts on it.
00:09:02
Speaker
um, anyway, yeah, black night was, was a fun game to make.
00:09:08
Speaker
So Steve, you have been doing this for many years.
00:09:12
Speaker
How has your design process changed over the years?
00:09:15
Speaker
And is there anything that kind of remains the same when you get ready to design a new pinball machine?
00:09:20
Speaker
Well, some things have changed.
00:09:21
Speaker
You know, we have cool electronics like the digital spinner and, um, there's like, uh,
00:09:29
Speaker
Any of the newer inventions that we have, many of them I create, some other people create.
00:09:35
Speaker
But really, a ball guide is a ball guide.
00:09:38
Speaker
It's 60,000 stainless, and it has been forever.
00:09:41
Speaker
So it's like not that much has changed.
00:09:46
Speaker
For me, I try to create new shots when I can.
00:09:50
Speaker
But for me, I have another monkey on my back.
00:09:55
Speaker
It's called Make It Smooth.
00:09:57
Speaker
And so I won't pick just any shot.
00:09:59
Speaker
I can't because I don't want to hate a shot.
00:10:02
Speaker
I like a shot that feels satisfying.
00:10:05
Speaker
And so I don't take shots that are compromises.
00:10:10
Speaker
I don't use them.
00:10:12
Speaker
It feels like your games are meant to be played at full speed.
00:10:17
Speaker
I would say that there seems to be very little incentive to, I'm going to slow down and line up a shot.
00:10:24
Speaker
It seems like your design is, I'm intending to shoot the ball when it is going fast.
00:10:34
Speaker
fast and it's coming at me and feeding my flipper.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
It feels to me engineered that you are ready to hit the ball and hit it on the fly and hit it at 10,000 miles an hour.
00:10:46
Speaker
Is that fair to say?
00:10:47
Speaker
Well, it's fair to say, but not everybody reacts that way.
00:10:50
Speaker
A lot of people still like Lyman Sheets was in here.
00:10:54
Speaker
He would stop the ball, line it up.
00:10:56
Speaker
Wait a minute.
00:10:57
Speaker
Somebody's here.
00:10:58
Speaker
I would like to introduce you to someone.
00:11:01
Speaker
This is my friend and you can't,
00:11:04
Speaker
You've got to be in the camera.
00:11:05
Speaker
There you go.
00:11:06
Speaker
This is my friend and the mechanical engineer for almost every game I have made here.
00:11:12
Speaker
John Rothermel is his name.
00:11:14
Speaker
Hi, John.
00:11:15
Speaker
Hi.
00:11:16
Speaker
He's done some really fine work.
00:11:18
Speaker
And it's like I greatly appreciate having him on my team.
00:11:21
Speaker
And that's how it is.
00:11:24
Speaker
All right.
00:11:24
Speaker
Anyway.
00:11:24
Speaker
Nice meeting you.
00:11:27
Speaker
Likewise.
00:11:30
Speaker
John Rothermel, ladies and gentlemen.
00:11:33
Speaker
Hey, John, I love the electric spinner.
00:11:36
Speaker
I didn't do that.
00:11:36
Speaker
Electric magic?
00:11:38
Speaker
Oh, there you go.
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's... One of my engineers did that.
00:11:41
Speaker
Right.
00:11:42
Speaker
We have Elliot Eisman did that.
00:11:43
Speaker
I farmed it out.
00:11:44
Speaker
You know, I don't do everything.
00:11:46
Speaker
Ah.
00:11:47
Speaker
I did.
00:11:48
Speaker
I did the concept, but I didn't do any work on it again.
00:11:51
Speaker
Elliot did it.
00:11:52
Speaker
Elliot made it work.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yep.
00:11:55
Speaker
So I can't take credit for this one.
00:11:57
Speaker
It's funny that he calls that up.
00:11:59
Speaker
Ask him about the flail on Black Knight.
00:12:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:12:03
Speaker
No, that's great.
00:12:05
Speaker
It was a beast.
00:12:06
Speaker
It's like tough as nails.
00:12:08
Speaker
Where did the concept for the flail come from?
00:12:14
Speaker
Me and Kevin O'Connor brought me a drawing here.
00:12:20
Speaker
I'm going to show it to you.
00:12:21
Speaker
I don't know if you can see that.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:25
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:12:25
Speaker
It's a black knight.
00:12:26
Speaker
He's kind of kneeling on a bunch of skulls, and he has a flail in his hand.
00:12:31
Speaker
And I didn't put it together until I'm looking at it.
00:12:34
Speaker
Wyman was in here too.
00:12:36
Speaker
And I said, wow, it would be cool to have a flail on it.
00:12:39
Speaker
But one side, it would be imbalanced.
00:12:41
Speaker
It would be a train wreck on a pinball machine spinning as fast as it does with a big old motor.
00:12:46
Speaker
So I ended up putting two ends on it, two balls.
00:12:49
Speaker
It happened from a bunch of people, actually.
00:12:52
Speaker
But I did, you know, I made a drawing of it and stuck it in the game.
00:12:57
Speaker
And John refined it totally.
00:12:59
Speaker
You know, I do like talking about Black Knight, but I want to talk about the latest game.
00:13:04
Speaker
I want to talk about Led Zeppelin.
00:13:06
Speaker
Sure.
00:13:06
Speaker
So this is your second music game.
00:13:10
Speaker
That's not true.
00:13:11
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:13:12
Speaker
Oh, what was the third?
00:13:14
Speaker
Elvis was first.
00:13:16
Speaker
Oh.
00:13:17
Speaker
And then ACDC.
00:13:19
Speaker
And then Led Zeppelin.
Designing for Music Artists
00:13:21
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:13:23
Speaker
I have yet to see an Elvis in person, so it did not bubble to the top.
00:13:26
Speaker
But I have played ACDC a lot, and I do own a Led Zeppelin.
00:13:31
Speaker
Okay, that's cool.
00:13:32
Speaker
I'm glad you do.
00:13:33
Speaker
I mean, I'm really happy that you like it, of course.
00:13:38
Speaker
I'm staring at the play field right now because it's out of my cabinet.
00:13:42
Speaker
My cabinet's got my latest game in it.
00:13:44
Speaker
I mean, we just went bang, bang, bang.
00:13:46
Speaker
My new game is almost ready to play.
00:13:48
Speaker
Oh, there you go.
00:13:49
Speaker
I mean, it's got a long way to go with development, software, all this other stuff, but it's kind of ready to shoot.
00:13:56
Speaker
Nice.
00:13:57
Speaker
With ACDC versus Led Zeppelin versus Elvis, they are very different artists.
00:14:05
Speaker
So how do you approach that and design a pinball machine around a music pin that have different styles?
00:14:13
Speaker
I get assigned an artist.
00:14:15
Speaker
Sometimes I can ask and they'll give me the artist.
00:14:19
Speaker
Sometimes I just get who I get.
00:14:21
Speaker
And it's like, it's okay because I like working with all of them.
00:14:25
Speaker
And, um, Stefan Jensen is like, uh, he's the guy that did all the art.
00:14:32
Speaker
Uh, he's super talented.
00:14:34
Speaker
He has a, he has his own company called Warren star clothes.
00:14:38
Speaker
Have you heard of that?
00:14:39
Speaker
Warren star W.O.
00:14:42
Speaker
check it out.
00:14:42
Speaker
No, it's Warren.
00:14:44
Speaker
And, uh, anyway, he's really talented.
00:14:51
Speaker
He's a guy that came up with the, all, all the artwork.
00:14:54
Speaker
Um, you know, we had to deal with the licensor.
00:14:57
Speaker
They weren't, they, they weren't too bad.
00:15:00
Speaker
Not anywhere near as bad as others.
00:15:04
Speaker
Um, Robert plant did say this though.
00:15:08
Speaker
He said,
00:15:10
Speaker
Why does a game need to speak?
00:15:15
Speaker
I don't know what anybody answered.
00:15:17
Speaker
He didn't say it to me.
00:15:19
Speaker
He said it to our licensing guys.
00:15:20
Speaker
So it's like, I don't know.
00:15:22
Speaker
Games have to speak because they do.
00:15:24
Speaker
They got to tell people what to do.
00:15:25
Speaker
It's like, it's such a good communication tool.
00:15:29
Speaker
It made a huge difference when we had, you know, between having a game that could not speak, couldn't say anything.
00:15:36
Speaker
And, you know, and then we do what, Gorgar and Firepower is the second game that spoke.
00:15:41
Speaker
So it's like, it made some huge difference.
00:15:44
Speaker
You know what to do.
00:15:45
Speaker
It just, it gets you involved.
00:15:47
Speaker
It's more immersive.
00:15:49
Speaker
I was going to say, I know you're a rock star in your own right.
00:15:52
Speaker
You play guitar and whatnot.
00:15:53
Speaker
You were in a band.
00:15:55
Speaker
Is Led Zeppelin one of the bands that you loved growing up?
00:15:57
Speaker
Is this like kind of your dream theme?
00:15:59
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:16:00
Speaker
We played, we played a lot of their tunes.
00:16:03
Speaker
And, um,
00:16:05
Speaker
I ripped off Jimmy for his lick so much.
00:16:08
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:16:09
Speaker
But he taught me a lot.
00:16:10
Speaker
I'd sit down with a record and just, you know, beat on it.
00:16:12
Speaker
I even had the same guitar.
00:16:13
Speaker
I had a Les Paul custom.
00:16:15
Speaker
I still have it.
00:16:16
Speaker
In fact, all the songs that I've written for pinball, I've written on that guitar.
00:16:19
Speaker
And I've written a lot of songs like for, I don't know, high speed.
00:16:25
Speaker
But I mean, the sound system there could not play it right.
00:16:29
Speaker
High speed is, yeah, it's a drag.
00:16:32
Speaker
I almost hate it.
00:16:33
Speaker
Anyway, yeah.
00:16:34
Speaker
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
00:16:36
Speaker
I hate how it sounds.
00:16:38
Speaker
Black Knight, 2000.
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah, it rocked.
00:16:42
Speaker
That had a lot of good musicians on it.
00:16:45
Speaker
Brian Schmidt.
00:16:49
Speaker
Dan Forden, great musician and a great, just a great coach for speech and talking.
00:16:54
Speaker
Anyway.
00:16:55
Speaker
Where were we?
00:16:56
Speaker
We were talking about We were talking about art, but I also do want to talk about the different approach to the playfield layout that you have with different games.
00:17:07
Speaker
You have Elvis, ACDC, Led Zeppelin.
00:17:11
Speaker
Is there something about the band that makes you design a layout a certain way?
00:17:17
Speaker
With ACDC, yes.
00:17:20
Speaker
Big representative things like the bell, okay?
00:17:24
Speaker
The train, you know?
00:17:26
Speaker
The cannons, they always have that.
00:17:29
Speaker
You know, a lot of cool stuff.
00:17:33
Speaker
Led Zeppelin's a little sparse on that.
00:17:35
Speaker
It's like, and I would say the document we got listing what we could use and what we couldn't was a little thin.
00:17:47
Speaker
But it was usable, definitely a lot of usable stuff.
00:17:50
Speaker
And we got more with some photographs and stuff.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, each time you have to make a package that utilizes what you can use and some wise choices maybe for what's iconic.
00:18:05
Speaker
I mean, what's up on one album is iconic.
00:18:09
Speaker
I think it had to go on the premium.
00:18:10
Speaker
What's up on three, people like that album also.
00:18:13
Speaker
And it's like, I have that on this game here.
00:18:16
Speaker
It's a mishmash.
00:18:17
Speaker
It's a bunch of stuff.
00:18:18
Speaker
Anyway, yeah, I don't know.
00:18:23
Speaker
That's, I think you catch my drift.
00:18:25
Speaker
If you've got a lot of toys, a lot of things going on, you know, or even song titles sometimes, but it's like, I suppose I could have added like a Viking ship for, what's the name of that tune?
00:18:40
Speaker
I can't think of it.
00:18:41
Speaker
Which one?
00:18:41
Speaker
Immigrant Song?
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, the Immigrant Song.
00:18:43
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:18:44
Speaker
There's an odd name for it.
00:18:45
Speaker
I mean, it's basically a death song.
00:18:47
Speaker
We're coming to get you, you know, it's like watching Vikings, you know.
00:18:51
Speaker
David Miller, Invade England or whatever it's like okay.
00:18:54
Speaker
David Miller, There isn't a lot of other connections there Icarus you know he's a big part of it.
00:19:02
Speaker
David Miller, electric magic electric magic we got that name from a poster that was one of their concerts it was entitled electric magic so that's the band was to kind of i've seen them twice.
00:19:16
Speaker
I mean, the third row back at Berkeley Community Theater in 1969 or 70, I think.
00:19:23
Speaker
And then after I was in the Coast Guard and I took my brother to see them at Kizar Stadium in San Francisco.
00:19:31
Speaker
And they're a great band, maybe the best band ever.
00:19:35
Speaker
Did you ever think of doing any of the voices for Led Zeppelin yourself since you've done a lot of voices for your games?
00:19:41
Speaker
No, it's like people around here,
00:19:45
Speaker
They think I've done too many voices for games.
00:19:49
Speaker
I don't know why they say that, but sometimes I just, you know, I don't know if there was a place for it here.
00:19:56
Speaker
I don't do a good English accent.
00:19:59
Speaker
What's your favorite part of designing?
00:20:02
Speaker
It really is like where I'm at right now.
00:20:05
Speaker
I'm at a place where I can shoot the game and I'm happy with the shots.
00:20:13
Speaker
Perry Kivolowitz, A. i've got a couple of little things I need to fix, but the big stuff is done as nice just nice and so yeah this is, this is one of my favorite parts it's like.
00:20:22
Speaker
Perry Kivolowitz, A. You know, some people don't make a drawing some designers like Dennis Norman you just make a drawing makes a 3D model out of.
00:20:33
Speaker
Perry Kivolowitz, A. form core.
00:20:35
Speaker
Perry Kivolowitz, A. And i'm I always make drawings and when I make my drawing and.
00:20:41
Speaker
you know, see the parts all work together.
00:20:43
Speaker
I know that it's going to be repeatable.
00:20:46
Speaker
I know we're going to make it in production.
00:20:48
Speaker
And also, it's like they don't really use my drawing.
00:20:51
Speaker
I draw it.
00:20:51
Speaker
I draw my game only for John Rothermel.
00:20:54
Speaker
And then he converts it to a SolidWorks game that is in 3D with all the components on it.
00:21:01
Speaker
And it's a little more accurate than AutoCAD is.
00:21:04
Speaker
And it's also, you know, a lot more, you know, you can see things.
00:21:08
Speaker
You can see interferences, heights, all this stuff that I can still draw and see that stuff.
00:21:14
Speaker
But it takes me a lot longer to do side views.
00:21:17
Speaker
I wish I could show you that, but I can't.
00:21:22
Speaker
Anyway, all you have to do is rotate his model.
00:21:25
Speaker
And you can see everything.
00:21:26
Speaker
Mine is I only build it in 2D.
00:21:29
Speaker
That's it.
00:21:31
Speaker
Then I do a side view.
00:21:33
Speaker
And that gives me heights.
00:21:34
Speaker
So between those two things, I manage.
00:21:38
Speaker
Part of the game I like best is right about now.
00:21:40
Speaker
Just having the shots out of the way.
00:21:43
Speaker
Now it's going to be like adding toys and getting it ready with the I don't even have any inserts on this model here.
00:21:52
Speaker
But I have them drawn now on my drawing.
00:21:55
Speaker
So that's when I say inserts, I'm talking about the little windows.
00:22:01
Speaker
Do you know what inserts are?
00:22:02
Speaker
Do you guys speak that language?
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:22:05
Speaker
The little colored jewels on the play field.
00:22:08
Speaker
That's right.
00:22:08
Speaker
That's right.
00:22:11
Speaker
But I have them on my drawing, and I'm working on those.
00:22:13
Speaker
I'm not completely done.
00:22:15
Speaker
I have to finish by Friday or Monday.
00:22:17
Speaker
And then we're going to make white wood of this thing.
00:22:21
Speaker
So what do I hate the worst?
00:22:23
Speaker
Plastics.
00:22:24
Speaker
I hate them.
00:22:26
Speaker
So plastic ramps?
00:22:29
Speaker
Perry Kivolowitz, Norcal PTAC.
00:22:29
Speaker
Just the plastics, not plastic ramps plastic ramps are there nice I don't even design them john does I tell them how high and.
00:22:37
Speaker
Perry Kivolowitz, Norcal PTAC.
00:22:37
Speaker
With the radius is are and all that, and he he develops the ramps metal ramps, I will draw a top view well I drop a top view of every round but.
00:22:49
Speaker
Perry Kivolowitz, Norcal PTAC.
00:22:49
Speaker
The modified a little bit it's okay it's fine.
00:22:51
Speaker
Perry Kivolowitz, Norcal PTAC.
00:22:54
Speaker
plastics are a pain because.
00:22:56
Speaker
you put the game together and the ball hangs up all kinds of places, you know, that's like, you got a post screw and there's a little nut on it.
00:23:04
Speaker
You know, often they're ball hangups.
00:23:05
Speaker
I mean, it's like, I have to work around that, add more plastic, you know, add stuff to prevent ball hangups.
00:23:11
Speaker
And I try to be as diligent as possible.
00:23:16
Speaker
But it's like, yeah, there are pain and there's so many, it's, it's many different layers that, you know, you have posts that go down in the play field and spacing and,
00:23:24
Speaker
Areas where you want artwork, areas where you want to clear, it's just a pain.
00:23:29
Speaker
So I'll be doing plastics.
00:23:30
Speaker
You know, I've got a sheet going out for this game with all the parts that I've drawn so far.
00:23:35
Speaker
But it's like, I'll have to keep going back and back and back until it gets more and more refined.
00:23:41
Speaker
One of the questions I have is the...
00:23:44
Speaker
The people that came from Williams for some odd reason called pop bumpers jets.
00:23:49
Speaker
Do you know why they like I've even heard that people that integrated from Williams into Stern and whatnot call the pop bumpers jets.
00:23:57
Speaker
Do you know why that is?
00:23:59
Speaker
Or is there a specific reason they're called jets to those people?
00:24:04
Speaker
I say the word jets a lot.
00:24:05
Speaker
I was there for 20 years and that's what we call them, jet bumpers.
00:24:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:09
Speaker
Here they call them pop bumpers.
00:24:12
Speaker
I'm getting close to doing it all right after 16 or 17 years here.
00:24:16
Speaker
Once in a while, I'll say pop bumper.
00:24:18
Speaker
But, you know, I'm really all going like when I worked at Atari and it was kind of Bali influence.
00:24:24
Speaker
They call them thumper bumpers.
00:24:28
Speaker
I'm not sure what your whole question was, Josh.
00:24:32
Speaker
I didn't know if you knew where that term derived from or if it was just kind of that's where you worked and that's what they called them.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, each company has a language.
00:24:44
Speaker
I don't know Jersey Jack's language.
00:24:46
Speaker
It's probably more like Williams than here.
00:24:49
Speaker
But it's like, you know, I'm kind of the guy that said green is lock, right?
00:24:55
Speaker
From firepower on, green is lock.
00:24:57
Speaker
I had to teach people this.
00:24:59
Speaker
But, you know, some people have made them purple.
00:25:02
Speaker
You know, Gottlieb was big on that.
00:25:05
Speaker
I don't know.
00:25:05
Speaker
There are languages.
00:25:07
Speaker
Like here,
00:25:08
Speaker
The official name for a ball guide, you know, a flat piece of metal, you know, an inch and 1.1 inches high where the ball falls.
00:25:16
Speaker
You know what I'm talking about.
00:25:17
Speaker
Stainless steel, right?
00:25:18
Speaker
A ball guide.
00:25:19
Speaker
They're called flat rails here.
00:25:22
Speaker
I always call them ball guides and wire forms.
00:25:25
Speaker
Wire forms are the wires that get pounded into the play field, you know, to separate things and like create the inside of lanes, that sort of stuff.
00:25:34
Speaker
Steve, on Led Zeppelin Premium and LE, there are the lights that are in the cabinet on the sides.
00:25:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:44
Speaker
So that's the first time that Stern has put that in.
00:25:50
Speaker
There have been aftermarket things that have done them in previous games.
00:25:55
Speaker
Well, not built into the cabinet wall.
00:25:58
Speaker
Right.
00:25:59
Speaker
I did that first on Star Trek, but very few people remember that.
00:26:02
Speaker
Well, Star Trek had on the LE didn't have the lasers.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, LE did have the lasers.
00:26:10
Speaker
That's a different thing.
00:26:11
Speaker
That's from between the flippers, right?
00:26:13
Speaker
On the lower arch.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:15
Speaker
So I don't understand.
00:26:17
Speaker
But anyway, I called the expression lights.
00:26:19
Speaker
I explained them the first day that I told them I wanted to do Led Zeppelin with those lights in it in time with the music.
00:26:29
Speaker
Tim and Raymond Davidson,
00:26:32
Speaker
You know, step that up big time.
00:26:34
Speaker
And he's done some amazing stuff.
00:26:37
Speaker
I mean, it's not just it has to do with pitch, the beat.
00:26:40
Speaker
He's changing the color.
00:26:41
Speaker
You know that the color changes.
00:26:44
Speaker
You know, they make your score higher if you know what you're doing.
00:26:47
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know that.
00:26:49
Speaker
Now you do.
00:26:50
Speaker
You need to read the new rule sheet because they are amazing.
00:26:55
Speaker
I like how they light up the play field, yet they're not in your face, bright, miserable, and comfortable.
00:27:00
Speaker
They're comfortable to look at.
00:27:02
Speaker
And it just makes the game rock.
00:27:03
Speaker
There's no question.
00:27:06
Speaker
And I have a prototype Whitewood in my house without those lights.
00:27:10
Speaker
Because they didn't have any for me.
00:27:13
Speaker
That ain't going to happen again.
00:27:17
Speaker
Well, I think it's great.
00:27:18
Speaker
I think it's a great idea.
00:27:20
Speaker
Hopefully with future designs to be incorporating similar
Mortal Kombat and Cultural Impact
00:27:24
Speaker
things.
00:27:24
Speaker
Because you're right.
00:27:25
Speaker
It does make the play field so much brighter.
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:28
Speaker
I mean, when it rocks with the music, it's just.
00:27:31
Speaker
And you know the rules, what's going on?
00:27:32
Speaker
That's really thrilling.
00:27:34
Speaker
I don't know.
00:27:34
Speaker
It's just fun.
00:27:36
Speaker
So, Steve, one of the things that I want to ask you is Mortal Kombat is huge right now.
00:27:43
Speaker
A movie just came out.
00:27:44
Speaker
The game's been around for years.
00:27:47
Speaker
How is it being a part of something like that that came from a small company in Chicago that has now kind of helped drive pop culture and maybe redefined gaming stuff?
00:27:59
Speaker
It feels good.
00:27:59
Speaker
You know, it's like, I'm not as big of a part as virtually anybody else that worked on Mortal Kombat.
00:28:05
Speaker
I did the speech.
00:28:07
Speaker
I did name it with Kombat with a K and Mortal.
00:28:09
Speaker
It's like they have Mortal on the board.
00:28:12
Speaker
And I did that.
00:28:13
Speaker
And I did speech for them.
00:28:15
Speaker
The script was probably written by Ed Boone and probably Dan Ford.
00:28:21
Speaker
I don't know.
00:28:23
Speaker
Some things just came out too that I said, you know,
00:28:27
Speaker
That happens every time we do a game.
00:28:29
Speaker
Somebody will blurt something and go, oh, that's good.
00:28:31
Speaker
We can put it in the game.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, the voice of Shao Kahn is different than any other voice.
00:28:38
Speaker
I can still do him.
00:28:41
Speaker
Fatality.
00:28:43
Speaker
Sonya wins.
00:28:45
Speaker
So, yeah, Mortal Kombat is kind of like
00:28:48
Speaker
They're all my friends.
00:28:49
Speaker
Ed Boone is the guy, the mastermind who came up with it.
00:28:52
Speaker
And I don't know, it was a great idea.
00:28:54
Speaker
No doubt.
00:28:54
Speaker
It was just a brutal fighting game.
00:28:56
Speaker
The other didn't even come close.
00:28:58
Speaker
Pretty nasty, but it turns out people like nasty.
00:29:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:04
Speaker
I'm assuming you're comparing it to Street Fighter, which was a different, it was a different vibe and Mortal Kombat came along at the same time.
00:29:11
Speaker
Well, they're still making Mortal Kombat games.
00:29:13
Speaker
They're not making new Street Fighter games.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, I did see the movie.
00:29:17
Speaker
I think I saw it last Friday night.
00:29:19
Speaker
Oh, how was it?
00:29:20
Speaker
On HBO Max.
00:29:24
Speaker
It's better than the other ones.
00:29:25
Speaker
I liked it.
00:29:27
Speaker
I know the characters.
00:29:28
Speaker
It's kind of cool.
00:29:29
Speaker
The story was decent.
00:29:33
Speaker
I watched the whole movie.
00:29:34
Speaker
I didn't fall asleep.
00:29:35
Speaker
It was decent.
00:29:36
Speaker
Was it weird, though, to watch that and be like, hey, I know who that is, you know, character wise and whatnot, just because it's something that you guys worked in in a small office in Chicago.
00:29:49
Speaker
Now it's on the big screen kind of thing.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah, actually, it was a pretty big office.
00:29:53
Speaker
They had a whole big chunk of the lower floor.
00:29:56
Speaker
You know, it was in the back of Williams, but.
00:30:00
Speaker
They had a decent spot, and then they ended up being, you know, in a separate building across the street.
00:30:05
Speaker
I like to see the building, though, now and then.
00:30:07
Speaker
I spent so many hours in there.
00:30:09
Speaker
It was a cool place.
00:30:11
Speaker
It was also the best group of game design people I ever worked with, although Stern is rocking right now, too.
00:30:19
Speaker
Yeah, you guys are definitely kicking out some great titles and some great games right now.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, we have good stuff, and almost everybody is, you know, is working to their, you know,
00:30:30
Speaker
their best ability and there's some mighty talent here, no doubt.
00:30:35
Speaker
Now, speaking of that, you mentioned, uh, you know, Raymond Davidson, Tim Sexton, these, these guys who are the younger, um, the younger, newer pinball players than the people who were around in the nineties.
00:30:49
Speaker
Uh, what do they bring to the table to change the games nowadays versus, uh, how design was in the nineties?
00:30:58
Speaker
Um,
00:31:01
Speaker
Tim and, well, Ray Davidson's coming on.
00:31:05
Speaker
He's been with us for about a year, maybe.
00:31:07
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:31:08
Speaker
But Tim brings a lot to the breadth of the rules.
00:31:16
Speaker
Do you know what I mean?
00:31:17
Speaker
Not just the depth.
00:31:18
Speaker
It's like stuff like, oh, the inserts are changing color.
00:31:22
Speaker
It's red.
00:31:23
Speaker
I did this.
00:31:24
Speaker
Boom.
00:31:25
Speaker
6 million.
00:31:25
Speaker
It's like Tim is very good.
00:31:29
Speaker
at making things happen on the playfield that I'm never going to get to probably.
00:31:34
Speaker
But I like our relationship because I could say, you know what?
00:31:39
Speaker
I have to get an extra ball here.
00:31:41
Speaker
I have to.
00:31:42
Speaker
Otherwise, I'm not going to be able to ever get any further.
00:31:46
Speaker
So I'm better than an average player by far, but I'm not great.
00:31:52
Speaker
And so I kind of fight for the guy on the street.
00:31:58
Speaker
Know what I mean?
00:31:59
Speaker
when I can, if I need to.
00:32:01
Speaker
The high end stuff, that's fine.
00:32:03
Speaker
Tim does things that I don't even know about on the game.
00:32:07
Speaker
Lyman also.
00:32:08
Speaker
I'm never going to get there.
00:32:09
Speaker
I don't know what to do with it when I get there.
00:32:13
Speaker
I know a little more about Led Zeppelin than I did say about the high end of ACDC.
00:32:19
Speaker
And I don't know.
00:32:22
Speaker
That's fine.
00:32:22
Speaker
I love working with them.
00:32:24
Speaker
If they make all the good players happy, I'm happy, definitely.
00:32:28
Speaker
And if we can get average players, just, you know, normal street people having fun.
00:32:32
Speaker
That's what I'm invested in because a game has to be fun.
00:32:37
Speaker
It has to be fun for everyone in some way or other.
00:32:41
Speaker
Out of the games that you've designed over the years, is there a specific one that's just your baby or your favorite one or one that stands out that was just different designing than the rest?
Notable Games and Success Stories
00:32:54
Speaker
I don't know.
00:32:54
Speaker
To me, it's like,
00:32:56
Speaker
At Williams, it was all about how many you can sell.
00:33:00
Speaker
I sold 19,250 flash games, my first game at Williams.
00:33:06
Speaker
That's a big number.
00:33:07
Speaker
It took a year to make them, one year.
00:33:11
Speaker
But after that, our company expanded.
00:33:13
Speaker
We had a lot of capital.
00:33:16
Speaker
And they were coming from runs that were much, much smaller.
00:33:20
Speaker
In fact, they were fading away, kind of.
00:33:22
Speaker
It wasn't a good era, 1977.
00:33:25
Speaker
76, not for them.
00:33:26
Speaker
Also, they had old components.
00:33:31
Speaker
Like a flipper would be three parts.
00:33:33
Speaker
It would have a bracket with a coil on it and then another bracket supporting the rotating part of the belt crank in a spring.
00:33:42
Speaker
And it would have a switch up high in the air.
00:33:46
Speaker
It wasn't like a one-piece flipper where you pick it up and screw it down to the plate field.
00:33:50
Speaker
Everybody else had one-piece flippers and it's like,
00:33:54
Speaker
They were low power, too.
00:33:55
Speaker
They were like 40 volts or something.
00:33:57
Speaker
Everybody else was using 50 volts.
00:33:59
Speaker
And I wanted that badly.
00:34:00
Speaker
And I didn't get it until after Black Knight, the first Black Knight, 1980.
00:34:06
Speaker
Then we started getting, you know, 50 volts, a new system.
00:34:11
Speaker
And then they started, you know, refining all the systems.
00:34:15
Speaker
I hate to be talking about this, but probably nobody else talks about it.
00:34:19
Speaker
You know, Pat Waller could.
00:34:21
Speaker
Some other older guys, they could talk about it.
00:34:24
Speaker
Standout games for me, you know, high speed was a monster.
00:34:28
Speaker
We sold like, I don't know, close to 16,000.
00:34:34
Speaker
One guy called me five years later, I think in 1985.
00:34:39
Speaker
Now, 1990, he called me up and he goes, you know, I have two high speeds out on location and they have made me $50,000.
00:34:49
Speaker
And then he said, each.
00:34:53
Speaker
Wow.
00:34:53
Speaker
Wow.
00:34:54
Speaker
Each game had made them $50,000 in five years.
00:34:57
Speaker
But that's when pinball was rocking.
00:34:58
Speaker
It was everywhere.
00:34:59
Speaker
It was in 7-Elevens.
00:35:01
Speaker
It was in arcades, bus depots, airports.
00:35:04
Speaker
So just everywhere.
00:35:05
Speaker
It's like people were operating pinball machines.
00:35:08
Speaker
But that was phenomenal to me.
00:35:10
Speaker
It's like, wow, just sort of you get $50,000.
00:35:13
Speaker
How many plays is that?
00:35:20
Speaker
Some places I think may have been three balls for 50 cents.
00:35:26
Speaker
That's probably what the price was.
00:35:28
Speaker
Anyway, okay, standout games.
00:35:31
Speaker
I like F14 Tomcat because it's a weird game.
00:35:35
Speaker
It's fun, but it's weird.
00:35:37
Speaker
It's a beast.
00:35:38
Speaker
We created the Gulf War.
00:35:43
Speaker
Basically, that part of it, it played anchors away.
00:35:46
Speaker
It was patriotic, red, white, and blue.
00:35:49
Speaker
You know, if one rotating light on a game is good, then three must be better.
00:35:54
Speaker
And I don't know.
00:35:56
Speaker
I like that game.
00:35:57
Speaker
I, well, love Terminator.
00:35:59
Speaker
Terminator was so cool.
00:36:01
Speaker
We got to go to Lightstorm Studios and sit with Jim Cameron.
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah, we called him Jim.
00:36:08
Speaker
He called me Steve.
00:36:10
Speaker
He wouldn't probably remember me now, but we spent three hours with him talking about what we could do, you know, with Terminator 2 Judgment Day.
00:36:19
Speaker
And on the last day, we got to read the script.
00:36:22
Speaker
And we had to sign non-disclosure agreements.
00:36:24
Speaker
And we just knew it was going to be a rocking movie.
00:36:27
Speaker
And it was.
00:36:28
Speaker
It was huge.
00:36:29
Speaker
Anyway, we were very motivated.
00:36:31
Speaker
We did as many things.
00:36:32
Speaker
You know, he had some game ideas, too.
00:36:36
Speaker
I had mine.
00:36:37
Speaker
And it's like I wanted that cannon in there.
00:36:39
Speaker
I just wanted that because it was like a fun thing, just a really fun thing.
00:36:44
Speaker
I had wanted to make a cannon since I was at Atari.
00:36:48
Speaker
Anyway.
00:36:51
Speaker
other ones.
00:36:53
Speaker
Star Trek The Next Generation was a monster.
00:36:55
Speaker
It's like it's the last five-digit game anywhere in the world.
00:37:01
Speaker
It all died after Popeye came out.
00:37:04
Speaker
We had contracts with the distributors, and it's like when Popeye came out, they were pissed at us.
00:37:12
Speaker
They had to pay, they had to buy so many of them that our whole distributorship structure changed, and
00:37:21
Speaker
I don't know pin ball went downhill from there for a while.
00:37:25
Speaker
So we can blame Popeye for the downfall of that area of pinball.
00:37:29
Speaker
Well, it didn't make very many people happy.
00:37:32
Speaker
That's the bottom line.
00:37:33
Speaker
It just didn't sell well.
00:37:37
Speaker
I don't want to, you know, I'm not going to dump it all on, on Popeye, but it had a lot to do with it.
00:37:43
Speaker
It's just like, let the wind out of the sails.
00:37:46
Speaker
Like, like when you're doing a roller games and it's on TV,
00:37:50
Speaker
And, you know, three months before you're done, it's ripped off the air.
00:37:53
Speaker
It's a piece of garbage.
00:37:55
Speaker
Nobody likes it, but you got to make the game anyway.
00:37:58
Speaker
Hey, my friend still has a roller games.
00:38:01
Speaker
I'm not ashamed of it.
00:38:02
Speaker
It plays good.
00:38:02
Speaker
It's fun.
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's a fun game.
00:38:05
Speaker
Don't flip!
00:38:07
Speaker
Go for the wall!
00:38:09
Speaker
The violators!
00:38:12
Speaker
It was fun.
00:38:13
Speaker
Is there any of those games where you were through the designing process and it got ripped from you and so you had to change the theme itself?
Adapting Game Themes
00:38:22
Speaker
Nah, I mean, in the case of roller games, we just made the game exactly like we were going to.
00:38:28
Speaker
We used the voices and the team names and all that.
00:38:31
Speaker
That didn't change it at all.
00:38:33
Speaker
To change the whole theme of a game, at one time, for a very short period, maybe three weeks, I was going to call Star Trek The Next Generation,
00:38:43
Speaker
Under Siege.
00:38:45
Speaker
Remember that movie?
00:38:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:38:47
Speaker
Battleship movie.
00:38:49
Speaker
Anyway, you know, we were looking at it, but Next Gen is like one of my all-time favorite shows.
00:38:57
Speaker
I have every episode, of course, and it's like, I don't know.
00:39:01
Speaker
Next Gen is a better theme.
00:39:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah, much better, no doubt.
00:39:06
Speaker
Plus that game, there'll never be another one like that where they give you the whole cast.
00:39:10
Speaker
and you can ask them to say anything you want them to say, and they did.
00:39:14
Speaker
Thank you, Mr. Gator.
00:39:16
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:39:17
Speaker
It's just so much cool stuff.
00:39:20
Speaker
We wrote scripts to go back and forth and then get their actual voices.
00:39:25
Speaker
At one point, Patrick Stewart recorded, you know, I screwed up space, the final frontier.
00:39:34
Speaker
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.
00:39:36
Speaker
And I screwed it up.
00:39:37
Speaker
I don't know how I did.
00:39:39
Speaker
And he recorded, oh, a grave error, a grave error.
00:39:46
Speaker
I didn't say it right.
00:39:47
Speaker
So he did it right.
00:39:51
Speaker
He was a character.
00:39:52
Speaker
He was great.
00:39:54
Speaker
And he also, I mean, we changed our script from the words he used because they were absolutely correct.
00:39:59
Speaker
I mean, now that's how we spoke about operations on a ship.
00:40:02
Speaker
And it was like the only one that wasn't helpful was, what's his name, number one.
00:40:10
Speaker
Riker.
00:40:13
Speaker
He didn't want to play the game.
00:40:14
Speaker
He just thought, you know, just kind of, you know, we don't have time for your games, Q. You know, it's like they had no, he didn't really want to do it.
00:40:25
Speaker
One of my favorite game call-outs is your Spider-Man game.
00:40:31
Speaker
And I can't sell the Spider-Man game because the call-outs are so great with J.K.
00:40:39
Speaker
Simons.
00:40:40
Speaker
Yeah, he's great.
00:40:41
Speaker
I coached him.
00:40:42
Speaker
I really did.
00:40:43
Speaker
It shows.
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I didn't, you know, we would say, how about with a little more energy?
00:40:49
Speaker
But it was always him.
00:40:50
Speaker
You know, I mean, he did a great job.
00:40:53
Speaker
What's been your favorite Stern game to work on?
00:40:57
Speaker
My favorite Stern game, Star Trek.
00:40:59
Speaker
Bam!
00:41:00
Speaker
There, I said it.
00:41:02
Speaker
Wow.
00:41:03
Speaker
Well, they were very reasonable.
00:41:06
Speaker
The first Star Trek game started out with us going to Paramount.
00:41:10
Speaker
And there were three ladies running the licensing.
00:41:14
Speaker
And we were talking to them about many things.
00:41:16
Speaker
And we met all these people that worked on the show.
00:41:20
Speaker
And you know their names.
00:41:21
Speaker
They're always in the credits.
00:41:23
Speaker
I can't remember them now.
00:41:26
Speaker
Well, the artist guy, the older guy that's a sculptor for all the faces and everything, Westmore, that's his name, his last name.
00:41:33
Speaker
Now his son does it.
00:41:35
Speaker
Anyway, the lady said, OK, that's all well and good.
00:41:38
Speaker
But we don't want to get you to use.
00:41:42
Speaker
no phasers and no photon torpedoes.
00:41:44
Speaker
Why?
00:41:46
Speaker
I was like, because they thought it was too violent.
00:41:49
Speaker
And I go, I can't make, I can't turn next generation into a namby-pamby game.
00:41:56
Speaker
I can't do that.
00:41:57
Speaker
These are expected.
00:41:59
Speaker
Well, I'm sorry, that's it.
00:42:01
Speaker
And we got up and got on the plane and went back to Chicago.
00:42:05
Speaker
And Roger Sharp did his best to save it.
00:42:08
Speaker
He said,
00:42:09
Speaker
What can we do to salvage this?
00:42:11
Speaker
They said, come back and I'll introduce you to someone.
00:42:15
Speaker
So they did.
00:42:18
Speaker
We walked in and there was this lady there named Susie Dominick.
00:42:23
Speaker
And she got us everything, everything you could imagine.
00:42:28
Speaker
Just amazing.
00:42:29
Speaker
And that's why one reason is because of her.
00:42:32
Speaker
She let us have everything that we wanted.
00:42:34
Speaker
And it was an awesome situation from then on.
00:42:37
Speaker
Maybe one of the best ones.
00:42:38
Speaker
I mean, with James Cameron, we had good exchanges.
00:42:42
Speaker
Like they send us the chip from Terminator 2, the arm for a while, and a glass thing, you know?
00:42:49
Speaker
I mean, skulls, all kinds of stuff.
00:42:52
Speaker
And we got to keep them for a while and then send them back.
00:42:55
Speaker
We also got dailies.
00:42:57
Speaker
Every single day's shot would come in the mail the next morning.
00:43:01
Speaker
Okay, so we knew how the movie was looking.
00:43:03
Speaker
I could, you know, the artwork.
00:43:05
Speaker
You know, we just knew what we had to do.
00:43:07
Speaker
You know, it was just a great licensing opportunity.
00:43:10
Speaker
ACDC was also because they just went, just don't show Bon Scott.
00:43:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:16
Speaker
That's the only rule.
00:43:18
Speaker
You can do anything else you want.
00:43:19
Speaker
Really.
00:43:20
Speaker
And they handed me this hard drive.
00:43:23
Speaker
I still have it.
00:43:24
Speaker
Just full of ACDC through the years, photographs, incredible stuff, logos, all kinds of things.
00:43:33
Speaker
You know, it's just amazing.
00:43:34
Speaker
That was a great opportunity also.
00:43:36
Speaker
I mean, they were just good to us.
00:43:37
Speaker
They trusted us.
00:43:39
Speaker
We made a popular pinball machine.
00:43:42
Speaker
You know, you got to have trust.
00:43:44
Speaker
Some movie guys, they think, well, I make movies, so I must be able to make a pinball machine.
00:43:50
Speaker
No, that's not true.
00:43:53
Speaker
You know, everybody has their specialty.
00:43:54
Speaker
And if you don't realize that or recognize that, I don't tell them how to make movies.
00:43:59
Speaker
But, you know, they always try to tell us how to make a pinball machine, except for the
00:44:04
Speaker
the people that I just explained.
00:44:06
Speaker
Is there any famous people you've rubbed shoulders with that kind of shocked you that was big pinball fans?
00:44:12
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:44:13
Speaker
I'll tell you what, Carl Urban is a big pinball fan.
00:44:16
Speaker
We got his speech for Star Trek, the last one here at Stern, because I coached him also for the speech and he goes, I know who you are, Mr. Ritchie.
00:44:26
Speaker
I have five of your games here.
00:44:27
Speaker
I'm sitting here looking at them.
00:44:29
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:44:30
Speaker
We gave him, you know, an LE Star Trek.
00:44:33
Speaker
And so, you know, my mind was blown.
00:44:37
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, very interesting.
00:44:40
Speaker
Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, he's also a big fan of pinball.
00:44:44
Speaker
He has my games and, you know, he's got George's games.
00:44:48
Speaker
He's got a lot of our games, no doubt.
00:44:50
Speaker
But it's like, you know, when he comes to town, he gets his tickets.
00:44:54
Speaker
One time at a big show in Chicago, he said, I just want to tell you folks, okay, we got some people here from pinball.
00:45:01
Speaker
I love pinball.
00:45:02
Speaker
I own a bunch of pinballs.
00:45:03
Speaker
And I'd like to point out that some people that are here, some of my favorite people in pinball, Steve Ritchie, George Gomez, and Lyman Sheets.
00:45:12
Speaker
You know, it's just amazing, you know, okay.
00:45:15
Speaker
I don't know, 40,000 people there.
00:45:18
Speaker
Is there ever been a time that someone bet you couldn't put something into a pinball machine design-wise?
00:45:24
Speaker
Like they were like, I bet you can't do this and you pulled it off successfully.
00:45:28
Speaker
Yeah, actually that just happened to me, but I can't go into it.
00:45:33
Speaker
Let's see, you said this.
00:45:35
Speaker
Led Zeppelin has been many people's dream title, including Jeff Taylor's.
00:45:40
Speaker
How does it feel that you've got to design such an icon?
00:45:44
Speaker
I begged for it.
00:45:45
Speaker
And I'll tell you what, their management was, they didn't, you don't get anything from them.
00:45:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:51
Speaker
I mean, it's really hard to get a license from Led Zeppelin's management myth gem, but they kept talking about it and talking about it.
00:46:00
Speaker
And finally they gave in.
00:46:01
Speaker
And I'm happy that it worked out that way.
00:46:05
Speaker
I was going to say, do you know how they received it after it was made and whatnot, how their feelings are about the pinball machine?
00:46:12
Speaker
I have no idea whatsoever.
00:46:14
Speaker
None.
00:46:15
Speaker
I'm pretty sure each one of the members of the band got a game.
00:46:18
Speaker
I mean, that's usually do that.
00:46:22
Speaker
I have not heard one word.
00:46:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:25
Speaker
I'll tell you some things.
00:46:26
Speaker
Jimmy Page doesn't even have a computer.
00:46:30
Speaker
He does not use internet.
00:46:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:33
Speaker
I believe that.
00:46:34
Speaker
Everything is snail mail.
00:46:36
Speaker
You know, it's like, you know, it's not kept up with the times at all.
00:46:39
Speaker
So it's like, it's, he was, he was pretty easy.
00:46:44
Speaker
There is a set list.
00:46:47
Speaker
And so the thing I like about Led Zeppelin is it goes from one song to another.
00:46:54
Speaker
It also continually plays the song when your ball drains.
00:46:57
Speaker
And so it doesn't feel abrupt.
00:46:59
Speaker
That's right.
00:47:00
Speaker
We love it too.
00:47:00
Speaker
It's like it was the magic that this music games need to do that exactly like it is.
00:47:07
Speaker
And that's the first one that did that.
00:47:09
Speaker
As far as I know, I have not played a Guns N' Roses, but I don't think it works like ours.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:15
Speaker
I like a couple of things.
00:47:17
Speaker
One, if you change the song accidentally, because usually you're flipping flippers at the end and you go back to it, it picks up exactly where you, where you flipped away from it.
00:47:27
Speaker
I like that.
00:47:28
Speaker
And I like that it goes from one song to another.
00:47:33
Speaker
And so there's basically a set list.
00:47:35
Speaker
So I play the immigrant song that goes into Kashmir.
00:47:39
Speaker
That's my favorite.
00:47:42
Speaker
Who designed the set list?
00:47:46
Speaker
And was it intentional?
00:47:47
Speaker
Because it's interesting because each song goes from like an up-tempo to a slower song to an up-tempo song.
00:47:56
Speaker
I did.
00:47:56
Speaker
And it's not that, I mean, Tim made this stuff happen.
00:48:01
Speaker
I want to make that clear, but I drew all the songs basically in the order that I liked them.
00:48:06
Speaker
I didn't get to pick the last two at the bottom.
00:48:09
Speaker
They were picked by other people and there are other songs I would have taken like Heartbreaker.
00:48:17
Speaker
Such a rocking song.
00:48:19
Speaker
Did you get a lot of people that wondered why Stairway to Heaven was not in the game?
Led Zeppelin Pinball Exclusions
00:48:23
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of people wondered, but it's like it was just... I'm not going to go into it here.
00:48:29
Speaker
I'll just say that the cost was definitely out of our range.
00:48:33
Speaker
That's the first thing.
00:48:34
Speaker
The second thing is, the reason why I didn't care, it's not a good rock and pinball song.
00:48:39
Speaker
It takes forever to get going.
00:48:40
Speaker
The third reason is, it is the most overplayed Led Zeppelin song.
00:48:45
Speaker
I mean, it's just...
00:48:47
Speaker
The song I would have put in, but it's just one of my favorites, is Going to California.
00:48:52
Speaker
But I don't know if that would be a good pinball song either.
00:48:55
Speaker
It's okay.
00:48:57
Speaker
It's got, you know, it's sing song in the beginning.
00:49:01
Speaker
I know the songs.
00:49:02
Speaker
Okay, I'll tell you what.
00:49:03
Speaker
My wife sent me albums in 1969 and 70 when I was in Vietnam.
00:49:08
Speaker
And I had a stereo system for the second six months that I was there.
00:49:12
Speaker
And so I know every single note or every single song they ever wrote or made or whatever, it's like, it is a good song, but it never, you know, it reminds me of the immigrant song, not immigrant, I'm sorry, Ramble On.
00:49:28
Speaker
Ramble On has a nice little melodic tune.
00:49:30
Speaker
In fact, I like that while I'm playing pinball because I know it's going to be screaming pretty soon.
00:49:36
Speaker
It's just, yeah, it has really good breaks.
00:49:40
Speaker
Going to California was sort of
00:49:42
Speaker
kind of one level to my memory.
00:49:44
Speaker
It is.
00:49:45
Speaker
But I like it and I'm, you know, there are ways you can get your, your game to play it.
00:49:51
Speaker
Oh, it's fine.
00:49:52
Speaker
I like your set list the way it is.
00:49:54
Speaker
It looks like a mushroom cloud on the apron though.
00:49:56
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:49:57
Speaker
I know what you mean.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah, it does that, but it's not, it's, it's really about the songs and the order they're in.
00:50:05
Speaker
It's like, I wanted that order.
00:50:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:10
Speaker
Okay, Josh, do you have one last question for him?
00:50:13
Speaker
You know, we've covered this list pretty well.
00:50:18
Speaker
I can't think of anything else.
Passion for Pinball Design
00:50:20
Speaker
I'm just glad you're still doing this, Steve.
00:50:22
Speaker
It's awesome to see your influence upon pinball that's just helped drive the direction of flow and stuff for the past 20, 30, 40 years.
00:50:32
Speaker
I'm still happy to be doing it.
00:50:34
Speaker
I still love doing it.
00:50:35
Speaker
I really do.
00:50:36
Speaker
If I didn't love it, I wouldn't do it.
00:50:38
Speaker
And I just, you know,
00:50:40
Speaker
My kids are grown up and gone.
00:50:41
Speaker
We have this pandemic.
00:50:43
Speaker
It's like, all I do is work on pinball.
00:50:47
Speaker
But it's pretty cool because I get to work on pinball.
00:50:50
Speaker
Well, we are planning on coming up for Expo, so hopefully we'll be able to hang out and get a burger with you.
00:50:56
Speaker
Hey, no problem.
00:50:58
Speaker
It sounds like fun.
00:51:00
Speaker
It was great to be here.
00:51:01
Speaker
I thank you very much for inviting me.
00:51:03
Speaker
Hey, thanks, Steve.
00:51:04
Speaker
We appreciate it.
00:51:05
Speaker
If you'd like to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
00:51:10
Speaker
You can contact us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter at loser kid pinball.
00:51:14
Speaker
If you've enjoyed the show, hit us up.
00:51:17
Speaker
We always appreciate those that have messaged us.
00:51:20
Speaker
We thank the community for listening and having some fun with us today.
00:51:24
Speaker
Also, we want to do a shout out to Martin Robbins.
00:51:26
Speaker
Congratulations, our newest code designer in the industry with Fathom 2.0.
00:51:33
Speaker
I can't wait to see this magic.
00:51:35
Speaker
I'm excited for Haggis.
00:51:37
Speaker
You guys are doing awesome down there.
00:51:39
Speaker
Congratulations and good luck with that production.
00:51:43
Speaker
Thanks again for tuning in and we hope to see you in a couple of weeks.
00:51:49
Speaker
Shut up and sit down.