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Ep 162 Multimorphic's Portal Pinball! With Stephen Silver, Michael Ocean, & Ian Harrower
199 Plays17 days ago
It's finally here! Cary Hardy joins us along with the development team of Portal Pinball to talk about Portal and we have all the detail you want to know in this interview. From Glados, Turrets, and Cores to Light Bridges, Aerial Faith Leap pads, and repulsion gel, we have it all here!
If you want that $1000 discount off of a new P3, contact us at loserkidpinballpodcast@gmail.com
If you would like to check out other Multimorphic products you can visit www.multimorphic.com to explore the world of the P3
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Transcript
Introduction and Team Meet
00:00:08
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into a very special episode of loser kid pinball podcast.
00:00:12
Speaker
We were on episode one 62.
00:00:13
Speaker
I am your captain, Josh Roop with me.
00:00:17
Speaker
My co-captains today, Gary Hardy and Scott Larson and Scott.
00:00:21
Speaker
Tell us about our, our sponsor before we get into this amazing.
00:00:24
Speaker
So the sponsor is flipping out pinball.
00:00:26
Speaker
As always, if you are looking for all those new used mods, upgrades, shaker motors, whatever you need, go ahead and contact Zach and Nicole, many of flipping out pinball.
00:00:36
Speaker
They can definitely hook you up.
00:00:38
Speaker
and get almost all things for you.
00:00:42
Speaker
The only exception is what we're talking about today.
00:00:44
Speaker
So I'm going to throw that back to Josh.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yes, if you want to get in on this game and you want the Loser Kid discount that we've worked out with Jerry right now, email us at loserkidpinballpodcast at gmail.com.
Portal Pinball Creation Story
00:00:56
Speaker
for this amazing portal pinball machine.
00:00:59
Speaker
And with us today, we've got three of the development team with us.
00:01:03
Speaker
I'm gonna let them introduce themselves because they have had a wide array of different roles they've played in this.
00:01:08
Speaker
And I think they say it best.
00:01:09
Speaker
So I'm gonna kick over to Steven first.
00:01:11
Speaker
Why don't you go for it?
00:01:11
Speaker
Hi guys, I'm Steven Silver.
00:01:14
Speaker
I'm the co-creative director on this game.
00:01:16
Speaker
I'm Michael Ocean.
00:01:19
Speaker
I'm also creative director on this game and software.
00:01:23
Speaker
And I'm Ian Hareworth, the third creative director on this game, co-creative director on this game, and I'm focusing on software.
00:01:31
Speaker
And if you guys are tuning in just right now, you saw the release of Portal and you're clamoring for more, right?
00:01:36
Speaker
Like you are just ready to feast on this.
00:01:39
Speaker
And it looks amazing.
00:01:40
Speaker
Guys, you've destroyed everyone else in the competition right now with this game because it is amazing.
00:01:47
Speaker
Not one, but two aerial shots.
00:01:49
Speaker
You've got new mechs on the lower play field.
00:01:52
Speaker
You've got portals launching balls.
00:01:53
Speaker
You've got two companion cubes.
00:01:55
Speaker
I mean...
00:01:57
Speaker
Okay, first off, where did this concept
Integrating Portal Elements
00:01:59
Speaker
even come from?
00:01:59
Speaker
Who decided we're doing Portal?
00:02:02
Speaker
Well, we all love the property and we've been into it for a long time.
00:02:08
Speaker
I think it was somewhere around the... We were in the middle of... Both of us were in the middle of... Michael, you were working on Final Resistance and I was working on The Princess Bride.
00:02:18
Speaker
And Bo and Karen's helped us get in contact with some people at Valve.
00:02:24
Speaker
And Jerry worked out the deal with them.
00:02:25
Speaker
And so we found out in the middle of those projects that we were going to do Portal next.
00:02:29
Speaker
And we just couldn't wait because...
00:02:31
Speaker
Just what a great franchise.
00:02:33
Speaker
What a great thing.
00:02:36
Speaker
And it's perfect for the P3 with what we can do with transporting balls from here to there and all this stuff like that.
00:02:42
Speaker
So we couldn't wait to get our hands on it.
00:02:44
Speaker
Now, for the people who aren't familiar, I actually had not been familiar with this game because I'm an old fart.
00:02:50
Speaker
But go ahead and tell me about Portal.
00:02:53
Speaker
Tell me about the game and tell me how this integrates into pinball.
00:02:57
Speaker
So Portal is a puzzle game.
00:03:02
Speaker
There's been Portal 1 and Portal 2.
00:03:04
Speaker
And you basically go through and you have to place portals in different rooms and solve puzzles by traversing them and using them to get you through these test chambers and things like that.
00:03:17
Speaker
There's an entire world around it built in the Aperture Science universe.
00:03:21
Speaker
And it's got such great lore and everything along those lines.
00:03:25
Speaker
And we feel like we've created something new in that universe that's really interesting, but is still true to everything that makes Portal great.
Dynamic Environments and Challenges
00:03:35
Speaker
Chances are if you really enjoy a puzzle-based video game that sort of tells its story as you play it in a very subtle way, or you enjoy really dark humor in a video game, all these things probably are because of Portal existing.
00:03:51
Speaker
And so it really did it first in the most impactful way.
00:03:54
Speaker
My kid has played any number of games, PC games and things, where it's just like, oh, it's so cool.
00:03:59
Speaker
You learn the story as you go around.
00:04:01
Speaker
Portal did it a long time ago.
00:04:02
Speaker
I'm not excited by that video game.
00:04:04
Speaker
Portal already did that.
00:04:06
Speaker
And it, I mean, Portal is timeless.
00:04:08
Speaker
Portal 1, Portal 2, you can pick them up and play them today.
00:04:11
Speaker
You should, if you've never played it.
00:04:12
Speaker
And they are amazing games that just first present as a story, a story list sort of, oh, I'm going to, you know, I've got to solve this puzzle, this first person puzzle.
00:04:23
Speaker
And the more you dig in, the further you get.
00:04:26
Speaker
I remember the first time you sort of crossed the threshold and you realized there's something more to this game than you first realized.
00:04:33
Speaker
And it's, yeah, I,
00:04:35
Speaker
Like, look, I've been working on this pinball machine with these guys for a while.
00:04:40
Speaker
And even still, like the arms on my, the hairs on my arm go up talking about that first moment where you realize, wait, there is something more to this game.
00:04:49
Speaker
It's not just what it seems.
00:04:50
Speaker
Why pinball?
00:04:51
Speaker
Why the P3?
00:04:53
Speaker
Right.
00:04:53
Speaker
So when you enter these environments in the game, you sort of walk into this very sterile, clean chamber in Portal 1 and you sort of see what it is.
00:05:02
Speaker
And then the chambers reconfigure.
00:05:05
Speaker
They move and they dynamically change and all this crazy stuff happens.
00:05:08
Speaker
Just so when you think you're starting to wrap your head around it, then panels are moving and the thing reconfigures.
00:05:14
Speaker
And the P3 is able to show you these dynamic environments on the screen.
Game Design Innovations
00:05:19
Speaker
And then also we have some incredible mechs that reconfigure in real time.
00:05:24
Speaker
So you actually can kind of get that experience when you're playing this pinball game.
00:05:29
Speaker
I think we've done an, yeah.
00:05:32
Speaker
At this point, people have seen the videos, people have checked it out.
00:05:36
Speaker
it's got to be on the P3.
00:05:37
Speaker
Nobody else can do it.
00:05:39
Speaker
One of my favorite things about the P3 is our ability to get into storytelling right underneath your eyes, change the environments that you're in based on the mode you're playing.
00:05:49
Speaker
And so we wanted, when you're going into test chambers, you're going to experience something different with each test chamber.
00:05:55
Speaker
We wanted to be able to make a really incredibly immersive game.
00:06:01
Speaker
And because of the basic design of the P3, we can...
00:06:06
Speaker
like we can portal balls anywhere, right?
00:06:08
Speaker
We have a, a, the infinity ball trough in the back where we can basically send a ball out anywhere that we want.
00:06:16
Speaker
And so it just is a no brainer for the P3 platform.
00:06:19
Speaker
And it's, it's just a perfect fit.
00:06:22
Speaker
So I have a question for Josh and Carrie, since you are big fans of this game, what are you looking forward to in playing this game and getting this game?
00:06:32
Speaker
Well, like it's already been stated, this is one of those themes that when I got into it, I just fell in love with it.
00:06:40
Speaker
And like Portal 1 was one of those games that launched with the Orange Box back in 2007.
00:06:47
Speaker
It was one of those hidden gems that just basically started getting attention, and eventually they decided to make a sequel, which was even surmountably better than the first one because that's when you start getting more story and lore and personality in GLaDOS.
00:07:04
Speaker
And I think that's the nature of why I love it so much is that there's a lot of mystery, but I also love puzzles.
00:07:12
Speaker
It's really fun to incorporate that aspect into a pinball machine, although I'm still curious of how these guys are going to do that with it being a puzzle related game and then a pinball machine.
00:07:21
Speaker
So when I first heard that they were doing it, I'm like, I see where it would work well on the P3 system like it was originally stated with the fact that they could put balls and go anywhere with it.
00:07:32
Speaker
But I was still like, how are they going to do the puzzle aspect of it?
00:07:34
Speaker
I'm kind of curious of how that's implemented, and I'm sure we'll dive into it here in a little bit.
00:07:38
Speaker
But yeah, with how the game changes from scene to scene, I think that this platform is definitely going to be able to
Character and Iconic Elements
00:07:46
Speaker
make this theme shine with the screen on the display and everything.
00:07:50
Speaker
That's going to be interesting on that.
00:07:53
Speaker
But...
00:07:54
Speaker
I think with all the different moving portions of the game too, with the multiple companion cubes, the multiple shots, and something that they haven't done yet either on a P3 multamorphic system, is that we're going to have shots in the lower two-thirds of a game.
00:08:12
Speaker
I think that's really going to be a highlight for a lot of people out there because that's been a common complaint with people that
00:08:19
Speaker
have these systems.
00:08:19
Speaker
It's like, well, they're all in the back of the play field.
00:08:22
Speaker
Now, due to, I'm assuming due to feedback, they're trying to satiate that portion of the industry by telling like, hey, we can still do that.
00:08:30
Speaker
We can give you the shots in the lower two thirds.
00:08:34
Speaker
So I really like that aspect of it also.
00:08:36
Speaker
And the fact that those ramps also move up and out of the way.
00:08:40
Speaker
So
00:08:41
Speaker
I like just a lot of the movement that I'm seeing, a lot of mechanical features.
00:08:45
Speaker
So Kerry, I just want to jump in and correct one thing that you said that Josh said at the beginning as well.
00:08:51
Speaker
And you both said there are multiple companion cubes on this table.
00:08:55
Speaker
Oh, it's the portal.
00:08:56
Speaker
But in reality, there's one companion cube that portals from one side of the play field to the other.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:03
Speaker
It's moving in between the portals.
00:09:05
Speaker
Yes, you are correct.
00:09:06
Speaker
I've looked at the pictures.
00:09:07
Speaker
That's all I've got to go on.
00:09:11
Speaker
I mean, it's actually, from a design perspective, it is one of the reasons, in addition to the Companion Cube being iconic and one of the symbols of the Portal franchise, we chose to go with the Companion Cube to emphasize the fact that it is the same cube.
00:09:30
Speaker
Because within the game, well, okay,
00:09:32
Speaker
let's ignore portal to when flatos starts spawning as many as she wants.
00:09:37
Speaker
But within the game, there's one companion cube and it's important that there's one companion cube.
00:09:43
Speaker
Well, and it just, yeah, it just, I like that.
00:09:46
Speaker
Those are the core in here too.
00:09:48
Speaker
Mark silk's doing the voice for the core, right?
00:09:50
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:51
Speaker
Mark is amazing.
00:09:53
Speaker
And I, I really think people are going to fall in love with this core.
00:09:57
Speaker
Like it's got so much personality and everything.
00:09:59
Speaker
So I, I, I really, I can't wait for you guys to get in there and really get to know this core.
00:10:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:07
Speaker
I just, I'm excited too, because, you know, Wheatley is a big part of portal too, from start to finish.
00:10:13
Speaker
How, how is Mark Silk's core
Graphics, Sound, and Immersion
00:10:15
Speaker
integrated into the game?
00:10:16
Speaker
It is,
00:10:17
Speaker
We looked at the possibilities of working with Wheatley, but Wheatley had a complete story in Portal 2.
00:10:25
Speaker
And we knew we absolutely need to have GLaDOS in the game.
00:10:29
Speaker
And so we've got GLaDOS, but GLaDOS can't be...
00:10:33
Speaker
It can't be that person to cheer you on.
00:10:35
Speaker
It can't be that person to give you encouragement, to tell you where to go.
00:10:40
Speaker
Her purpose is to abuse you and to be mean to you.
00:10:44
Speaker
And so we needed somebody that was a champion for the player, your guide, your friend.
00:10:50
Speaker
And so we thought, well, in this Portal universe, there's already been the, there's always been a precedent that they have multiple personality cores.
00:11:00
Speaker
And so we're like, we've got an opportunity here to create something new in our world that will fit in here and give us the ability to create that friendly guide that you have helping you out.
00:11:12
Speaker
So we created Reggie, the team building core.
00:11:15
Speaker
And so Reggie is his purpose there.
00:11:17
Speaker
He's just he's just
00:11:20
Speaker
He's just over the head.
00:11:21
Speaker
He can't wait to build teams and he's ready to go and build that team teamwork with you.
00:11:26
Speaker
And he's cheering you on as you're going through and guiding you through both the hub mode and the objectives and the chess chambers.
00:11:36
Speaker
And I really think people are going to fall in love with Reggie because it's he's got so much personality in this character.
00:11:41
Speaker
And I just wanted to add on to what you're saying out there, Stephen.
00:11:44
Speaker
You said that, you know, we knew we had to have GLaDOS.
00:11:47
Speaker
I'm kind of curious in the whole brainstorming in the infancy of this project.
00:11:51
Speaker
I mean, what are some of the things that you guys said?
00:11:54
Speaker
We have to have this.
00:11:55
Speaker
We have to have this.
00:11:57
Speaker
What are some of those things?
00:11:58
Speaker
There's a spreadsheet.
00:12:00
Speaker
We got a spreadsheet.
00:12:01
Speaker
Nice.
00:12:02
Speaker
We were ranking things.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:04
Speaker
We knew we had to have GLaDOS.
00:12:05
Speaker
We were basically going through and trying to find the features in the, in portal one and portal two that we thought would work in pinball and that we can do.
00:12:16
Speaker
And, um,
00:12:18
Speaker
We knew we wanted to have some sort of a momentum jump, something where you build a speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out, and you can do the jump.
00:12:28
Speaker
So we've incorporated the momentum jump.
00:12:30
Speaker
That's a lateral jump across the playfield, and you've got multiple landing areas you can go to.
00:12:35
Speaker
And we wanted to have the faith plate, too.
00:12:38
Speaker
early on we were like, we're not sure if we can do this.
00:12:42
Speaker
Like let's see if we can do it.
00:12:44
Speaker
But we've got TJ Weaver, who's our mechanical engineer.
00:12:47
Speaker
I happen to believe that he's one of the best mechanical engineers in pinball.
00:12:51
Speaker
He always turns out amazing ideas.
00:12:54
Speaker
And so we just set him on it and he's turned out some really incredible mechs with those two things.
00:13:01
Speaker
In addition to that, we knew we needed to have, you can't have a portal game without
00:13:06
Speaker
portaling around and changing the configuration of the play field and getting from one place to another and using that to solve puzzles.
00:13:14
Speaker
And so we made sure we had portable shots that could basically lead anywhere we wanted to go.
00:13:22
Speaker
And so is there anything I'm missing that was on our must have list?
00:13:26
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:13:26
Speaker
Turrets.
00:13:27
Speaker
Turrets, yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker
We knew we wanted a core, even though we weren't sure who he was going to be yet.
00:13:35
Speaker
we knew we definitely wanted to have companion cube.
00:13:41
Speaker
We wanted to have radios.
00:13:43
Speaker
We wanted to have all the good puzzle elements, right?
00:13:45
Speaker
We wanted the thermal discouragement beam.
00:13:48
Speaker
We wanted high energy pallets.
00:13:50
Speaker
We wanted it all.
00:13:54
Speaker
And I think we've tried to stuff as
Player Engagement Strategies
00:13:56
Speaker
much as...
00:13:57
Speaker
Chris Bounds, physically possible into this machine, but the aerial tricks are really impressive right you you throw a ball once one direction.
00:14:05
Speaker
Chris Bounds, You should say that's good enough, but not us we've got two different two different launch points do different directions multiple landing zones for the throws there is a glowing pit in the Center of the play field.
00:14:18
Speaker
that you can fall in the drink.
00:14:21
Speaker
You can wind up in the acid.
00:14:23
Speaker
It's all possible.
00:14:26
Speaker
And one of the other things that you didn't mention was Ratman.
00:14:30
Speaker
We wanted Ratman, and we wanted Ratman's den within this game because just like Michael said at the beginning, there's that moment in Portal 1 when you realize there's more to this game and more to this world than you knew up to that point.
00:14:47
Speaker
For me, that's one of my top moments in video game.
00:14:52
Speaker
It's historic, it's game-changing, and I think it's influenced so many people.
00:14:57
Speaker
And so we needed that presence in the game.
00:14:59
Speaker
When you walk behind that panel, it's open, you see all the red scratches on the walls, and you're like, hold on, there's something more to this story.
00:15:05
Speaker
What's something going on here?
00:15:08
Speaker
Oh, even the end of Portal 1, where you're kind of getting led as a lamb to the slaughter, and all across the walls, the cake is a lie.
00:15:14
Speaker
It's just...
00:15:16
Speaker
It's perfect.
00:15:18
Speaker
So I agree.
00:15:19
Speaker
It looks awesome.
00:15:21
Speaker
My question is, Ian, this is kind of your first licensed theme with, I don't know if you've had a full development team behind you on this before.
00:15:29
Speaker
I know you've had multiple games on the P3, but how has it been different working on Portal and utilizing all these amazing personalities that are in pinball?
00:15:40
Speaker
I mean, there's so much that is way easier and so much better quality working with an amazingly talented group of people.
00:15:49
Speaker
And we all complement each other's skills.
00:15:52
Speaker
Like both of my games were solo developments that I did myself.
00:15:57
Speaker
I did graphics.
00:15:58
Speaker
I did audio design.
00:15:59
Speaker
I did programming.
00:16:01
Speaker
I licensed assets to help me fill gaps, but I was trying to see what can I do, build up my skill set and learn things about how to develop in Unity, how to fit all of these pieces together.
00:16:12
Speaker
And I was just doing it for fun.
00:16:14
Speaker
You know, I didn't go out and knock on Jerry's door and say, please give me a job.
00:16:18
Speaker
He's like, hey, Ian, we've...
00:16:21
Speaker
Will you sign an NDA and let me talk to you and convince you to do this game?
00:16:24
Speaker
And he's like, I'll tell you the theme once you've signed it.
00:16:27
Speaker
And you can say no.
00:16:28
Speaker
And I'm like, OK.
00:16:30
Speaker
And he's like, I don't know if you've heard of this or if you have any.
00:16:33
Speaker
It's like, yeah, yeah, no, I've heard of this.
00:16:34
Speaker
And I was really excited.
00:16:36
Speaker
Anyways, getting back to your question.
00:16:40
Speaker
I'm going to now compliment my teammates a lot, and they may get uncomfortable in that, but Michael has brought in a ton of amazing framework that he's built up through Weird Al and Final Resistance
Innovative Mechanics and Storytelling
00:16:54
Speaker
that I wish I had had when I developed my own games that has made things...
00:17:00
Speaker
really smooth and go amazingly well and throwing ideas off of him and having someone else to just speak out loud to about the engineering challenges, you know, pinball,
00:17:11
Speaker
is hard software for pinball.
00:17:13
Speaker
It's hard.
00:17:13
Speaker
It's complicated.
00:17:14
Speaker
It's a real time system with a lot of events going on.
00:17:16
Speaker
There's a lot of things that can go wrong and we're doing some of the most advanced stuff we can do here.
00:17:22
Speaker
You know, Steven and Rory with their graphics work is amazing and nothing I could ever do.
00:17:30
Speaker
And it's been really cool to actually interact with Rory.
00:17:33
Speaker
Rory Sernuda, who's the, um,
00:17:36
Speaker
technical artist, I think is what his title is.
00:17:39
Speaker
He's doing amazing work within Unity, but it's really cool to talk to someone with an animation background, learn a lot of tricks, a lot of new stuff that I didn't know about Unity, and actually have someone to throw technical ideas off of.
00:17:54
Speaker
And that was huge and really fun.
00:17:55
Speaker
And Stephen...
00:17:58
Speaker
has amazing visual ideas.
00:18:01
Speaker
And when we were designing the rooms for all of the test chambers, I would go off and prototype, like, OK, this is what I want.
00:18:08
Speaker
I'm going to make these pieces fit, the pieces we need to get this done.
00:18:12
Speaker
And then Stephen would come in, and he'd be like, OK,
00:18:14
Speaker
Let's move the camera here.
00:18:15
Speaker
Let's move this wall here.
00:18:16
Speaker
Let's move this over here.
00:18:18
Speaker
Let's create these views.
00:18:20
Speaker
And we turn this sterile grid into these beautiful environments.
00:18:25
Speaker
And it's been really cool and something that I just couldn't experience developing my own.
00:18:31
Speaker
And throw Scott and Brad on top of that as well.
00:18:35
Speaker
And it really is a dream team of people coming together.
00:18:37
Speaker
And when you say Scott and Brad, you mean Scott Denisi, who is on sound.
00:18:42
Speaker
And Brad Albright, who did artwork, which both amazing.
00:18:46
Speaker
Hands down, amazing.
00:18:48
Speaker
And Brad designed the topper.
00:18:50
Speaker
He designed the sculpt.
00:18:53
Speaker
Did the playfield art for Hub, as well as all of the decal work and all of the cabinet art.
00:19:01
Speaker
So one thing I want to talk about with this is that when you're doing a procedural game, you typically go through and you learn a little bit and then you learn more, you know, just, just like any sort of game and you, and then the puzzles get more complex as you move on.
00:19:17
Speaker
Now, here's the question.
00:19:19
Speaker
How do you avoid the, the, uh, mundanity of doing the same puzzle over and over again when you go to a pinball machine, because you can't have the same sort of progression.
00:19:31
Speaker
and how do you incorporate that into modes?
00:19:35
Speaker
Are there main modes you have to do?
00:19:37
Speaker
Are there advanced modes and wizard mode?
00:19:40
Speaker
How do you have the rule set aligned?
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah, so we set out with the idea that we would have two distinct areas that you take a part in the game.
00:19:54
Speaker
There's what we call the hub.
00:19:57
Speaker
It's sort of themed and named because of the Portal 2 experience of having this hub where you meet with your other player before you go on, and we like that name, so we called it the hub.
00:20:06
Speaker
And we wanted to design the hub to be a fun experience, a fun pinball experience where...
00:20:12
Speaker
Even if all you did was spend the entire game in the hub, you would have a good time.
00:20:17
Speaker
The hub is where you play multi-ball.
00:20:20
Speaker
The hub is where you play these objectives, which we call them.
00:20:23
Speaker
And objectives, they're not really modes, but if you actually look at them, they're as complex as a lot of modes in pinball.
00:20:31
Speaker
But we wanted hub to be this experience where everything's stacked.
00:20:35
Speaker
where everything can happen at the same time.
00:20:37
Speaker
There's eight objectives.
00:20:38
Speaker
And if you can collect, complete all eight objectives, they'll start a hurry up.
00:20:43
Speaker
If you can stack all eight hurry ups on top of them and cash out that eight way hurry up, this is like this big, massive event.
00:20:50
Speaker
You've got your turret multi-ball.
00:20:52
Speaker
You've got a faith plate multi-ball.
00:20:54
Speaker
You've got a edge list safety cube multi-ball.
00:20:57
Speaker
So you've got all of this you can do in Hub.
00:20:59
Speaker
And we think that if people just experienced that, they'd have a great time.
00:21:05
Speaker
But as we're doing these, these objectives are starting to teach you elements about the game.
00:21:11
Speaker
So things like the hidden panel, which is used across the hard light bridge, you'll learn that as one of the objectives in the hub.
00:21:20
Speaker
And when you need to use that later on in one of the test chambers, you don't have to have completed it, but it will sort of teach you and educate you.
00:21:28
Speaker
Now to get to your question about like, are puzzles boring the second time you play them?
00:21:34
Speaker
It's actually one of the really hard challenges in designing this game.
00:21:38
Speaker
We wanted to lean in to the puzzles, but we really wanted to lean into the puzzles in a light way.
00:21:44
Speaker
We didn't want the puzzles to be an aha moment, because if it's an aha moment, then you only get that once, and then it's just going through the rope motions.
00:21:55
Speaker
The high energy pellet is probably our best example of our most complex puzzle mechanic right now.
00:22:03
Speaker
And this mode is set up in such a way that there is a high energy pellet, which is a energy ball which will bounce off of walls.
00:22:11
Speaker
And there's a series of five panels, which you have to figure out how to turn those panels into the correct position so that the pellet will complete its course to the catcher and open the exit.
00:22:25
Speaker
This isn't a hard puzzle if you were to solve it on a piece of paper, but it becomes a hard puzzle when you've got to control a pinball and hit shots and not undo the work that you've done.
00:22:34
Speaker
And there's some tricks in there as well to kind of throw you off and possibly make you backtrack.
00:22:39
Speaker
And I think we've managed to, I hope we've managed to build something that people will, they'll appreciate the puzzle aspects that are there, but not just find it frustrating to go through and they'll still have fun.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:55
Speaker
Because if you think about it, right, pinball, especially multimorphic, we have this tendency, a lot of games do this, right?
00:23:03
Speaker
We want to tell stories, right?
00:23:06
Speaker
We want, especially for this game, right?
00:23:09
Speaker
We want these games to tell these really deep, interesting narrative stories, but they're gated by your pinball ability, right?
00:23:17
Speaker
And so if a player is not so great, they're not going to get to experience all of it.
00:23:22
Speaker
And so there's already this additional challenge of how do you tell this narrative story gated by pinball?
00:23:28
Speaker
And now we're also going to add a puzzle on it.
00:23:30
Speaker
Well, we don't want you, you know, to your point, right?
00:23:33
Speaker
We don't want it to be the case that you don't want to experience it a second time because you've already figured out the trick.
00:23:38
Speaker
But then also how hard is it to manage both a puzzle and pinball?
00:23:44
Speaker
And so, yeah, I mean, there may be puzzle light.
00:23:47
Speaker
They, I think,
00:23:49
Speaker
As a pinball player who loves Portal, playing the game, you feel the same experiences of, ah, I solved this.
00:23:57
Speaker
I figured this out without it being, you know, as you don't have the time.
00:24:02
Speaker
You don't have the bandwidth to sort of sit there and try to figure out some complex thing.
00:24:05
Speaker
There's a live ball, right?
00:24:07
Speaker
And so you've got to, you know, and so it's a trade-off.
00:24:09
Speaker
But I think we've got something that really works here.
00:24:15
Speaker
In regards to story, is this going to be like in like, will playing Portal 1 and Portal 2 help you understand this pinball machine better?
00:24:25
Speaker
Or are you going to have your own story?
00:24:27
Speaker
And I'm kind of curious about the details on that and what you can tell us right now.
00:24:30
Speaker
And also, second part of the question is, can this game be beaten?
00:24:35
Speaker
Yes.
00:24:37
Speaker
So if you have played Portal 1 and Portal 2,
00:24:42
Speaker
I think you will have a deep appreciation for the deep cuts we have in this game, because this is, as somebody recently said, a love letter to the license.
00:24:52
Speaker
Like, I think that will increase your appreciation.
00:24:56
Speaker
And so if this is your first experience into the portal universe, I highly recommend you go through and you pick up portal one and portal two on steam or wherever and go play them because you're going to enjoy the whole franchise, but this is its own story.
00:25:11
Speaker
we could have gone and just made a reference box to Portal 2.
00:25:16
Speaker
But that's not that necessarily interesting.
00:25:20
Speaker
Interesting to us, at least.
00:25:22
Speaker
And so we wanted to go through and we wanted to make a new storyline.
00:25:27
Speaker
And the whole idea is that the premise basically is that this is a portable testing unit that is shipped out on location it's looking for.
00:25:35
Speaker
it's looking for test subjects.
00:25:37
Speaker
And so you come up and you are the test subject in here.
00:25:40
Speaker
You get introduced to Reggie.
00:25:42
Speaker
Reggie's your guide and you're working your way through this.
00:25:46
Speaker
And yes, there is, this will be a game you can beat at the end.
00:25:52
Speaker
I was joking with Kerry.
00:25:53
Speaker
I got on the phone with him.
00:25:54
Speaker
And since we know Portal, we know Valve and stuff like that.
00:25:57
Speaker
I was joking since if this is like your own story for Portal,
00:26:01
Speaker
You should nickname this portal three because valve has a terrible time ending at two, you know, half-life two portal to left for dead two.
00:26:10
Speaker
And so it's like, you could be breaking that cycle with this machine.
00:26:14
Speaker
It is true.
00:26:16
Speaker
It's true that this is portal for the P three.
00:26:19
Speaker
This is a, there's a, there's a three near, near the word portal.
00:26:23
Speaker
So.
00:26:24
Speaker
One question I had, so I did hear Ellen, the voice of GLaDOS, Ellen McClain.
00:26:30
Speaker
She actually is the voice of GLaDOS in this game as well.
00:26:34
Speaker
Is Cave Johnson involved at all?
00:26:35
Speaker
Were you able to put him there?
00:26:39
Speaker
We don't have Cave Johnson.
00:26:42
Speaker
I mean, and to be clear, there's no Aperture Science without Cave Johnson.
00:26:46
Speaker
But, you know, this is a different story.
00:26:51
Speaker
And it's the sort of thing that if you don't know
00:26:55
Speaker
all of the lore of portal two, you might not even appreciate it at all.
00:26:59
Speaker
And then it's a lot of story to fill in, to try to explain who this character is.
00:27:03
Speaker
And we have this opportunity to maybe, you know, to tell a different story, uh, to tell a story that's sort of more, you know, more focused to pinball, right?
00:27:10
Speaker
Because we, we're trying to find the right balance for the player, right?
00:27:17
Speaker
It's, it's the same thing we said before in which you need a positive voice in, uh,
00:27:23
Speaker
in an atmosphere where there's a lot of challenge.
00:27:26
Speaker
And so Reggie provides this positive voice and provides this sort of, I don't know, this avatar, if you will, into this world where you can sort of get the right relationship to the characters and the universe.
00:27:40
Speaker
We're very fortunate to have access to GLaDOS in this game.
00:27:44
Speaker
We think that's what people really want to have.
00:27:47
Speaker
Well, it's like Back to the Future without the DeLorean.
00:27:50
Speaker
It's, you know, a King Kong without his Empire State Building.
00:27:54
Speaker
You can't have Portal without GLaDOS.
00:27:57
Speaker
And so it just, you know, and like you said, Cave Johnson's almost more of a deep cut.
00:28:03
Speaker
It's one of those things as you develop deeper.
00:28:05
Speaker
But in reality, in Portal 1 and a good chunk of Portal 2, he's not really there because it's more of a side story that you're learning about when you dig deeper.
00:28:15
Speaker
And where you guys are creating your own story, that's fantastic.
00:28:17
Speaker
I mean, it's Gladys is perfect.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:22
Speaker
And we all love Cave Johnson.
00:28:24
Speaker
We're all big fans.
00:28:25
Speaker
What's interesting about Portal is you've got these characters in there that you never see.
00:28:29
Speaker
Like you play most of Portal with never seeing GLaDOS until later in the game.
00:28:35
Speaker
And with Cave Johnson, you only see him through pictures and stuff like that.
00:28:39
Speaker
And so there's disembodied voices throughout there.
00:28:43
Speaker
And we're like, well, we've got Reggie.
00:28:45
Speaker
Reggie is your guide.
00:28:47
Speaker
And GLaDOS is there always constantly talking to you and doing her GLaDOS thing throughout the entire game and everything.
00:28:57
Speaker
And we figured...
00:28:58
Speaker
that's probably, that's probably enough for, especially for new players that won't know if there's all of a sudden this third voice that's coming in there.
00:29:04
Speaker
That's a disembodied voice.
00:29:07
Speaker
You have a limited amount of time for storytelling in pinball.
00:29:13
Speaker
Probably one of the worst things you can do is force people into linear gameplay in pinball machines.
00:29:19
Speaker
We're always careful about that.
00:29:21
Speaker
Even back when we were making heists, it basically said, you need to do a heist-style game, but you can't force people into linear gameplay.
00:29:29
Speaker
You've got to be able to go and do things in any order that you want.
00:29:32
Speaker
And so that's just one of those things that I don't think is the right fit for this game.
00:29:40
Speaker
Especially this is a portable testing unit.
00:29:43
Speaker
You're not at Epsir Science, you're in the portable testing unit.
00:29:47
Speaker
No, go ahead.
00:29:48
Speaker
Go ahead, Jerry.
00:29:49
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:29:50
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:29:50
Speaker
We're on GLaDOS right now.
00:29:51
Speaker
So I was like, I was like, that was one of the main things talking to Jerry.
00:29:54
Speaker
Whenever I found about the game, I was like, do you have GLaDOS?
00:29:58
Speaker
You've got to have her.
00:29:59
Speaker
And especially if she's doing the call outs.
00:30:01
Speaker
And I was curious about like how many call outs, but you just pretty much said it right there that she's going to be talking to you the entire time because.
00:30:08
Speaker
For those that don't know, it's like, you know, you pretty much defeat her in part one.
00:30:12
Speaker
And then part two, she comes back and she is bitter.
00:30:16
Speaker
And in the call outs that she has towards you are mean and it's hilarious at the same time.
00:30:21
Speaker
And I want that mean bitterness.
00:30:24
Speaker
If I lose my game or drain, I want her to say, it says it right here in your file.
00:30:28
Speaker
You are a horrible person.
00:30:29
Speaker
Stuff like that.
00:30:30
Speaker
It's just like that.
00:30:30
Speaker
I really hope to hear that.
00:30:32
Speaker
That's going to be great.
00:30:33
Speaker
We didn't even test for that.
00:30:34
Speaker
And look, it came up on the test.
00:30:38
Speaker
Now, somehow you've been in sleep all these years and somehow you still gained weight.
00:30:43
Speaker
Hey, I can do that.
00:30:44
Speaker
Okay, so we talked about this a little earlier that there are two versions of the game.
00:30:52
Speaker
And, you know, so there's a basic version.
00:30:54
Speaker
So why don't you explain to me how that works and explain how the different things can be, you know, purchased versus what is the difference between the step up versus the basics?
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah, so the basic game, this is our most advanced P3 module to date.
00:31:10
Speaker
If you've been a fan of Weird Al and Princess Bride and Heist and all these other modules, we threw everything at this module.
00:31:19
Speaker
So you're going to have a ton of stuff to do on this module.
00:31:22
Speaker
So we have the standard edition.
00:31:24
Speaker
Or if you want to, if you get it, it's just like any other P3.
00:31:27
Speaker
It's the fast module swaps and everything else.
00:31:30
Speaker
You pull it out, you pop it back in.
00:31:32
Speaker
But we also have a P3 plus version, which is the involves the the module extender, which brings those mechanical features further down the play field.
00:31:41
Speaker
And it's a it's a pretty simple swap.
00:31:43
Speaker
Pull off your in lanes and then.
00:31:45
Speaker
pop it down on the machine, screw it in and plug in some connectors and you're good to go.
00:31:50
Speaker
And if you buy the P3 plus version and you want to have, it's a different challenge based on it.
00:31:57
Speaker
Let's say you have somebody that doesn't like shots close to the play field or is struggling with them.
00:32:02
Speaker
You can pull it out and you play the
00:32:04
Speaker
standard version as well.
00:32:06
Speaker
So we think there's a lot of compelling features in the P3 Plus version that with the lower playfold mechanisms, a lot of really, really cool ideas are in that.
00:32:15
Speaker
But both versions will have the complete game, have the entire experience.
00:32:19
Speaker
We just will handle things differently on the standard edition version.
00:32:23
Speaker
We've got one art package.
00:32:24
Speaker
The art package is absolutely stunning, Brad Albright.
00:32:28
Speaker
First of all, he's one of the best people in pinball.
00:32:30
Speaker
If you go find him at a pinball show, go find his booth, check out his 3D art, his woodcuts, everything.
00:32:36
Speaker
He's an amazing talent.
00:32:38
Speaker
But this art package looks incredible.
00:32:42
Speaker
It's got unique sides on either side, and there's a lot of Easter eggs all throughout the art and everything.
00:32:49
Speaker
And then we've also got an optional topper that you can buy if you want to, if you want to add the topper onto your machine.
00:32:55
Speaker
So those are the, uh, basically the two different versions.
00:32:59
Speaker
But yeah, the gameplay, you know, when you actually play the game, we're not, we're not holding anything back, whether or not you have, uh, you know, whether or not you have the, the lower segment, uh, you get a, you get an additional ramp, you get a really cool kickback shot, you get physical spinner, you get the, uh, physical, uh,
00:33:19
Speaker
hard light bridge feature.
00:33:20
Speaker
You get a lot with it.
00:33:22
Speaker
You get targets that are up close.
00:33:25
Speaker
It definitely changes the geometry, but we wanted to make sure that the players still got the same gameplay experience, the same core software experience, regardless of whether or not they had it.
00:33:37
Speaker
So that's, you know, it's definitely the case that it's not a requirement, but
00:33:44
Speaker
It's hard.
00:33:45
Speaker
We think people want it.
00:33:47
Speaker
We think people want it.
00:33:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's a compelling upgrade.
00:33:49
Speaker
I really do think like, you know, there's, you can go spend, you know, a couple thousand on a topper somewhere or something like that.
00:33:56
Speaker
But this is something that will enhance the gameplay.
00:33:59
Speaker
And it really does enhance the machine.
00:34:02
Speaker
We think it's compelling for everybody.
00:34:04
Speaker
But also, like I said, if you own it and you just want to do a quick swap, you don't want to do the full swap, you can pop it out.
00:34:08
Speaker
You can pop in the module and play module only if you want when you've got it.
00:34:12
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:34:14
Speaker
We think it's a really cool thing.
00:34:15
Speaker
And we've been working on one thing you guys said early on is that this was based entirely on feedback from customers.
00:34:25
Speaker
If anybody's familiar with the P3, we did a video way back like
00:34:30
Speaker
2014 or so that showed like swapping out lower payfield modules.
00:34:35
Speaker
This has been something that's been on our mind for a long time.
00:34:37
Speaker
And we've been making inroads through through the various games that we've done with Heist.
00:34:42
Speaker
We we brought in the crane that that comes out and does the widest variety of short shots and pinball where you can bash that crane all over the playfield.
00:34:49
Speaker
You can knock a ball off the crane.
00:34:51
Speaker
You can the crane will fling balls at you.
00:34:53
Speaker
We also brought in the, we replaced the side target module with a flipper with a hidden shot underneath it for, for heist.
00:35:00
Speaker
And then with weird how we brought in the left, left module.
00:35:03
Speaker
So this has been something that's been coming for a long time.
00:35:06
Speaker
We just were always trying to make sure, however we did it,
00:35:09
Speaker
was still compatible with all of our existing customers and for easy play field swaps and things like that.
00:35:14
Speaker
Weird Al has the crossing wire form across the ramp.
00:35:17
Speaker
So we've been doing a bunch of stuff over time, making those improvements for them.
00:35:22
Speaker
And every improvement we've done to the system, we almost always make that available to all of our customers, even the ones that bought back on day one.
00:35:30
Speaker
And, you know, just think like...
00:35:34
Speaker
Where else does that ever happen?
00:35:35
Speaker
Like if you bought a car and then you want this year's new features, what do you got to do?
00:35:39
Speaker
You got to buy this year's car in order to get it.
00:35:41
Speaker
And we've made a ton of upgrades to the core P3 system over all those years and made them all available for people who bought into the system originally.
00:35:51
Speaker
So we think this is a really compelling upgrade.
00:35:53
Speaker
We think everybody's going to want it.
00:35:56
Speaker
But it's optional.
00:35:57
Speaker
If you want to just buy the, if you want to dip your toe into the portal universe and try it with the standard edition, we have that available too.
00:36:06
Speaker
Does having these lower features speed up the game?
00:36:09
Speaker
Because that is one thing about the P3.
00:36:11
Speaker
With everything being the far, you know, the back third, the game in the middle can be a little floaty, but this kind of narrows the play with the spinner on the left side with the chute there, the ramp on the right side.
00:36:26
Speaker
it brings that action a little more far forward.
00:36:28
Speaker
So you have to react a little quicker.
00:36:30
Speaker
And then not only that, someone can answer that.
00:36:33
Speaker
And then the other question I have too is, what's the purpose of the ramp on the right side lifting up off of the screen?
00:36:40
Speaker
So I can talk a little bit about this.
00:36:42
Speaker
I think that the... So the close features, the stand-up targets are very close.
00:36:48
Speaker
The ramp is very close.
00:36:50
Speaker
A lot of the...
00:36:52
Speaker
You know, yes, on the P3, a lot of the features typically are very far back, but if you actually look at drawings or overlay the playfield, they're not actually much further back than typical pinball machines.
00:37:07
Speaker
There's an optical illusion that happens with scoops and walls and the horizontal lines that tricks you into thinking the playfield module is much further back.
00:37:16
Speaker
Not getting into that too much, but this ramp is actually really, really close to the flippers.
00:37:22
Speaker
Much closer than a lot of games.
00:37:26
Speaker
And those targets are very close, and they're very dangerous.
00:37:29
Speaker
This is a challenging game.
00:37:32
Speaker
I think it's a fun game.
00:37:33
Speaker
I think people will enjoy it.
00:37:35
Speaker
But they do add a lot of risk having those there.
00:37:38
Speaker
The lifting of the ramp was really important for the design of the playfield because of the right ramp down at the lower part of the playfield.
00:37:46
Speaker
If you look at how most games that have close ramps deal with it, if you look, that takes away a lot of your shots and they tend to just hide something behind it like a pop bumper nest.
00:37:58
Speaker
And you just lose access to that.
00:38:00
Speaker
And then to compensate for that, you typically have to use an upper flipper to give you access to things that are behind and hidden by the shot.
00:38:09
Speaker
So by having that ramp be able to lift, we are then able throughout the gameplay to give access to the shots that are behind there.
00:38:17
Speaker
Our extended captive ball, there's stand-up targets back there.
00:38:21
Speaker
You can hit the center ramp easily.
00:38:24
Speaker
even with the ramp down from the left flipper, but it gives you access to the backhand as well.
00:38:29
Speaker
So I think it gives dynamic gameplay by having the ramp be able to lift and allows us more flexibility in what we can design.
00:38:38
Speaker
There's also a system with the ramps that we can put them in two different states.
00:38:44
Speaker
So as you shoot a ramp, it will lift up and then you shoot another one and one will drop and another one will lift up.
00:38:50
Speaker
And when they do that, that changes like the left and the center ramp will become portals when they lift up underneath them.
00:38:58
Speaker
So as you're going around and you're reconfiguring the room, you are making decisions of, okay, I want to configure it this way in order to make it happen.
00:39:06
Speaker
But then we've also got this, uh, after science, automatic, uh, auto retracting stair system that we've got in there that if you hit a switch, then we switch them to, um, all holds.
00:39:17
Speaker
So when something raises it, it raises and it stays up.
00:39:21
Speaker
And so you can get both ramps,
00:39:23
Speaker
raised up and now you've got a portal loop where you can loop back a fast loop back and forth between the two flippers.
00:39:28
Speaker
So that's one of those really cool strategy things that are in the game to where you can go through and you can say, oh, you know what I want?
00:39:36
Speaker
I need to put these in the other configuration so I can go and make what I'm trying to do work.
00:39:42
Speaker
especially when you're trying to go set up some of those big multi-objective hurry-ups.
00:39:47
Speaker
And you've really got to think about, this is one of the puzzle aspects that I think won't ever get old because there's no correct way to do it.
00:39:55
Speaker
Like you're going to go through and you're going to be like, oh shoot, my hurry-up's counting down.
00:39:58
Speaker
I need to go and set this other one up real quick to stack it onto this stack and do these things.
00:40:04
Speaker
And so having that system really adds some interesting gameplay strategy to it.
00:40:12
Speaker
I just want to add one more thing about the P3 Plus extension kit, or I'm still getting used to the naming here, which it may not be obvious.
00:40:22
Speaker
And we take it for granted, but I don't know if people will realize it right away is we still have full ball trackings across the entire screen.
00:40:33
Speaker
We added these targets, we added a ramp, we added a spinner, and we still have complete grid tracking of the ball across the entire screen, which is really cool from an engineering perspective and really cool from a gameplay perspective.
00:40:47
Speaker
Okay, so I'm walking up to this game.
00:40:51
Speaker
I'm at a show.
00:40:52
Speaker
You guys are standing there.
00:40:54
Speaker
Put my hands on the flippers.
00:40:56
Speaker
Tell me what to do.
00:40:58
Speaker
There are inserts on the play field.
00:41:00
Speaker
There are Final Resistance style.
00:41:01
Speaker
By the way, I'm going to double back to the floaty.
00:41:03
Speaker
You've got to spend more time on Final Resistance.
00:41:06
Speaker
That is true.
00:41:08
Speaker
That game is not floaty.
00:41:09
Speaker
That game is going to put me in my place on a regular basis.
00:41:14
Speaker
We decided pretty early on that we wanted to represent physical inserts.
00:41:24
Speaker
in the environment of this game, right?
00:41:25
Speaker
So you're looking at the hub and it is decorated with virtual physical inserts, sort of like Final Resistance, very like Final Resistance.
00:41:36
Speaker
And so if you don't even know what to do, you're just going to shoot flashing shots and you're going to shoot some flashing shots and things are going to change and you're going to start to learn
00:41:45
Speaker
what those things do now reggie is going to be there reggie's going to talk you through this if you can hear him uh you know depending on who's standing next to you somebody else is going to try to talk you through it uh or you know you can you can experience the game but
00:41:57
Speaker
You can shoot ramps and as Steven was saying, the ramps will go up and the chamber will reconfigure.
00:42:02
Speaker
If you expose yourself to that double portal, you'll shoot one side, the ball will fly right back at you almost too fast to sort of, you know, process because that's how portals work, right?
00:42:11
Speaker
Throw a ball in fast, the ball comes out fast.
00:42:14
Speaker
You can complete any object.
00:42:16
Speaker
You can hit standup targets.
00:42:17
Speaker
You can hit the captive ball.
00:42:18
Speaker
You complete an objective.
00:42:19
Speaker
And now that faith plate in the center is lit and you shoot that faith plate and the ball goes flying through the air in the back, to the back of the machine.
00:42:27
Speaker
And if you've already moved the cube through the portal, then that's a physical ball lock.
00:42:33
Speaker
And now you are throwing balls across the machine to land on that grating over the pit to lock them.
00:42:41
Speaker
I would probably coach you to start a multi-ball.
00:42:43
Speaker
I would probably coach you to start turret multi-balls.
00:42:48
Speaker
Reggie goes away, turns around, and there's a little turret who's exposed, who starts lighting up and shooting at you, and you...
00:42:56
Speaker
You start turret multiball, and then it's fun chaos on the playfield where we have lots of turrets who are locking in on your jackpot value, and you have to knock them all out and then collect your jackpot before they completely destroy your jackpot value.
00:43:12
Speaker
And you can still complete objectives and do other stuff, like stacked multiballs and do that stuff too.
00:43:19
Speaker
If at any point you want to try Test Chamber,
00:43:23
Speaker
You can call the elevator, you can head down to the elevator and you can start that.
00:43:26
Speaker
But I don't know.
00:43:28
Speaker
I think the hub is a lot of fun.
00:43:29
Speaker
I would tell you to hang out in the hub for a while before you hit a chamber personally.
00:43:33
Speaker
But I'm sure the other guys would have different answers.
00:43:36
Speaker
I don't know.
00:43:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'd probably encourage portaling.
00:43:42
Speaker
I think it's both the name of the game and a really cool feature.
00:43:47
Speaker
So I would say focus on probably the left ramp because it's slightly more accessible than the center ramp.
00:43:57
Speaker
And try to hit it to raise it and then hit it again to portal a ball up to the loft.
00:44:01
Speaker
And then in the loft, you can try to hit the companion cube and push it over and that will light your locks.
00:44:06
Speaker
But I think that that experience of having the ball instantaneously leave one place and show up in the other is something people have to experience.
00:44:15
Speaker
Like that is Portal.
00:44:17
Speaker
And that is something that is pretty uniquely P3.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah, and these can be instantaneous moves.
00:44:24
Speaker
It's really magic when you're watching it happen.
00:44:26
Speaker
And what I'd say is I, if I was sitting next to you coaching you, I'd be like, I want you to go back up to that upper play field.
00:44:33
Speaker
I want you to try to do the momentum jump.
00:44:34
Speaker
I want you to see this happen.
00:44:35
Speaker
I want you to fly across the play field.
00:44:37
Speaker
See if you can do the full momentum jump.
00:44:39
Speaker
which requires you to build up speed before you hit that hole.
00:44:42
Speaker
So hit a, hit a loop once before you go, hit a loop once or twice to get, get your speed up before you hit that hole.
00:44:49
Speaker
And then you can go all the way across to the catwalk on the side, or you can, you can go to the lower landing zone down there with a regular speed portal.
00:44:57
Speaker
Or if you, uh,
00:44:58
Speaker
Get in there and just kill all your momentum.
00:45:00
Speaker
You might portal into the drink.
00:45:02
Speaker
So, but it's, it's, that's one of those magic pinball moments that I think people really appreciate.
00:45:08
Speaker
Out of curiosity, the loft on the images right here, it looks like it's spelled as it's an acronym for something.
00:45:15
Speaker
So what is it an acronym for?
00:45:18
Speaker
It's the library of failed tests.
00:45:20
Speaker
There's a, you go up there and you see all the, the, there, then Brad's got a little artwork in there.
00:45:26
Speaker
Everything that they call the failed testing sheets from all the past people who have all the past test subjects who have come up short.
00:45:34
Speaker
I got to know.
00:45:35
Speaker
Cause, cause there's this, there's this lane on the left with the spinner and whatnot.
00:45:39
Speaker
And it's kind of positioned where the upper flipper is.
00:45:43
Speaker
Um, is there any concern of like, like, I don't know.
00:45:48
Speaker
You can't really utilize the upper flipper unless it's out of the way.
00:45:51
Speaker
But I did notice above that you have almost that whole wall shifts out too.
00:45:56
Speaker
And it's really cool in the video that it like shoots across.
00:45:59
Speaker
Is it able to shoot across over to the other catwalk?
00:46:02
Speaker
Are we shooting down at the targets below?
00:46:04
Speaker
So there's a there's polycarbonate across the entire play field on that second level.
00:46:10
Speaker
And when you go up to when you shoot the portal, the first time you shoot it will pop up a little tutorial says get ready.
00:46:16
Speaker
It's coming down.
00:46:17
Speaker
Get ready to do your your hard light bridge.
00:46:21
Speaker
And as it's rolling down, you got to time your flip.
00:46:23
Speaker
And it's it's it's actually a brilliant mechanism.
00:46:26
Speaker
It's tied to the upper flipper.
00:46:27
Speaker
That upper flipper on the left side is not activated, except whenever you're going to do this hard light bridge when it's on the second level.
00:46:33
Speaker
And you flip it.
00:46:34
Speaker
The goal is to flip it at the right time and have it cross all the way across to the other side of the play field across that second level to the other end lane and come down and you've crossed the hard light bridge at that point.
00:46:45
Speaker
So it's it's it's really awesome when you pull it off.
00:46:49
Speaker
I literally just realized and noticed that there is a whole nother upper layer.
00:46:53
Speaker
I saw I see now I didn't even notice that.
00:46:56
Speaker
That's why I was like, I don't understand what that's going to do because you can't I can't really see it.
00:47:00
Speaker
I guess I didn't see it on the video either.
00:47:01
Speaker
But, yeah, it's nifty.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's a lot.
00:47:04
Speaker
Yes, it's traversing the entire play field.
00:47:07
Speaker
Also, if a ball balls when we ejecting balls occasionally that will pull out that panel so it will cut across and it'll come down to your lower to your lower right flipper instead of coming to the end lane.
00:47:19
Speaker
So it's, it's pretty cool.
00:47:20
Speaker
And if you, if you miss it, if you, if you biff the shot or whatnot, then it's wild and it's wild on this second layer where it, wherever it comes down and falls down to the lower play field, you've got to work to catch it and everything, but it's, it's a really cool trick.
00:47:35
Speaker
It's a really cool trick.
00:47:36
Speaker
Cause I'm watching the video right now.
00:47:37
Speaker
And just like Carrie, I'm like, Oh, there is something up.
00:47:40
Speaker
It's, it's magic.
00:47:41
Speaker
Like I was like, how the heck are they pulling this off?
00:47:43
Speaker
Cause it's just,
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah, it looks like you've created a light bridge across the play field and the ball's just zipping across the other side.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah, you don't want to fall off that light bridge.
00:47:52
Speaker
It's not safe.
00:47:56
Speaker
One of the other questions, you know, coming from the perspective of a person like Scott that's never played Portal and whatnot, how are you trying to market this or show to the casual player that this is worth the dive into this world?
00:48:14
Speaker
We're hoping that the pictures and the video really do a lot to show people like the depth of this game and everything you can do.
00:48:22
Speaker
I, I feel like the game speaks for itself.
00:48:25
Speaker
Whenever you get up there and you see like, like all the shot paths and all the mechanical cool stuff.
00:48:30
Speaker
If you're a fan of pinball,
00:48:32
Speaker
this is pinball.
00:48:33
Speaker
Like this is a, this is a real pinball.
00:48:34
Speaker
It, it, it, it does some just amazing pinball tricks and pinball moments.
00:48:39
Speaker
And I think that's the, that's the main hook.
00:48:43
Speaker
And you, you get these, these magical aha movements that you see like, Oh wait, this, I love a diverting shot.
00:48:50
Speaker
You know, I love anytime I have a shot and it goes, it goes to multiple places at once, but we have shots that can go anywhere, right?
00:48:56
Speaker
Like we can, we can literally send the ball, uh,
00:48:59
Speaker
In real time, we've got lit portals all over this play field.
00:49:01
Speaker
And so you're looking for the linked pairs and you're like, OK, if I shoot this, it's going to come out over here and planning and figuring out how you're going to work through this world.
00:49:11
Speaker
And I think it's something that will get its hooks in you and you'll just people will be excited about it.
00:49:17
Speaker
One concern I can see too is when you have aerial shots, them not shooting consistently.
00:49:22
Speaker
And like you said, you've not only got one with the aerial face plate, but two with shooting out the portal to the other side.
00:49:27
Speaker
How have you guys tuned this in?
00:49:29
Speaker
And how accurate is it?
00:49:31
Speaker
Like, are we 95%?
00:49:32
Speaker
Are we 50%?
00:49:32
Speaker
What are we here?
00:49:35
Speaker
It's pretty good.
00:49:37
Speaker
It's really good.
00:49:38
Speaker
Like you go through there.
00:49:39
Speaker
We've got the now if you've got a really, really slow shot on the face plate, you might get something that doesn't that that goes up.
00:49:48
Speaker
It doesn't hit on the sweet spot of it.
00:49:51
Speaker
But that's that's part of it.
00:49:52
Speaker
Like you need to.
00:49:53
Speaker
And if you're going to hit the lock, the ball, you know, you need to go up there.
00:49:56
Speaker
But it's it's really, really consistent now.
00:49:58
Speaker
It's one of those things we were actively worried about in the beginning to make sure that this was going to work.
00:50:03
Speaker
And then when we saw it finally get dialed in, it just works.
00:50:08
Speaker
And especially the momentum jump is...
00:50:13
Speaker
that thing is dead on.
00:50:15
Speaker
It's really awesome to see it go.
00:50:17
Speaker
And it's always a moment when it flies across and it lands and comes over on the other side.
00:50:21
Speaker
So, and I'm really looking forward to the day.
00:50:24
Speaker
I don't know when it's going to happen, but I'm going to be playing my game at my house and I'm going to somehow, I'm going to see if I can't, I've talked to Jerry, he might make it to where it can't happen.
00:50:32
Speaker
I really want those.
00:50:33
Speaker
I want to, I want to faith plate at the same time that one's coming out and have those two balls smack into each other at that time.
00:50:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:40
Speaker
It'll be awesome if I can pull that off.
00:50:42
Speaker
Once I have my production play field, I'm writing the code.
00:50:45
Speaker
I can do it.
00:50:46
Speaker
I don't know if anyone else is going to be allowed to run it.
00:50:51
Speaker
And it wasn't by magic.
00:50:54
Speaker
It's by hard work, right?
00:50:55
Speaker
We've seen multiple Whitewood revisions where TJ has been refining this to get it dialed in nice to get the mech working.
00:51:02
Speaker
perfectly to make that face plate happen and then you know to to sort of park the balls nicely when they get to the other side and not deflect off there were a lot of logistical challenges that he brilliantly overcame to make this super cool face plate mac where he just rails the ball up the center and then it flings forward and then right i mean by all accounts that ball should then ricochet off that back wall and come flying back at you but that's not how it's designed it's designed to eat the impact and
00:51:30
Speaker
Park it down nicely, which is how it works and how it works in the game.
00:51:33
Speaker
Right.
00:51:33
Speaker
You fly through the air and portal and you hit a wall.
00:51:35
Speaker
You don't go deflecting off.
00:51:37
Speaker
It's a sort of strange.
00:51:39
Speaker
You crumple.
00:51:40
Speaker
Right.
00:51:40
Speaker
That's the impact is you.
00:51:42
Speaker
But we have the ball how to do it.
00:51:43
Speaker
So, you know, it's it's super reliable.
00:51:47
Speaker
And, you know, from a person who's sitting around writing code, very easy to do because TJ makes it happen.
00:51:54
Speaker
And if something happens and there's, and there is a miss that these guys are, these guys are two of the most brilliant people I know they've got software compensation in there too.
00:52:03
Speaker
Right.
00:52:03
Speaker
So if anything happens, it's like, okay, well I still got my lock.
00:52:05
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:52:05
Speaker
If you're supposed to get a lock, we can make sure you get your lock, but that's the, you know, we, we want you to see if fly through the air and land where it's supposed to land.
00:52:12
Speaker
Right.
00:52:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:13
Speaker
I think we've mentioned like all the really main features of the game, except for one, unless I've missed it, but have we spoken about the sculpted, is that Reggie with the turret that is on the rear side of it?
00:52:24
Speaker
I'm curious about what all this particular device does.
00:52:29
Speaker
I mean, how is it integrated into the game?
00:52:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:32
Speaker
So that's a beautiful mechanical sculpt from Brad and, and it is a,
00:52:40
Speaker
personality core, right?
00:52:41
Speaker
And he's got his own, he's running animations that he can react to you and to what's happening in the game.
00:52:50
Speaker
And so he can look around, he can, you know, look at the action, he can move around, he'll react to what you're doing in the game.
00:53:00
Speaker
So as he's talking to you, you can also get some feedback from him.
00:53:05
Speaker
And then it just so happens that when he turns around, that's when turrets show up.
00:53:09
Speaker
So he doesn't have a turret on his back.
00:53:12
Speaker
You're mistaken.
00:53:13
Speaker
There just happens to be a turret who shows up when he looks away.
00:53:17
Speaker
But yeah, and so it gives us the ability to have two pretty lively mechs in the same place.
00:53:26
Speaker
The turret has integrated lighting for both the laser, the red laser in the center, and the gun muzzle flashes that we can utilize in the game.
00:53:39
Speaker
So different cores, will the Reggie have a different color iris and stuff like that?
00:53:45
Speaker
Okay, yeah.
00:53:47
Speaker
He's got a cyan iris, and it's got a whole lot of personality to it.
00:53:52
Speaker
It's just...
00:53:54
Speaker
Like when you watch Wheatley doing so much expression, you think about this character that has no face,
00:54:02
Speaker
No eyebrows, but it emotes so well.
00:54:05
Speaker
And we've got a lot of that in this with the screen on the front where the eyeball, you know, we can go through and play all these loops and things like that that will go along with, you know, it's like Rudy in Funhouse talking to you and coaching you the entire time, but interacting with you the entire time in the game.
00:54:24
Speaker
And I really do think people are going to fall in love with Reggie.
00:54:27
Speaker
It's such a great character, especially with Mark, but behind the voice of it, I've set in with Mark as he's doing voice work, and I know he's got the range for it.
00:54:36
Speaker
I would have been loved to have been a fly on the wall in the recording process if you guys were there to direct him on any of it, because I know that he can just start ad-libbing and just doing his own thing.
00:54:47
Speaker
But I'm definitely curious to hear all the call outs that he's going to be doing for this.
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah, Mark is just the best.
00:54:54
Speaker
He's such a talented guy, and he's so much fun.
00:54:57
Speaker
And we've got a ton of call-outs in this game.
00:55:01
Speaker
There's a ton of call-outs in this game.
00:55:04
Speaker
And he's really brought this character to life.
00:55:08
Speaker
And I just, like I said, I can't wait for you guys to get in there.
00:55:12
Speaker
And once Michael forgives me for unleashing all these files on him...
00:55:20
Speaker
Well, like you said, too, as a core, it's hard.
00:55:23
Speaker
You're an eyeball.
00:55:24
Speaker
You've got to bring character and personality.
00:55:27
Speaker
There's a part that always sticks out in my mind when you first kind of get Wheatley after he's like, I need you to catch me because I could die when I dismount.
00:55:33
Speaker
And he falls to the ground.
00:55:34
Speaker
He's like, ah, you didn't catch me.
00:55:36
Speaker
And you go to stick him in this machine and you stick him in there.
00:55:37
Speaker
He's like, I can't do this with you.
00:55:40
Speaker
Watch me.
00:55:40
Speaker
This is a robot.
00:55:41
Speaker
This is a robot eye.
00:55:42
Speaker
And you're like, whatever.
00:55:44
Speaker
So you stare at him.
00:55:45
Speaker
He's like, no, no, seriously, turn around.
00:55:46
Speaker
I cannot do this while you're watching.
00:55:48
Speaker
So it's lines like that that bring the personality to a lifeless robot eye.
00:55:53
Speaker
And I can't wait to see how Mark has taken Reggie's character and turned it into something special.
00:56:00
Speaker
Yeah, we wrote all these jokes and all this dialogue.
00:56:04
Speaker
And it's just like, is this going to work?
00:56:06
Speaker
I mean, we think this is really funny.
00:56:07
Speaker
But then you start listening to these recordings from Mark and you're like, oh, my gosh, this really works.
00:56:13
Speaker
And then you get them into the game and you're like, yeah, this really works.
00:56:17
Speaker
And, you know, we were very fortunate to get some feedback from Valve where,
00:56:22
Speaker
you know, they were like, yeah, this captures the spirit of the universe.
00:56:26
Speaker
Like we, we, we, we get what's going on here.
00:56:29
Speaker
And I was like, I'm going to frame that and put that on my wall.
00:56:32
Speaker
Like, I don't, I don't know what more I could want.
00:56:34
Speaker
And, you know, I've had weird Al, weird Al said nice things about me.
00:56:38
Speaker
Now, Valvis said I've captured the spirit of the universe.
00:56:41
Speaker
I'm done.
00:56:41
Speaker
That's it.
00:56:42
Speaker
This is, you know, I'm done.
00:56:44
Speaker
What else am I going to do?
00:56:46
Speaker
Forget a twippy.
00:56:47
Speaker
You just framed that on your wall.
00:56:49
Speaker
I'm like, this is my crowning achievement.
00:56:52
Speaker
I would take one of those too, but no one's offering them, so that's fine.
00:56:57
Speaker
I don't know.
00:56:57
Speaker
You guys, this game looks insane.
00:57:00
Speaker
I know we're at the beginning of the year and blah, blah, blah.
00:57:03
Speaker
But seriously, this game has to be the best.
00:57:06
Speaker
I mean, I haven't got hands on it yet, so I can't confirm.
00:57:10
Speaker
But that's the thing.
00:57:10
Speaker
There are certain games you look at it, first look, and you know something special under that glass.
00:57:15
Speaker
You look at it, and something catches your eye and says, hey...
00:57:18
Speaker
you've got to play this game.
00:57:19
Speaker
There's something special about it.
00:57:21
Speaker
And I can tell from these pictures in this video that people are going to want to play this game and they're going to want to keep coming back for more and more and more.
00:57:28
Speaker
And knowing your guys' track record with Princess Bride, with Final Resistance, with Weird Al, the software and the code and the rules are amazing.
00:57:36
Speaker
You have consultants like Colin McAlpine helping you out and telling you and giving you pointers and stuff like that.
00:57:42
Speaker
I mean, you guys have really made a special product here.
00:57:44
Speaker
And I hope the rest of the community and the industry sees that as well.
00:57:49
Speaker
One thing I do want to bring up that is different with P3 is the ability to include animation onto the main screen.
00:57:56
Speaker
So tell me about how you've integrated the animation and the immersion into the gameplay
00:58:05
Speaker
And tell me about the level of complexity, because a lot of pinball machines, when you look at the play field, it's a static play field, but you have a dynamic play field.
00:58:13
Speaker
So what are the challenges of integrating a dynamic play field into the gameplay?
00:58:19
Speaker
There's a lot going on here, and I honestly believe this is the most sophisticated graphics package ever in a pinball machine.
00:58:29
Speaker
I don't think anything competes with what we're doing computationally from a graphics perspective.
00:58:37
Speaker
I think Hub, and Michael brought this up earlier, we wanted Hub to present a decorated piece of wood.
00:58:46
Speaker
to hit that pinball feel that people want.
00:58:51
Speaker
It's got inserts that will be very familiar to you.
00:58:54
Speaker
It's got beautiful art on it and it communicates things well.
00:59:00
Speaker
And it creates this, like, what people want as a world under glass experience.
00:59:05
Speaker
And this is the most world under glass game I have ever seen in how it presents a room.
00:59:10
Speaker
Like, it doesn't present a bunch of things around the playfield.
00:59:15
Speaker
It's like, this is a almost to scale room.
00:59:19
Speaker
that you are playing in.
00:59:20
Speaker
And that's really cool.
00:59:22
Speaker
But then we also wanted to bring that reconfiguration and dynamic elements to this hub mode.
00:59:29
Speaker
And when you do things like hit the right ramp, and I just, it's so cool.
00:59:34
Speaker
You hit the right ramp, and instead of just turning off the inserts because the inserts don't apply because the ramp moved out of the way,
00:59:41
Speaker
All of a sudden the floor drops out, lowers the inserts, and these arms reconfigure tiles with no inserts on them to block it.
00:59:49
Speaker
So it's like your whole play field just reconfigured in front of your eyes.
00:59:53
Speaker
You know, when you hit the turret, hurry up, start.
00:59:56
Speaker
the center playfield accordions open and its ball comes up.
01:00:01
Speaker
And then this turret turns around and starts shooting at it.
01:00:04
Speaker
And it's like these dynamic elements are not something you can do on a decorated piece of wood.
01:00:09
Speaker
But I think we still managed to maintain that feel of what people expect from a pinball machine within the hub mode.
01:00:19
Speaker
Yeah, like on the right-hand side, when you hit the side targets, the valves on the gel pump and the gel pipe turn and open up, and it starts filling up more and more with the repulsion gel.
01:00:33
Speaker
And then once you open them all up, it will...
01:00:38
Speaker
splash propulsion gel up on the, up on the right hand side.
01:00:42
Speaker
And that's when that kickbacks on.
01:00:43
Speaker
So if you, if you come up the right ramp or the center ramp and you come down there, it's going to hit the bouncy jail and go bouncing right, right back out around the orbit back at you.
01:00:52
Speaker
And it's, it's just really cool.
01:00:54
Speaker
Like all these things that this is the benefit of having a dynamic display as our play field that we can, we can do a lot of these things.
01:01:02
Speaker
And it's, and you know, I just, every time I see it went in first, you know,
01:01:07
Speaker
showed the prototype and worked up the the inserts dropping into the floor and the panels folding up and doing it.
01:01:14
Speaker
I was just like, that's magic.
01:01:16
Speaker
That's that's the greatest thing I've ever seen.
01:01:18
Speaker
And so we've got little monitors that come out for your for your hurry ups for for different aspects of the game.
01:01:25
Speaker
The whole room just reconfigures in front of you and it's really cool.
01:01:28
Speaker
And then when you go into the chambers, then we can present the chambers in a way that chamber needs to be presented to the player.
01:01:35
Speaker
And so
01:01:36
Speaker
We've got some that are like travel modes where you're basically going and working your way through the mode like you would in a portal chamber.
01:01:43
Speaker
And then you've got some that are just, you know, that are presented more like a static room where you're basically...
01:01:51
Speaker
putting reconfiguring the room to fit like, uh, in discouragement beam where you, you hit the spinner and it spins the laser around the room that destroying stuff.
01:02:02
Speaker
And when that, when that laser goes and it hits your, your slingshot or your flippers, then those slingshots become disabled for a second.
01:02:11
Speaker
Flippers become no hold for a second until it passes by.
01:02:14
Speaker
And then it comes on there.
01:02:15
Speaker
So it can actually interact with the physical elements that we have there too.
01:02:18
Speaker
So there's just a whole lot of, uh,
01:02:21
Speaker
Really, really fun stuff.
01:02:23
Speaker
I love how we're able to use the graphics to immerse you more into the world, the screen.
01:02:30
Speaker
I think that we really wanted to...
01:02:33
Speaker
take, we kept hub traditional and we kept the test chambers really different.
01:02:41
Speaker
We really wanted to push what we could do, what people had experienced before within the test chambers.
01:02:48
Speaker
The two first person modes, which Stephen called like travel modes,
01:02:53
Speaker
which are actually captures from Source Engine.
01:02:56
Speaker
They are levels that I created in the Portal 2 authoring tool to create the experience that you go through within the pinball game and present a first-person perspective on that screen is just wild and something that...
01:03:14
Speaker
I hope people appreciate, but it's also isolated to two chambers out of our six in case you don't like it because it's, it's different.
01:03:22
Speaker
And then the other two,
01:03:25
Speaker
The other two rooms, we've got amazing real-time lighting.
01:03:30
Speaker
As your panels move, you see the shadows react and adapt.
01:03:34
Speaker
The high-energy pellet has a light source on it that illuminates the floor around it as it bounces across these panels in the room.
01:03:41
Speaker
And we're doing really cool things, I think really cool things, from a graphics perspective and a visual perspective that really no one has ever done before in a pinball machine.
01:03:53
Speaker
And we get to do it with real assets, right?
01:03:55
Speaker
That's the thing.
01:03:56
Speaker
This isn't like a facsimile of, oh, this is mostly what these things look like in the Portal universe.
01:04:02
Speaker
No, we've got the assets from the game in our levels.
01:04:08
Speaker
That's why they look right.
01:04:09
Speaker
They are right.
01:04:10
Speaker
And so it's a great way to decorate the universe and have it really feel like Portal when it's really Portal.
01:04:16
Speaker
Right.
01:04:17
Speaker
So with the assets, you've got the visual assets.
01:04:20
Speaker
I mean, how far along with audio wise, like sound effects of the turret, sound effects of when you hit a portal or launch a portal.
01:04:27
Speaker
And with audio assets, do you have the song still alive?
01:04:32
Speaker
Yes.
01:04:33
Speaker
Yes.
01:04:34
Speaker
We have.
01:04:36
Speaker
We have the good stuff.
01:04:38
Speaker
The good stuff.
01:04:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:40
Speaker
It's very hard to not get.
01:04:43
Speaker
immediately excited and say, no, this is going to be my new ringtone.
01:04:46
Speaker
No, this is going to be my ringtone.
01:04:47
Speaker
None of these are going to be my ringtone.
01:04:50
Speaker
But right.
01:04:51
Speaker
And then being able to collaborate with Scott again, Scott Denisi to, you know, have him work his magic, make tracks from these tracks that are like appropriate for pinball that really have the right, you know,
01:05:05
Speaker
that have the right feeling but are grounded and built from the bones of the portal music.
01:05:12
Speaker
Super cool.
01:05:13
Speaker
But yeah, we have all the real stuff.
01:05:16
Speaker
It's pretty rad.
01:05:18
Speaker
I'm excited for this for the fact that I feel like Portal is different than what has been done in Pinball before.
01:05:24
Speaker
Not only conceptually and gameplay wise, but it is a theme that I don't feel like you can find in any other company.
01:05:31
Speaker
And I hope this brings in fresh eyes.
01:05:32
Speaker
It brings in people going, what is this?
01:05:36
Speaker
What is Pinball?
01:05:37
Speaker
And they look at this and they go, I need to be a part of this because this is something special.
01:05:42
Speaker
I mean, we've heard people play the princess bride having not seen the movie and then checked out the movie and we're like, Oh, this is really good.
01:05:50
Speaker
Um, and so, you know, portal is, is, is more, more than one movie, right?
01:05:57
Speaker
Portal is a whole universe where you can go down a rabbit hole and, uh, there, there's a lot of VR experiences.
01:06:06
Speaker
There's a whole, whole bunch of really cool stuff out there.
01:06:08
Speaker
And you know, that, that,
01:06:10
Speaker
It's a fun journey for people who haven't gone through the portal.
01:06:14
Speaker
They should check it out.
01:06:17
Speaker
So speaking of portal, on the playfield, on the right side, below your core, there is a captive ball with a portal behind it.
01:06:24
Speaker
Is this stationary?
01:06:26
Speaker
Because it looks like the aerial faith plate loops back around into that area.
01:06:32
Speaker
How does this work?
01:06:33
Speaker
So that's a portal.
01:06:35
Speaker
You hit the captive ball, and it goes through the portal, and it could go anywhere.
01:06:41
Speaker
During our basic gameplay loop, it miraculously appears in your back box, goes up, comes back down and reloads itself.
01:06:54
Speaker
But that is the Edgesley safety cube, which is held there.
01:06:59
Speaker
And after a certain number of trips, you will actually hit that Edgesley safety cube.
01:07:05
Speaker
It will pop out onto your play field in a excursion beam.
01:07:11
Speaker
And if you hit the appropriate target and turn off the excursion beam, the edgeless safety cube will escape into ESC multiball and you will start a two-ball multiball.
01:07:22
Speaker
So it's actually a really cool, like it is a captive ball that can go anywhere.
01:07:26
Speaker
It's a captive ball that isn't really captive, that can escape at any time.
01:07:31
Speaker
During multiballs, that captive ball will portal up to the loft
01:07:37
Speaker
and you can play in the upper play field.
01:07:39
Speaker
And if you complete a moat jump during that multi-ball, that ball will come into play.
01:07:44
Speaker
So you've now brought your captive ball into play as an add-a-ball.
01:07:48
Speaker
So portals free us up to do amazing things and magical things.
01:07:55
Speaker
And the engineering of how you do this is really neat and really cool.
01:08:02
Speaker
And we'll keep that magical for now.
01:08:04
Speaker
But if you're familiar with other P3 games that do clever things with ball placement, ball, taking balls and adding balls, you can probably start to figure out how we did some of these tricks, but yeah.
01:08:18
Speaker
The magic is there.
01:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, but they're not locked in paths to your question, right?
01:08:22
Speaker
Where we're just like, oh, it's a portal.
01:08:24
Speaker
We mean we can take it off the play field and we can put it anywhere else we want it to, right?
01:08:30
Speaker
Any portal you see, we're using as a portal.
01:08:33
Speaker
And so if in one mode you get used to the way the linkages worked, we're going to relink those portals in a chamber in a different way.
01:08:42
Speaker
As Ian said in Hub, that captive ball gets linked to a lot of different places throughout the course of just Hub.
01:08:51
Speaker
And that add a ball is stacked on every multi-ball.
01:08:53
Speaker
So if you want to head on up to the loft during any multi-ball and try to add another ball in, try to add another ball in, try to add another ball in, we want to see how many you can stack.
01:09:07
Speaker
Well, we are getting a little close to the end of the episode, and we want to give you guys the opportunity for final thoughts, areas that you want to focus on that we didn't ask you about, or something that you really want to bring up.
01:09:19
Speaker
Go ahead.
01:09:21
Speaker
I want to say how awesome it's been to work with Ian and how awesome it's been to work with Brad.
01:09:26
Speaker
I've worked with Stephen before.
01:09:27
Speaker
It's awesome to work with him.
01:09:28
Speaker
I've worked with Jerry before.
01:09:29
Speaker
It's awesome to work with him.
01:09:30
Speaker
We're used to working with those people.
01:09:32
Speaker
I used to work with Scott Denisi.
01:09:35
Speaker
I also work with him.
01:09:35
Speaker
But Ian has brought so many cool, good ideas.
01:09:40
Speaker
It's been great to work with him.
01:09:42
Speaker
I think his tournament expertise has really been super, super valuable as we've talked about rules.
01:09:50
Speaker
And you think you have a great idea and he tells you, you know, Doodlebug.
01:09:53
Speaker
That's from Doodlebug.
01:09:54
Speaker
What year is Doodlebug from, Ian?
01:09:55
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:56
Speaker
Oh, you put me on the spot there.
01:09:58
Speaker
Oh, well, at any rate, you know, we can't have good ideas because it's all been done in pinball before.
01:10:04
Speaker
So he's really helped us push ourselves to the limit to find truly new ideas.
01:10:09
Speaker
And Brad's artwork and just sort of, he's just a cool guy in general.
01:10:15
Speaker
And he's participated in so many meetings.
01:10:17
Speaker
And I think that our love for the portal universe is on display.
01:10:24
Speaker
And unlike so many passion projects that we have in the world, this one, we actually get to share with other people and people get to like see and experience and have in their homes, you know, like you get passionate about something, but then you're just like, Oh, well, this is just for me.
01:10:37
Speaker
Like, this is, this is out there for anybody.
01:10:39
Speaker
And that's, we're super fortunate to be able to do this.
01:10:43
Speaker
It's awesome.
01:10:46
Speaker
I want to say that Michael's just OK.
01:10:49
Speaker
That's the nicest thing anyone has said about me all year.
01:10:53
Speaker
So thank you.
01:10:54
Speaker
And if anyone is wondering whether the placement and start of High Energy Pellet is inspired by Doodlebug, the fact that Michael could name Doodlebug in this conversation might give you a hint as to the answer to that question.
01:11:09
Speaker
You know, that Doodlebug podcast is going to be so excited that that old game has gotten so much talk recently.
01:11:15
Speaker
They're going to have two more listeners after this.
01:11:20
Speaker
Okay.
01:11:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:21
Speaker
But I just want to shout out the whole team.
01:11:23
Speaker
I want to tell like everybody has done an amazing job.
01:11:26
Speaker
And I mean, we really do.
01:11:28
Speaker
We've been extremely lucky to have put together these people at this company to everybody's.
01:11:36
Speaker
And we've been lucky with the properties and stuff we've gotten to work on.
01:11:39
Speaker
Everybody's been super passionate about all the projects we've gotten to work on.
01:11:43
Speaker
And so this is my pitch for the P3 in general.
01:11:47
Speaker
Let's say you've been curious about it for a long time.
01:11:50
Speaker
and you're looking at Portal and you're like, oh, this might be the thing that comes across.
01:11:54
Speaker
You buy Portal and you instantly have access to Portal and 23 other games that you can have in the space of one machine in your house.
01:12:03
Speaker
I work for the company.
01:12:04
Speaker
Of course, I'm biased, but I'm also an owner.
01:12:06
Speaker
And it's one of the coolest things in the world that when you get new pinball game day and you just go upstairs and you just download a new game and you've got a whole new gaming experience.
01:12:16
Speaker
It's the only third-party platform
01:12:19
Speaker
Anywhere in pinball.
01:12:20
Speaker
That means anybody out there can go and download the SDK, start cranking on their game, get it, ship it, publish it to people.
01:12:29
Speaker
And every P3 owner on the planet can can buy your game and download it.
01:12:32
Speaker
And the games are like nothing.
01:12:34
Speaker
They're like 150, 200 bucks or something like that.
01:12:36
Speaker
And you get a whole new gaming experience.
01:12:39
Speaker
with these things.
01:12:40
Speaker
I'm going to shout out Birdwatcher, Ian's game.
01:12:42
Speaker
It's awesome.
01:12:44
Speaker
And I'm really hoping Birdwatcher comes to Portal.
01:12:47
Speaker
We'll see.
01:12:47
Speaker
But he developed a game that goes across all platforms.
01:12:52
Speaker
We've got some really great third-party developers that are out there doing this.
01:12:56
Speaker
And I think it's one of the most exciting things to see all these creative ideas that would not have
01:13:03
Speaker
Any other way of making it to the pinball market, you can't go to another manufacturer and say, I want you to take this crazy idea I have and make it available for people.
01:13:13
Speaker
We can do that.
01:13:14
Speaker
We've made it available for everybody to do it.
01:13:17
Speaker
And so there's a lot of cool third party games coming out there.
01:13:21
Speaker
Plus all the first party games that we've been cranking out year after year after year.
01:13:24
Speaker
So I hope if you're seeing this and you're getting interested, come by our booth at TPF and we'll have just an ungodly amount of P3s there where you can go by and you can sample just basically every, almost every game we've got on the system there and check out portal and, and, and play it and come say hi to us.
01:13:44
Speaker
Sounds good.
01:13:45
Speaker
Carrie, I want to know your thoughts now.
01:13:46
Speaker
Final thoughts.
01:13:48
Speaker
Um, uh, first of all, obviously thank you to Scott and Josh for allowing me to come on here and, uh, shoot the stuff about this game.
01:13:57
Speaker
I got to watch my language, but, uh, cause, uh, talking to Jerry about it, I was kind of geeking out like, Oh, is it going to have this?
01:14:03
Speaker
Is it going to have that?
01:14:04
Speaker
And he's like, I don't know.
01:14:05
Speaker
I'm just the project manager.
01:14:07
Speaker
Uh, you got it.
01:14:07
Speaker
I was like, uh,
01:14:08
Speaker
So to be able to talk to you guys to get answers and fellow Portal fans is truly a treat.
01:14:15
Speaker
And hearing everything that you're implementing into this game is getting me more excited to actually play it.
01:14:19
Speaker
And for those that are watching this or listening to this, it is the week of Texas Pinball Festival.
01:14:24
Speaker
These will be there to play.
01:14:27
Speaker
And Jerry told me how many he's going to be bringing.
01:14:29
Speaker
And I really want you guys to encourage him to bring more.
01:14:34
Speaker
I know he wants to show off all the other games and what his system can do, but I really do feel like this game in particular is something that needs to be very prominent at Texas Pinball Festival, and having more of them is going to give more access to those without having to wait in line.
01:14:50
Speaker
But I truly love what you've done with the game for what I can see so far, and I'm really looking forward to playing it.
01:14:57
Speaker
All right, Josh, you get the wrap-up.
01:15:02
Speaker
You know, I'm jealous of Kerry because he gets to go play this game.
01:15:06
Speaker
You guys that live in Texas that already got to play this game, I'm jealous of you guys.
01:15:13
Speaker
This is something I've said multiple times in this podcast.
01:15:16
Speaker
It's something special.
01:15:18
Speaker
If you're intimidated by the system itself,
01:15:23
Speaker
And don't think of it as a modular, but you're buying Portal the pinball machine, right?
01:15:29
Speaker
Because you can get this in your home.
Game Launch and Community Engagement
01:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, you have the accessibility of everything else, but you don't have to feel obligated to that either.
01:15:37
Speaker
Looking at just this, this looks like an amazing experience itself.
01:15:41
Speaker
Don't be afraid to give it a try.
01:15:44
Speaker
Like I said, I'm always about getting your hands on it.
01:15:46
Speaker
And Texas Pinball Festival is a great place to get your hands on it.
01:15:49
Speaker
I think this game is going to be, it is the best showcase of the P3 system, in my opinion, right now.
01:15:55
Speaker
This utilizes the tricks of all the wonderful things it can do.
01:16:00
Speaker
I just can't wait.
01:16:01
Speaker
I can't wait to get my hands on one of these.
01:16:04
Speaker
You guys, as soon as I found out that this was the game, I've been giddy about this.
01:16:09
Speaker
This has been really, really cool because I feel like it's a theme that's geared towards me and to carry.
01:16:17
Speaker
It's crazy.
01:16:18
Speaker
It's crazy to see something like this.
01:16:21
Speaker
Like I said, like Scott and I said earlier, if you do want that $1,000 discount,
01:16:25
Speaker
email us here at loserkidpinballpodcast at gmail.com we'll get you in touch with jerry so we can get you on the list
01:16:31
Speaker
for a P3 or specifically for portal.
01:16:34
Speaker
But that's the, by the way, the discount is for the entire system.
01:16:38
Speaker
So getting the P3 and the portal game.
01:16:42
Speaker
Or P3 and Princess Bride.
01:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
01:16:44
Speaker
It does have to come up with the module.
01:16:46
Speaker
So you're getting into the game and, or, and so we're just making sure it's not like just getting a module because that's a crazy discount anyway, but yeah.
01:16:55
Speaker
All right.
01:16:59
Speaker
Guys, if they want to get a hold of you, Multimorphic team, if you want them to get a hold of you, how do you want them to get a hold of you?
01:17:07
Speaker
You can find out more on Multimorphic.com.
01:17:10
Speaker
We'll have everything up there.
01:17:12
Speaker
We're on Facebook.
01:17:13
Speaker
If you want to follow Multimorphic there, Instagram.
01:17:18
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm on Facebook.
01:17:21
Speaker
Find me, Steven Silver.
01:17:22
Speaker
I don't hide.
01:17:23
Speaker
I don't bite.
01:17:23
Speaker
You can come and say hi.
01:17:25
Speaker
Come see us at the show.
01:17:26
Speaker
Say hi.
01:17:27
Speaker
I think, Ian, you're going to be there too, right?
01:17:28
Speaker
I will.
01:17:29
Speaker
I will be in Texas.
01:17:30
Speaker
Oh, you get to see Ian talk about birds.
01:17:34
Speaker
Um, and, uh, but yeah, just, uh, that's the main sites.
01:17:38
Speaker
And we're, if you want to follow us, uh, follow the company on Facebook, that's a good idea.
01:17:43
Speaker
We're, we're always pumping out, uh, new information about every time there's new release or anything like that.
01:17:48
Speaker
That's, uh, we'll have a lot of information there.
01:17:51
Speaker
And then Carrie, how do people get ahold of you?
01:17:54
Speaker
Don't make it about me, but you can find me on YouTube, but that's it.
01:17:57
Speaker
But yeah, I'm definitely going to be making content, talking about this game as soon as it's revealed.
01:18:02
Speaker
So I'll be doing live.
01:18:03
Speaker
I might even do some streaming of the video game to make people a little bit more knowledgeable about it.
01:18:06
Speaker
And Kerry, plug your plug.
01:18:08
Speaker
Him being a humble.
01:18:09
Speaker
Plug your plug.
01:18:10
Speaker
How they can watch you and consume your content.
01:18:13
Speaker
Plug that, too.
01:18:15
Speaker
Oh, just on YouTube, YouTube dot com slash Kerry Hardy.
01:18:19
Speaker
don't make it about him.
01:18:20
Speaker
He's slumming it with us on Loser Kid.
01:18:22
Speaker
This award winning, like, driving the industry YouTube show.
01:18:28
Speaker
And Kerry's like, I'm just here because I'm a nerd for Portal.
01:18:31
Speaker
Yeah, I was like, I want to talk to these guys.
01:18:35
Speaker
He's also a pretty good restorer, by the way.
01:18:38
Speaker
I got to say, I called Kerry because I saw a post he had made.
01:18:42
Speaker
And I'm like, hey, Kerry, how you doing?
01:18:44
Speaker
And he's like, cut the crap.
01:18:45
Speaker
I was like, what are you talking about, Kerry?
01:18:48
Speaker
I was like, I know you know.
01:18:50
Speaker
I've talked to Jerry.
01:18:52
Speaker
He says, you guys are doing the interview.
01:18:55
Speaker
I want in on this magic.
01:18:56
Speaker
I was like, well, we love you on our show anyway, Kerry.
01:18:59
Speaker
So you're more than welcome to join us.
01:19:01
Speaker
Okay, Scott, if you want people to get a hold of us.
01:19:05
Speaker
We are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
01:19:08
Speaker
And you can find us on all the socials.
01:19:10
Speaker
Josh is really good at keeping up on that.
01:19:12
Speaker
If you want to get a hold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
01:19:18
Speaker
Right?
01:19:19
Speaker
Yep.
01:19:20
Speaker
And at loser kid pinball on all the socials, Facebook, YouTube, all that jazz.
01:19:25
Speaker
So, and if you want our swag, silver ball, swag.com slash loser kid, the baseball jerseys are very comfortable and same with the hockey jerseys.
01:19:34
Speaker
And so, yeah,
01:19:36
Speaker
And I think that does it for, you know, I just feel like I'm missing something, but it's just been such an awesome show.
01:19:41
Speaker
I want to thank everyone for, I mean, it was not easy getting six people together at one time across three different time zones.
01:19:48
Speaker
So I appreciate you guys coming on for sharing your time with us.
01:19:51
Speaker
I know you're just as, you're more enthusiastic than us.
01:19:54
Speaker
We just found out you guys have been dealing with it for over a year, but thanks again for coming on.
01:19:59
Speaker
Give these guys a handshake.
01:20:01
Speaker
Say congratulations if you see them at Texas Pinball Festival.