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Ep 77: Earning Wings with Tim Sexton and Raymond Davidson
73 Plays4 years ago
Ep 77 is here and we talk the many levels of coding with Tim Sexton and Raymond Davidson. We talk Rush, competitive pinball, and a couple of secrets.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:08
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast.
00:00:10
Speaker
We are on episode 77.
00:00:11
Speaker
I am Josh Roop and with me, my cohost is always Scott Larson and Scott.
00:00:16
Speaker
Why don't you, uh, why don't we talk about our sponsor really quick and then I want you to introduce the guest.
00:00:22
Speaker
Sounds good.
00:00:23
Speaker
So, uh, our sponsor is flipping out pinball with Zach and Nicole mini.
00:00:28
Speaker
I just placed an order to upgrade my Deadpool.
00:00:31
Speaker
So I actually, uh,
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Speaker
Got the pop cap stars, and I then ordered the art blades, and then I decided to order the armor, and then I got a topper and a shaker motor.
00:00:44
Speaker
So I'm pretty much converting it to an LE.
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Speaker
But hey, the good news is if you have your eye on something, send them a message, see what they have.
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Speaker
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00:01:08
Speaker
So check out Zach and Nicole Manny at Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:01:11
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Well, let's be honest, too.
00:01:12
Speaker
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Speaker
And it's like, why don't you just call Zach and see if they're producing it anytime soon?
00:01:20
Speaker
And then if you can wait a couple months, it's better than buying it now for, what, $2,000 over MSRP or something, whatever it is right now?
00:01:27
Speaker
Sure.
00:01:28
Speaker
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00:01:31
Speaker
It just took me up.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yep.
00:01:34
Speaker
All right.
00:01:35
Speaker
Why don't you go ahead and introduce our guests today, Scott?
Guest Introduction and Pinball Tournaments
00:01:38
Speaker
All right.
00:01:38
Speaker
So I'm super excited about this because we are talking about Rush.
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a slight fan of Rush.
00:01:46
Speaker
May have been following him basically my entire life.
00:01:49
Speaker
But today we have the lead designer, Tim Sexton, and also the co-designer, I don't know, the co-captain, the Robin to your Batman.
00:02:02
Speaker
I'm not sure exactly how this works, but world number one player in the world, Raymond Davidson.
00:02:08
Speaker
So welcome to the show, guys.
00:02:12
Speaker
Thanks for having us here, Scott.
00:02:13
Speaker
And Josh.
00:02:16
Speaker
Scott introduced us.
00:02:17
Speaker
That's why I addressed him.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:19
Speaker
No, it's no biggie.
00:02:21
Speaker
So I guess that begs the first question.
00:02:23
Speaker
Are you going to go as Batman, Tim, to the end?
00:02:26
Speaker
I assume you and Ray are going to end this.
00:02:27
Speaker
So you go as Batman.
00:02:28
Speaker
He's going to be there as Robin.
00:02:32
Speaker
When we go to pinball tournaments, we have to switch it up because Raymond's better than me at competitive pinball.
00:02:36
Speaker
But he couldn't have Robin win the tournament.
00:02:41
Speaker
We'll both be there and, you know, cheering each other on teams.
00:02:44
Speaker
Go team Stern between us two and Keith.
00:02:46
Speaker
I think I like our odds.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:49
Speaker
That's pretty low.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:50
Speaker
Oh man.
00:02:51
Speaker
Zach's coming to imagine a final four of four of us for the strong final four.
00:02:57
Speaker
We'll try to make it happen.
Pinball Production and Features Discussion
00:02:59
Speaker
I did find out today I was playing around with the Stern Insider and the Stern employees are actually on a tab.
00:03:07
Speaker
So if you want to follow any of those guys, I definitely followed all the people I know.
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think most of us have profiles too.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, if you just search Stern, it'll pretty much pop up the whole company.
00:03:21
Speaker
Yeah, try both all caps and capital S because I think some of them are cased differently.
00:03:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's if you click under connections, that's how I found most people.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:34
Speaker
I have all my activities set to public on there as well.
00:03:37
Speaker
So people can stalk me and find exactly where I'm playing.
00:03:43
Speaker
I don't think it shows that, does it?
00:03:44
Speaker
I haven't.
00:03:45
Speaker
I think it just says what games you've been playing.
00:03:47
Speaker
It doesn't say where.
00:03:48
Speaker
I know it says on mine, like location, like loser kids, awesome arcade or whatever.
00:03:53
Speaker
And your activity.
00:03:54
Speaker
Uh, but I think when you look at someone else, it just says like how many achievements their XP.
00:04:00
Speaker
Oh, gotcha.
00:04:01
Speaker
Oh, gotcha.
00:04:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, there you go.
00:04:03
Speaker
So another plug for the start and insert.
00:04:05
Speaker
Oh, that's also another thing I got for my Deadpool was I got my insider.
00:04:09
Speaker
And so I'm going to be upgrading that here soon too.
00:04:11
Speaker
So,
00:04:13
Speaker
Anyway, all right, guys.
00:04:15
Speaker
Rush.
00:04:17
Speaker
So we watched the reveal as everybody else did, and it looks really fun.
00:04:23
Speaker
It looks like obviously a lot of similar themes to X-Men.
00:04:27
Speaker
I had an X-Men for a while.
00:04:29
Speaker
but it seems like it's even X-Men on steroids in that it seems to flow very well.
00:04:36
Speaker
You guys didn't seem to be breaking anything.
00:04:38
Speaker
I know you guys are elite level players, but at least that shows me that the geometry and everything looked really good.
00:04:47
Speaker
So I'm really excited to get my hands on mine.
00:04:49
Speaker
I have my LE coming whenever those get produced, probably in a month or so.
00:04:55
Speaker
And to start off with, okay, tell me how long you've been working on this project.
Development and Design Insights on Rush Pinball
00:05:01
Speaker
So Raymond and I have been working on this since probably around when, or even before 1.0 of Led Zeppelin.
00:05:10
Speaker
So we didn't have a break in between.
00:05:12
Speaker
It actually is a lot of work to do 13 months or whatever it was between two games.
00:05:18
Speaker
You know, it's a pretty tight schedule, but we were...
00:05:22
Speaker
iterating on designs of Rush before Led Zeppelin was announced.
00:05:29
Speaker
And, you know, I was talking to John, you know, infrequently as he was drawing the play field, working with Elliot on the parts and stuff.
00:05:37
Speaker
When we get to the point where we have Whitewoods and we have, you know, lamps and stuff and devices on the game, which is months and months ago at this point, then...
00:05:51
Speaker
Raymond and I are spending some split time or more of our time on rush development.
00:05:57
Speaker
It was to the point where I think it was the earliest Raymond had ever entered a cycle of game development because often a lot of people join towards the end of the project before we ship because that's when...
00:06:10
Speaker
all the arts coming in and all the focus on the companies on the next game hitting the line.
00:06:15
Speaker
But so Raymond joined his official title in the game is Wingman.
00:06:19
Speaker
So we call the second command software.
00:06:22
Speaker
Do I need to get the owl costume?
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:28
Speaker
when we get the first game and it doesn't light up and nothing moves, Raymond joined at that point, and we both had Whitewoods.
00:06:35
Speaker
Yeah, and Tim was like, all right, make all the devices do stuff.
00:06:38
Speaker
And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what?
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, let me know if you have any questions.
00:06:44
Speaker
Good luck.
00:06:48
Speaker
So coming from, you're both very top tier competitive people.
00:06:53
Speaker
You obviously were competing before you worked at Stern.
00:06:56
Speaker
Um, how has that background helped progress the way that you want to code over the last couple of games, both for, I don't know if Ray days got to do much cause this is the early cycle, but, um, how, how has it helped progress you guys through the code sets and also, um,
00:07:15
Speaker
has it helped knowing those little nuances too?
00:07:16
Speaker
Because like some of the deeper codes have just wonderful little nuances that you get that just make it that much more savory.
00:07:23
Speaker
And so I want to know how bringing your competitive background has helped you make these codes.
00:07:29
Speaker
So for me, I think I'm going to go into just an explanation of what the competitive pinball scene requires to set this up.
00:07:40
Speaker
So when you play competitive pinball,
00:07:44
Speaker
you have to be prepared for a lot of games.
00:07:47
Speaker
You could be playing Tales from the Crypt and then immediately playing Guardians of the Galaxy and Modern Stern and then going back and playing a game like Countdown from Gottlieb that doesn't even have a multiball.
00:07:58
Speaker
So you have to get good at learning what the differences between every single game are.
00:08:05
Speaker
And what this gives you is a really good language for talking about
00:08:10
Speaker
pinball's features over the years, referring to a rule set, referring to some geometry things.
00:08:17
Speaker
That means when you get to Stern and you're looking at the code of the game, which is written in C++, it's pretty easy to think, oh, I've seen this in a game, right?
00:08:27
Speaker
I've seen the way the kickback code works on
00:08:31
Speaker
you know, Star Trek where there's a virtual kickback on one and then there's a physical kickback on the other game.
00:08:37
Speaker
Let's see how that was implemented, right?
00:08:39
Speaker
So something like that, if you have that familiarity from playing competitive pinball, that just makes working here and, you know, diving into the code a lot easier just from the get-go.
00:08:51
Speaker
So that to me is what the advantages of the competitive pinball
00:08:56
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to add basically build on top of that where oftentimes I'll need to come up with rules for for multi balls or jackpot progressions or cool risk reward sort of things.
00:09:08
Speaker
And because I've played so many different games throughout tournaments, I've
00:09:12
Speaker
i i have like an encyclopedia of like oh i could do the acdc similar rule or the family guy inspired rule and you know i always mix and match add my own spin to it but like if i ever i'm low on inspiration i have a whole back catalog to pull you know stuff that was fun and then i can bring those fun elements into into the game so you're telling me bugs bunny's probably not going to make the cut
00:09:37
Speaker
I've yet to see the Bugs Bunny in a tournament yet, but since you're forced to play all those games, you have to just be ready.
00:09:43
Speaker
So I think when it comes to what you want as a competitive player in the games, really you just want something that people are going to like because you're caring more about the game doing well, selling well, being popular.
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah, there's been a couple times where I'll come up with some cool, intricate rule, and then I'll implement it, and then I'll just realize, like, wait, that wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be.
00:10:09
Speaker
And then I actually, you know, make it simpler, and it's like, oh, this is actually more fun.
00:10:13
Speaker
So, yeah, you really got to, you know, play it out and see if the theory works in practice as well.
00:10:21
Speaker
And you have to put your ego behind yourself, because if I'm really good at
00:10:25
Speaker
recovery and nudging the game and Raymond's really good at shot making and you know he thinks he could win if he just has some rule where you loop the ramp 20 times and I think you can win if you just have to shoot a bash toy all day you have to come up with a compromise between you know what is achievable for all players what's going to be fun at the location and the competition stuff is secondary to it the competition stuff to me is just
00:10:53
Speaker
What don't you want to see in a competition because it's going to be embarrassing?
00:10:58
Speaker
Like what's going to show up and say, oh, players are ignoring all the features in this game and just doing this one thing, right?
00:11:05
Speaker
Like that could be a problem or even if just one feature is totally neglected in the game, you know, you haven't done a good job at making that
00:11:13
Speaker
important to hit or valuable.
Stern's Connectivity System and Career Journeys
00:11:15
Speaker
Yeah, and what's nice is with all the software adjustments and you can make competition installs.
00:11:21
Speaker
So, you know, for instance, on Led Zeppelin, if you install the competition, it doesn't light your locks at the beginning of the game or, you know, it'll do something different or it changes how the Icarus multiplier works because like the Icarus multiplier, that was a really fun rule.
00:11:35
Speaker
But if, you know, it's in tournaments and people find the ways to abuse it, you know, we can have a setting that's only on
00:11:42
Speaker
in those really, really tough competition situations.
00:11:46
Speaker
And that can help alleviate it without spoiling it for normal play.
00:11:51
Speaker
I'm assuming that with the new connectivity, that will really help you out too.
00:11:56
Speaker
I would guess you would get some sort of feedback to find out how often this feature is used or how difficult this thing is or how many things.
00:12:07
Speaker
And so you can
00:12:09
Speaker
Before, you would just have to use your own experience or location to try to rebalance things.
00:12:14
Speaker
But it seems like you're getting... This is probably one of the first games where you are going to start getting a lot of feedback very quickly onto how it's functioning in the real world.
00:12:24
Speaker
Is that a correct assumption?
00:12:27
Speaker
It's definitely an avenue that could help us gather more feedback.
00:12:33
Speaker
We plan to continue to develop Insider Connected and to just deliver...
00:12:38
Speaker
more features that people want.
00:12:41
Speaker
We have a lot of ways we already collect feedback.
00:12:44
Speaker
One of the biggest ones is we just go in person and we watch people play.
00:12:48
Speaker
If we can't do that, we watch streams of people playing.
00:12:51
Speaker
People stream at home, people stream in tournaments.
00:12:55
Speaker
And we do have people who, before Insider Connected, would voluntarily give us audits because we gave audits to operators in the first place.
00:13:06
Speaker
And, you know, potentially we could gather more information about the games.
00:13:13
Speaker
But I think what you miss out if you just are getting information from a computer sometimes is is someone having fun and.
00:13:23
Speaker
Going in person and watching people play the games is the best way to see if they're enjoying something.
00:13:28
Speaker
Are they aiming for something?
00:13:29
Speaker
Are they ignoring it?
00:13:30
Speaker
Do they understand what's happening?
00:13:32
Speaker
And, you know, with COVID, it's been harder, but... It might be a certain feature isn't getting activated because people don't know about it rather than it's too difficult or the other way around.
00:13:44
Speaker
Maybe people are going for it, but it's very difficult, so it doesn't happen very often.
00:13:48
Speaker
And depending on the scenario, one of those might be acceptable, one of them might not be.
00:13:51
Speaker
But if you're just looking at a spreadsheet, you won't know the nuance between the two.
00:13:55
Speaker
But yeah, it definitely is cool, the potential there to gather the information.
00:14:00
Speaker
But we are constantly talking while we develop about like, is this fun?
00:14:05
Speaker
Am I enjoying this?
00:14:06
Speaker
What's annoying?
00:14:08
Speaker
We don't hesitate to say, oh, I don't like this or something like that.
00:14:11
Speaker
And then we fix it.
00:14:12
Speaker
We work with other testers in the company, you know,
00:14:16
Speaker
put the code out when we do releases, we work with beta testers.
00:14:20
Speaker
There's so many ways we try to gather information, and we're just trying to move as fast as we can to make the game as fun as it can be.
00:14:27
Speaker
Sorry, when you were speaking of ego earlier, I had this visual in my mind of you guys sitting around the table.
00:14:33
Speaker
And Raymond's like, well, let me show you something on the computer.
00:14:36
Speaker
It's like number one in IFPA.
00:14:38
Speaker
And Tim busts out a trophy.
00:14:40
Speaker
Well, let me show you this trophy.
00:14:41
Speaker
And Keith's like, have you ever heard of an event called Pinberg and puts his trophy on the table?
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Keith just has like boxes of trophies in an attic somewhere like overflowing.
00:14:57
Speaker
He has like a landfill of just trophies he has in his backyard.
00:15:01
Speaker
It seems like Sauron, he has one trophy to rule them all.
00:15:05
Speaker
So, okay, Tim, this is your third game.
00:15:10
Speaker
And so coming, you're no longer a rookie.
00:15:14
Speaker
You have two established games behind you, and this is your third one.
00:15:19
Speaker
How has that process been?
00:15:21
Speaker
And what has surprised you from going from a hobbyist to writing the rule set?
00:15:28
Speaker
Were there things that you expected or what surprised you about that process?
00:15:33
Speaker
Yeah, this is my third game as lead developer, but it's actually the eighth game I've contributed to at Stern.
00:15:40
Speaker
So it's been a lot of games really fast.
00:15:44
Speaker
What's better now is I've just learned so much more than I had when I first started.
00:15:52
Speaker
I learned just instinctively, you know, what's going to work in our code base, what problems have been solved already, where do I need to look?
00:16:03
Speaker
We have people here like Dwight Sullivan and Lonnie Ropp who have just worked for over a decade in the pinball industry.
00:16:12
Speaker
Lonnie's worked here since 1987.
00:16:14
Speaker
So since literally the first line of code was written at Stern, he's been here until now.
00:16:22
Speaker
So he's a tremendous resource.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I think now what's different is I have...
00:16:32
Speaker
I have a lot of good relationships with the people I work with.
00:16:35
Speaker
I enjoy the teams I have to work with.
00:16:38
Speaker
And I'm more confident in what I could do in what could be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time, because I have to go to management and convince them that this game needs three wizard modes, right?
00:16:50
Speaker
And that is a valuable use of our time.
00:16:54
Speaker
And so having gone through the process, I think the confidence in
00:16:57
Speaker
what we can accomplish with the rule set, what I can accomplish, what my teammates can accomplish, and what our art team can accomplish.
00:17:04
Speaker
That's been a big thing to understand exactly what those guys could do in the computer graphics team where they're putting all the stuff on the LCD display.
00:17:12
Speaker
That allows me to get a better understanding of what a game can be at Stern Pinball right now with the team we have.
00:17:20
Speaker
And we have a great team of people here.
00:17:23
Speaker
How has Ben Ryan rule sets for both of you?
00:17:25
Speaker
I know that, Raymond, this is your first co-lead, but... Second.
00:17:31
Speaker
Your second?
00:17:32
Speaker
I mean, I was pretty much tag teaming with Tim on Led Zeppelin mostly.
00:17:36
Speaker
Like, I didn't start from as early on Rush, but from a rules... Like, when I started Led Zeppelin, there was maybe one song mode done.
00:17:45
Speaker
So, like, the framework was all there, and I was able to jump in really fast, as opposed to Rush, where I had to also do the framework.
00:17:52
Speaker
But, yeah, I'd say it's my second game being a wingman.
00:17:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:57
Speaker
So, what...
00:17:58
Speaker
what kind of went to expectations when you guys were writing these rule sets versus what, uh, kind of surprised you when you were trying to, to, uh, put this all together.
00:18:07
Speaker
Um, oftentimes I would, I'd think too hard and long and like complicated and then realizing, oh, it doesn't need to be this complicated.
00:18:19
Speaker
Um, because like, you know, it's, oh, I get to do whatever I want.
00:18:22
Speaker
And so I come up with this cool thing and then I'm like, oh, but I need to kind of relay that.
00:18:26
Speaker
How am I going to relay that to the player?
00:18:27
Speaker
So I'll put a bunch of stuff on screen and then I actually play it.
00:18:30
Speaker
I'm like, there's no way I can read five lines of text in two seconds.
00:18:34
Speaker
Like this is not helpful.
00:18:36
Speaker
And even if I could read it, I'm playing pinball.
00:18:39
Speaker
Like, how am I going to actually, you know, like set up a thing the way I want it to?
00:18:46
Speaker
And so then I'll just start kind of removing layers until I get to something that is a nice compromise of it's intuitive to grasp, but there's still something that's like maybe one extra step of like, oh, this or that will double your super.
00:19:03
Speaker
And that's it.
00:19:03
Speaker
As opposed to like,
00:19:05
Speaker
Five extra layers of rules.
00:19:07
Speaker
I start there and then I realize, okay, I need to scale back and just simplify it.
00:19:13
Speaker
And it ends up working pretty well that way.
00:19:17
Speaker
So that was the one thing I realized is that more complicated doesn't necessarily mean more fun.
00:19:21
Speaker
I think that was a big, big thing.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:25
Speaker
I actually was working on Avengers with Keith and Thor multiball is like the simplest multiball in the game.
00:19:32
Speaker
It's like you hit X number of jackpots and you hit the captive ball.
00:19:34
Speaker
Then you hit X plus one jackpots and you hit the captive ball.
00:19:37
Speaker
And like Keith's like, that mode's super fun.
00:19:39
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, it is.
00:19:42
Speaker
It's so simple though.
00:19:43
Speaker
Like, like just realizing that, you know, more complicated doesn't equal more fun.
00:19:50
Speaker
But I also like to add my own spin where I can and leave little nuggets for people that really want to geek out, you know, if they want to.
00:19:58
Speaker
So how familiar were either of you with Rush?
00:20:02
Speaker
I mean, you're younger than me, and I'm certainly solidly in the dad rock generation.
00:20:07
Speaker
And so I've followed Rush my entire life, but I know that I'm not in the majority.
00:20:13
Speaker
And so how was that, just getting used to a deep catalog like Rush has?
Music Influences in Pinball Design
00:20:21
Speaker
So my dad is in the dad rock generation.
00:20:24
Speaker
All right, son.
00:20:26
Speaker
Showing the age difference here.
00:20:28
Speaker
But, you know, growing up, he drove the car, so he had control of the radio, which meant he had it locked in on the classic rock station, which means over the hours and hours I spent in the car growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia,
00:20:45
Speaker
I've listened to plenty of Rush songs and I got familiar with who the bands were, you know, what their music sounded like.
00:20:53
Speaker
My generation had Guitar Hero, right?
00:20:57
Speaker
Which was kind of a revival for some of the rock music because it was really just rock focused.
00:21:03
Speaker
And I remember, you know, playing YYZ and Guitar Hero 3 was one of the hardest songs in that game.
00:21:09
Speaker
So that was probably the deepest I ever went on a Rush song before then.
00:21:15
Speaker
I have like a little anecdote where when I went to the IFPA championships in Canada, Raymond, do you remember what year that was?
00:21:24
Speaker
I think it was 2017.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:29
Speaker
Around then, my friend Levy rented a car.
00:21:32
Speaker
And as we drove up from the airport to the tournament, he was explaining to me that Canada has a rule where over 30% of the music you play has to be from Canadian artists.
00:21:44
Speaker
Is that an actual rule?
00:21:46
Speaker
Is that rule?
00:21:46
Speaker
Is that serious or is that like a joke?
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:21:49
Speaker
France has that for French artists.
00:21:51
Speaker
It is actually pretty common.
00:21:53
Speaker
We don't think about it as Americans because so much entertainment is produced in America that it would be silly to even impose a rule like that.
00:22:01
Speaker
It's almost like you'd want a 30% of non-American rule.
00:22:04
Speaker
Right.
00:22:05
Speaker
Right.
00:22:06
Speaker
So as we flip through the radio stations there, back to the car again, you know, you get Justin Bieber on station one and then you'd go to a rock station, you get like a band that kind of sounded like, you know, Led Zeppelin, but wasn't Led Zeppelin and it wasn't anything.
00:22:24
Speaker
It's like they're trying and then you would like finally get a rush song.
00:22:27
Speaker
You'd be like, oh, wow, this is this is music now.
00:22:31
Speaker
This isn't just some cheap imitation.
00:22:33
Speaker
This is like a real band with their own sound.
00:22:36
Speaker
Right.
00:22:37
Speaker
And, you know, every time a Rush song came on, like Tom Sawyer, we'd come and we'd just pump our fists like, yeah, it's Rush.
00:22:43
Speaker
It's not some Canadian band we've never heard of before that kind of sounds like Motorhead, but kind of doesn't.
00:22:51
Speaker
So I would say it was a good casual fan of Rush before working on this project.
00:23:01
Speaker
Diving into it, I was a little bit intimidated because of the fandom and the passion from the Rush fans being incredible.
00:23:10
Speaker
I mean, Rush fans, you know, there's stereotypes about it.
00:23:14
Speaker
That's how well noted it is.
00:23:15
Speaker
Like, they only listen to Rush, right?
00:23:17
Speaker
And, you know, you'll ask them, like, how do I get into Rush?
00:23:20
Speaker
And they'll be like, listen to this, all their music and every live recording and blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:23:25
Speaker
So I was actually working with Ed Robertson,
00:23:29
Speaker
on the project, who's a big pinball enthusiast and another Canadian musician, he probably benefits from that 30% rule on Canadian radio.
00:23:39
Speaker
He was like, here's where you want to go.
00:23:41
Speaker
You want to watch the documentary on Netflix, Rush Beyond the Lighted Stage, because that actually gets you an insight into them, into Alex, Gideon, Neil, and what they want to be known as and what they are as people that
00:23:55
Speaker
And you don't have to listen to every single version of every concert they've done in all 85 hours of live DVD they have.
00:24:04
Speaker
Just, you know, start with start here.
00:24:08
Speaker
That's what he said.
00:24:10
Speaker
So starting there, obviously listening to every song they had.
00:24:14
Speaker
And then for me, it was every song we had in the game.
00:24:19
Speaker
I was looking at every time they performed that song live in concert.
00:24:24
Speaker
So going through all the DVDs and all the Blu-ray releases they had and just watching the different concerts and then seeing what they had actually performed, you know, instead of just listening to the audio, you get a little bit more that way.
00:24:38
Speaker
So, you know, just things like every time they do Tom Sawyer in a concert, they do something silly and special with it.
00:24:45
Speaker
Right.
00:24:45
Speaker
Like,
00:24:47
Speaker
One of the funniest things they've ever done is they had South Park playing Tom Sawyer as the intro to Tom Sawyer when they played it in their concert.
00:24:57
Speaker
So just a fun thing like that really would... It's a better way to get into it than just trying to listen to all 19 albums front to back and then listening to live.
00:25:08
Speaker
There's just too many hours of stuff to get into it.
00:25:12
Speaker
But it's great for the fans.
00:25:13
Speaker
I mean, they have all the...
00:25:15
Speaker
Rushley could want it more, I think.
00:25:18
Speaker
Well, that was actually a follow-up question I have.
00:25:22
Speaker
You were able to get a lot of songs for this game.
00:25:26
Speaker
That was an embarrassment of riches, but I'm sure as a Rush fan, I would say, yeah, go ahead and put 150 songs in there.
00:25:35
Speaker
But we know that that's not reasonable.
00:25:38
Speaker
You can do about 114 instead.
00:25:43
Speaker
So you were able to get 16.
00:25:45
Speaker
However, you have a lot of live footage, which is great.
00:25:49
Speaker
You're not handicapped by doing the way you had to do for Aerosmith, where you had a caricature of them playing the songs.
00:25:56
Speaker
You have the real footage doing it.
00:25:59
Speaker
For each song, is it the same footage every time or were you able to mix that up from different live sessions or how was that?
00:26:07
Speaker
And so you can keep it fresh and stay in a collection.
00:26:11
Speaker
So in this game, we have the audio of the game is the studio album track.
00:26:22
Speaker
And we created a video for each of the songs that covers that entire track.
00:26:28
Speaker
And it's assembled from live footage, which means it's not one to one.
00:26:32
Speaker
But thanks to Jodi, director of licensing, we were able to get just the footage we needed to cover what we have in the game.
00:26:43
Speaker
So sometimes we were looking for footage for 2112, right?
00:26:48
Speaker
It's a long song.
00:26:50
Speaker
Most performances of 2112 have been just the overture, maybe just the overture in the finale.
00:26:57
Speaker
But there were two times where they did on footage that I could find the entire song.
00:27:05
Speaker
Well, on the different stages tour, they did the whole thing.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:09
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:27:11
Speaker
And so we cut together the 2112 video from both of those.
00:27:16
Speaker
But it is just...
00:27:18
Speaker
So every time you do play the song, you're seeing one long video, but it's a unique video of the entire song.
00:27:25
Speaker
There's nothing that repeats as long as the audio is playing.
00:27:29
Speaker
So I want to know, because this is another music pin, do you have to approach music pins differently than you do another theme like superheroes or Elvira by chance, since it's mostly music ingrained?
00:27:46
Speaker
I think you do, but I think you have to approach every license, every theme with what the theme is about.
00:27:57
Speaker
Obviously, you have to.
00:27:59
Speaker
You can't just do whatever you want.
00:28:02
Speaker
You have to work with the licensor to get approvals.
00:28:05
Speaker
They want to represent the product a certain way.
00:28:08
Speaker
you want to make the game fun.
00:28:10
Speaker
You meet and you make the best game you can.
00:28:15
Speaker
And we can't, for instance, just start adding music we don't have to this game, right?
00:28:20
Speaker
So we're stuck with the songs we do have.
00:28:23
Speaker
And if we'd start telling a story that's too far outside of that, we're just not going to have enough content in the game that relates to what we're trying to talk about.
00:28:33
Speaker
Like if we didn't have...
00:28:36
Speaker
2112 and we started doing a game about 2112 Rush, it wouldn't make a lot of sense because we wouldn't have any sound effects from it.
00:28:44
Speaker
We wouldn't have any thing there.
00:28:48
Speaker
I don't know if that example makes any sense, but you kind of get what I'm saying.
00:28:53
Speaker
And with the music games and in the LCD era, you want to create an audio and visual and pinball experience that
00:29:04
Speaker
makes sense with what you have because the music is like that main ingredient of the game where you are not you're stuck with it it's like what you are putting into the game that's your first layer if you do let's say a superhero game you might be getting music composed by someone else so you can you're in you're inverted you're now saying this is a battle i need energetic fight music and then this is a
00:29:31
Speaker
you know, exploring the city, I need kind of, you know, enchanted, like nightlife music, whatever you need, you know, you can kind of ask for it.
00:29:39
Speaker
This is the other way around.
00:29:40
Speaker
You're just, this is the mood set by the track and what the music's about.
00:29:45
Speaker
So how do you bring that to life in pinball?
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think in John Borg developing Rush Heat from the get-go, he figured Bastille Day, you're going to start it and it's going to start pumping you up and you're going to have all these targets lit and you're going to want to pump the ramp over and over again and then cash in on the targets.
00:30:02
Speaker
There's big explosions going on.
00:30:04
Speaker
You can really tell that song set the feel for that mode.
00:30:10
Speaker
And I heard that as the song progresses from the, I guess, the verses to the chorus to different parts of the song, there are different things that are illuminated.
00:30:22
Speaker
Is that correct?
00:30:23
Speaker
No, that is the rules of Led Zeppelin.
00:30:25
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:30:26
Speaker
Okay, I have that too.
00:30:29
Speaker
And this was repeated on another podcast, I think, and it was not true.
00:30:33
Speaker
Not exactly sure where it came from, but that was the Led Zeppelin rule set.
00:30:37
Speaker
This is...
00:30:38
Speaker
More of your traditional, when you start a feature, the rules are based on shot making and timers.
00:30:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:45
Speaker
You heard it here first.
00:30:46
Speaker
We're setting the truth right.
00:30:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker
Get that on the record.
00:30:51
Speaker
We got it on record.
00:30:53
Speaker
So you talked about Borg kind of giving you some direction on some of the stuff.
00:30:57
Speaker
How much input does he have on the code?
00:30:58
Speaker
Does he help drive a lot of the direction?
00:31:01
Speaker
Or does he kind of give you guys free reign of what you want to do?
00:31:05
Speaker
John likes to...
00:31:08
Speaker
give us control of it.
00:31:10
Speaker
He likes to give his programmer control of some stuff.
00:31:13
Speaker
John and all designers that I've ever worked with here at Stern, you know, George, Steve, John, Keith, they all insist on some stuff, right?
00:31:24
Speaker
Like if they're giving you a lock device, they want you to be able to start multiball there.
00:31:30
Speaker
If they put an insert on the play field that says light lock,
00:31:33
Speaker
They probably want, and they'll tell you.
00:31:35
Speaker
I want this to light the lock for the multivale, right?
00:31:38
Speaker
And so, like, on this game, John wanted the targets next to the ramp to light the lock, and he wanted the locks at the scoops in the middle.
00:31:50
Speaker
Now...
00:31:51
Speaker
It came later that we decided that Far Cry would be the multiball on that scoop, and that one little victory would be what happens when you beat Far Cry multiball and got to victory laps.
00:32:04
Speaker
But the lower level, before you're making those decisions, you're just deciding where the feature is going to happen before you decide what it is, what the jackpot rules are.
00:32:15
Speaker
It's just built-in layers.
00:32:17
Speaker
So every designer does say,
00:32:20
Speaker
this is what I want people to shoot.
00:32:21
Speaker
This is what I want people to see.
00:32:23
Speaker
If I'm giving you this device, if my budget is going to be spending this much money on this sculpt, I want it to be a main feature of this game, right?
00:32:31
Speaker
So they all have insistence on it.
00:32:34
Speaker
But when it comes to something like, let's say the skillshot,
00:32:40
Speaker
we might be able to put something in and John will say, here's my feedback on it.
00:32:44
Speaker
And then we'll say, here's our feedback on it.
00:32:46
Speaker
We'll reach a compromise, but yeah, originally funny story on the skill shot.
00:32:51
Speaker
I only had the, like the side ramp lit for a skill shot.
00:32:54
Speaker
And if you shot the inner loop and then combo it into the side ramp, you'd get the super skill shot.
00:32:58
Speaker
John would always shoot the side loop.
00:33:00
Speaker
because it would be lit.
00:33:02
Speaker
But then he'd miss the ramp and he'd be like, Raymond, I didn't get a skill shot.
00:33:06
Speaker
I shot the inner loop.
00:33:07
Speaker
It was blinking.
00:33:08
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, that's only for the super skill shot.
00:33:10
Speaker
He's like, oh, okay.
00:33:11
Speaker
Then he comes back to me later.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, I know it's a super skill shot, but I really feel like I should get something for getting half of it.
00:33:20
Speaker
He wants half credit.
00:33:21
Speaker
He wants a three-second ball save.
00:33:24
Speaker
That would actually be a perfect rush joke in there.
00:33:28
Speaker
It's kind of a minor skill shot.
00:33:33
Speaker
It's a semi-skill shot.
00:33:35
Speaker
You should put a semi-skill shot in there.
00:33:36
Speaker
Sometimes it's hard to talk about even how these decisions are made because they're made through ongoing, evolving discussions.
00:33:44
Speaker
you know, throughout the entire project, right?
00:33:47
Speaker
Like at some point we do say, this is what we're going to do, but we don't have just one person run off and decree something.
00:33:54
Speaker
It's, it's all, are you okay with this?
00:33:57
Speaker
What do you think?
00:33:58
Speaker
Want to try it this way?
00:34:00
Speaker
And as long as everyone's on the same page, we'll go in that direction.
Collaboration and Challenge Modes in Rush Pinball
00:34:04
Speaker
And if someone says, Hey, this isn't working for me, is there something I'm missing?
00:34:08
Speaker
You know, it's discussions are happening with a,
00:34:11
Speaker
other input constantly there, right?
00:34:15
Speaker
And I go to John and I say, hey, you know, what if we
00:34:19
Speaker
did this, or I want somehow the ball to kind of move this way throughout the playfield.
00:34:24
Speaker
And he goes, oh, I'll think about that, right?
00:34:25
Speaker
And then he'll come back to me and say, what about this?
00:34:28
Speaker
So there's just ongoing discussions throughout the game that's really hard to pin down when something was decided or when it came to be.
00:34:36
Speaker
I can't put down like, okay, June 28th, we put a time machine on the playfield.
00:34:40
Speaker
It just doesn't happen that way.
00:34:43
Speaker
I do love that you continued with the expression lighting.
00:34:48
Speaker
That is a huge plus on music pins.
00:34:51
Speaker
And that's the first thing that people notice when they go up to Led Zeppelin is the interactivity of the light show, which makes it feel a lot more like a concert.
00:35:00
Speaker
So I'm really glad that you kept it.
00:35:01
Speaker
And where I'm sure there's budgetary constraints that you can't put in every model, you still made that available if people wanted to purchase it after market and put it in.
00:35:11
Speaker
And so I really applaud that design option because it does take music pins to an X level.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah, I really liked it.
00:35:21
Speaker
I worked on that on Led Zeppelin initially with Steve, and I've talked about that before, that that took some evolutions and it took some research with Tanya, Kleiss, and myself in looking at how we could create those light shows.
00:35:37
Speaker
And then Mike
00:35:38
Speaker
Vinacor, who you may know, he works at Stern.
00:35:43
Speaker
He's the head of our testing department, but he's also become really, really good at creating the light shows in the software tool and bringing them into the game for the music pins.
00:35:56
Speaker
He also has a skill shot named after him in pretty much every game.
00:36:00
Speaker
This is true.
00:36:01
Speaker
I appreciate him for the work he's done putting all these light shows in Led Zeppelin and
00:36:06
Speaker
rush.
00:36:07
Speaker
And I think because when they are music driven, like they are with the expressive lighting, the fact that I could just give him a song, right?
00:36:16
Speaker
Sort of in tandem with what Raymond and I are doing on rules or display effects or play field light shows.
00:36:23
Speaker
I can give him the music and he could take the time he needs to balance with all his other tasks at work to work on that stuff.
00:36:30
Speaker
And that frees us up to, you know, do what we need to do on the play field.
00:36:35
Speaker
So yeah,
00:36:37
Speaker
The story I keep repeating, I guess, is everything is done kind of this coordinated dance of software development and art development and light shows and everything.
00:36:48
Speaker
It's all kind of moving toward the day when we put the game in a box and start packing it.
00:36:54
Speaker
I could see Vinicor being like, so now that we've done Rush and Iron Maiden, let's go with like a Ramones for The Clash, right?
00:37:03
Speaker
Like, I'll compromise.
00:37:04
Speaker
We don't have to do Sick Puppies, but we can do the Ramones.
00:37:08
Speaker
How about that?
00:37:09
Speaker
We already decided that Creed was the next music pin, so.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yes.
00:37:14
Speaker
I thought you said Nickelback.
00:37:15
Speaker
You're pushing for another Canadian band.
00:37:17
Speaker
Nickelback would work, too.
00:37:19
Speaker
It's Canadian, so I think they're Canadian, so.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yes, they're Canadian.
00:37:25
Speaker
OK, so the one thing that Dwight started with Ghostbusters, which a lot of these games have been implemented, is kind of a jump mode.
00:37:35
Speaker
And so you can jump to a wizard mode or a challenge mode.
00:37:40
Speaker
And I think that has been such a great way of allowing people to see more of the game because there are so few people that actually get to the end of the game that if you have the ability to, OK, I want to play that mode.
00:37:54
Speaker
It does two things.
00:37:55
Speaker
One, it shows off more of the game, and it also gives you incentive to actually put some time into coding this really awesome mode because more people are going to see it.
00:38:06
Speaker
That's my subtle take to say, hey, are there any plans like that for Rush, including a 1-3 mode or a 1-2 or 2-2 or anything like that?
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'm ready to reveal a secret.
00:38:20
Speaker
On the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, this game will have three
00:38:24
Speaker
Challenge modes.
00:38:26
Speaker
It will have a 2112 challenge mode, a Cygnus X1 challenge mode, and a Cygnus X1 Book 2 challenge modes.
00:38:35
Speaker
The Cygnus X1 will be split up into two parts, like the planets are split up on the playfield.
00:38:40
Speaker
Yeah, and so you have two epic modes based on black holes.
00:38:47
Speaker
Exactly.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:48
Speaker
Just in case anybody who really didn't know about Cygnus X1 and Cygnus X2, it's a black hole circling a star, which is what the song was about, which was huge in the 70s, I guess.
00:39:01
Speaker
They did take a lot.
00:39:02
Speaker
Rush definitely took a lot of pop science influence for their themes.
00:39:07
Speaker
You know, that's sort of as I'm unpacking what the song's about.
00:39:12
Speaker
And I learned that Cygnus X1 was the first discovered
00:39:16
Speaker
black hole you know and of course growing up at the time i did where i was taught pluto was a planet then it wasn't right hey pluto's still a planet i roll with pluto it's fine thanks cancel culture yeah you know maybe that would have been the topic of of a song if they had been 30 years later in their music career like goodbye pluto i'm surprised they didn't have a hubble hubble telescope uh song so yeah
00:39:46
Speaker
No, that's a hey, I'm super excited about that because those for those who are unfamiliar with Russia's catalog, one, go listen to the Stern Insider interview with Ed Robertson because he talks about the song selection and I don't want to rehash it and steal their thunder.
00:40:02
Speaker
But the bottom line is 15 of the songs were all selected by
00:40:11
Speaker
Ed Robertson is the lead singer of Barenaked Ladies and Alex Lifeson, who's the lead guitarist of Rush and Geddy Lee, who's the lead bass and also the lead vocals.
00:40:20
Speaker
And so they got together and selected these songs.
00:40:22
Speaker
Now, three of these songs are close to 20 minutes because they're basically half an album.
00:40:27
Speaker
And so all of those epic challenge modes that Tim just talked about, those are all those three epic songs.
00:40:34
Speaker
And so if you can last 18 minutes, 18 to 20 minutes on one ball,
00:40:40
Speaker
you are in, in rate a territory right there.
00:40:43
Speaker
I think people have liked those challenge modes.
00:40:46
Speaker
They do pretty well when there's like a victory condition and a condition where you, you don't win.
00:40:52
Speaker
Right.
00:40:53
Speaker
And because it gives you a chance to play a game and pinball where you're actually trying to beat the clock.
00:41:00
Speaker
And we've done those timed leaderboards and those untimed leaderboards.
00:41:04
Speaker
I think when,
00:41:06
Speaker
For me, I worked on Jurassic Park a little bit as... I was working on some T-Rex animation, motor animation, when Rick was putting in that escape Nublar wizard mode, where you have three chances, and it really got to be this big project of itself.
00:41:25
Speaker
And when we put it as a game, because I can't remember the timing of that in Ghostbusters, because Ghostbusters, we did that software update, and...
00:41:35
Speaker
I don't remember where that fell in.
00:41:37
Speaker
But with the LCD screen with Nublar, they could lay out the three high scores, the speed and the points challenge.
00:41:45
Speaker
It was just a lot
Working with Celebrities and Professional Growth
00:41:47
Speaker
of fun.
00:41:47
Speaker
We were just playing it in the office, and it was awesome.
00:41:50
Speaker
Working here, you've obviously rubbed shoulders with celebrities and stuff like that.
00:41:54
Speaker
Has it been easy to keep your composure?
00:41:55
Speaker
Is there anyone you've met so far and you're like, uh, uh, hi, uh, have you ever heard of that?
00:42:01
Speaker
My most embarrassing story is when
00:42:05
Speaker
I texted Brendan Small because I saw Home Movies, his show was trending on Twitter, and he kind of just was like, yeah, whatever.
00:42:18
Speaker
That was, I mean, Home Movies is one of my favorite animated shows.
00:42:22
Speaker
It didn't run for very long.
00:42:23
Speaker
I didn't see it when it came out, but he was beyond that.
00:42:27
Speaker
So I try not, I just try to approach them like they're
00:42:32
Speaker
regular people that I'm conducting a business relationship with and not, not get too crazy with stuff they did in the past.
00:42:42
Speaker
We can't have Raymond on the project anymore.
00:42:44
Speaker
He tried to hug us too much.
00:42:47
Speaker
Well, he was supposed to go hug Ron because Ron loves hugs.
00:42:51
Speaker
Anytime you see Ron at a show, go up and give him a big hug.
00:42:55
Speaker
I don't know about that.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:59
Speaker
Okay, so... Actually, not... Even in the before times, I don't think he would like that.
00:43:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, he... That's a joke.
00:43:06
Speaker
Ron is not a hugger, so you can wave at him.
00:43:09
Speaker
His dad's pretty cool to hang out with, though.
00:43:12
Speaker
As far as being, like, starstruck, I still get nervous even just slack messaging Keith about anything.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:20
Speaker
So when you're developing code, so now this has been for the last 10 years, you have had to deal with not one play field, but basically two layouts.
00:43:32
Speaker
So you have the premium LE layout and you also have the pro layout.
00:43:37
Speaker
So when you're designing a code for that,
00:43:41
Speaker
do you start with the vision for the premium LE and then start to pull back as you go to the pro?
00:43:49
Speaker
Or do you get the basic layout on the pro because you have similar, similar layout, similar roles, and then try to expand as the, as the flow dictates with a new, with a premium and LE, I guess.
00:44:06
Speaker
It is tough to answer because it really depends on the,
00:44:10
Speaker
what's happening as we're developing the games and they're drawing what's going to change from them.
00:44:16
Speaker
I mean, the designers have different approaches to how they're going to split up the pro and the premium.
00:44:23
Speaker
And sometimes the designer will say that, you know, I just want this to be a premium only rule that goes along with this premium only device.
00:44:32
Speaker
Sometimes they'll leave it up to me or whoever's working on the project.
00:44:38
Speaker
I think with
00:44:39
Speaker
Like, let's go back to Led Zeppelin on the Electric Magic device.
00:44:43
Speaker
And that just wasn't in the Pro, right?
00:44:48
Speaker
It just didn't feel like something you'd want to simulate because it's really hard to simulate a spinner, an opto spinner, right?
00:44:56
Speaker
It's really hard to simulate a ball locking device when it's just not like it doesn't even go into something.
00:45:02
Speaker
Right, so that just felt, I mean, just intuitively, it just feels like if you're going to try to do something that's the same for both of these games, it's not going to work.
00:45:11
Speaker
When you're doing something like so with Rush, there are a lot of differences kind of scattered throughout.
00:45:19
Speaker
So the gameplay is slightly different just based on those differences.
00:45:23
Speaker
And I think that just matches the design like free will multiball on the premium has a ball lock device.
00:45:32
Speaker
So when you have a ball lock device, you want to lock the ball and you know, you could bash on it when it's locked.
00:45:39
Speaker
So it just feels like you should have some add a ball opportunity there.
00:45:43
Speaker
And with the pro since you can't hold the ball there, it just doesn't,
00:45:47
Speaker
feel like yeah or you can kind of do like on on metallica where you'll still get double scoring you might still get out of ball but it won't physically keep it out of the way for you which if you're a tournament player and you know you know it's a lot easier to control one ball than than two so you might prefer the way the premium plays because you can kind of stuff it over there and then hit the the jackpots with the other ball
00:46:09
Speaker
Whereas on the Pro, you hit it, it's coming right back.
00:46:12
Speaker
You've still got two balls, which can also be fun in its own way.
00:46:15
Speaker
It's just different.
00:46:16
Speaker
So it's just a different style for the different games based on what features are there.
00:46:23
Speaker
And then also, I think with the time machine ramp that goes up to down on the Pro and the Premium, you want to just create the differentiation there in the effects as well and create a rule set that makes it sense.
00:46:36
Speaker
for the ramp to go up and down, right?
00:46:38
Speaker
So with the Pro, you just lose the effect of the actual bashing of the time machine because you're always kind of shooting through it, where you got to just make that fun on the premium.
00:46:51
Speaker
OK, so I'm looking at the time machine and with the ramp that goes up and down.
00:46:55
Speaker
And what are you hitting when the ramp is down?
00:46:59
Speaker
It looks like a metal plate.
00:47:00
Speaker
Is that a target or what is it that you're hitting?
00:47:05
Speaker
Uh, you'd have to ask Elliot for exactly what it is, but you're right.
00:47:08
Speaker
You're hitting middle.
00:47:09
Speaker
There's an opto sensor.
00:47:11
Speaker
And then based on the position of the ramp, you are getting progress for the lowered shots versus the raised shots.
00:47:20
Speaker
So it is basically a target of some, of some sort.
00:47:23
Speaker
That was what was confusing to me because I didn't see the typical standup, uh,
00:47:28
Speaker
Well, it doesn't register.
00:47:29
Speaker
It doesn't register, yeah.
00:47:31
Speaker
It registers it on the ramp, like at the very end of the ramp.
00:47:33
Speaker
So whether it's up or down, it registers a shot.
00:47:36
Speaker
It just knows, oh, I'm down.
00:47:38
Speaker
So award what you would award for bashing, which in Rush is progress towards your time machine multiball.
00:47:44
Speaker
So the premium, it's very easy to differentiate.
00:47:47
Speaker
Oh, the ramp's down?
00:47:47
Speaker
That means I'm building towards my next time machine multiball.
00:47:50
Speaker
Oh, the ramp's up?
00:47:51
Speaker
That means there's some award it's going to show me if I shoot it up there because the magnet holds the ball.
00:47:57
Speaker
And then in multiball, if it's up and nothing's there, it'll just kind of like shoot through.
00:48:01
Speaker
So there's like different states you can do with the up, down, the magnet, working towards different rules.
00:48:06
Speaker
Yeah, Raymond brings up a good point.
00:48:08
Speaker
It's so much more intuitive on the premium what you're going to get on the time machine, not only because of the ramp going up and down, but because the lights have a language telling you what feature is lit on the time machine.
00:48:20
Speaker
So you know when it's down, you could just...
00:48:23
Speaker
Bang, bang, bang on that thing to get to a multiball.
00:48:25
Speaker
And if you're in a situation in the game, so sensitive to the game where you really need a multiball, you don't know which one's the closest, you know just a few shots away you'll be able to raise the ramp and start a multiball at the time machine.
00:48:38
Speaker
There also seems to be a lot more, I guess, state changes that you have in this.
00:48:43
Speaker
You have the premium LE anyway.
00:48:45
Speaker
You have the diverger, you also have the time machine, and you also have the ball lock beyond the instrument drop targets.
00:48:54
Speaker
Um, so I do like that.
00:48:57
Speaker
It seems that there are multiple ways the ball can move, even if it's, uh, I guess it mixes it up a lot more.
00:49:04
Speaker
Uh, it feels a little bit like Lord of the Rings where different shots do different things.
00:49:10
Speaker
One thing I did notice, and you were talking about this on the stream, where if you collect albums before you start a mode, I'm assuming that is like, it's like in Deadpool, collecting all your teammates before you go into a battle.
00:49:24
Speaker
And so it's probably a score multiplier that it's a more valuable mode if you collect the albums before you start a mode.
00:49:31
Speaker
Well, there's a whole other system for that.
00:49:33
Speaker
Those are the records.
00:49:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:36
Speaker
Yeah, I'll try to keep the geeking out short.
00:49:39
Speaker
But to answer the question about the albums, those give you perks on the button, the action button called the weapon.
00:49:47
Speaker
So in order to charge up your weapon through the power of music, you got that album and they're playing your song on that album.
00:49:54
Speaker
Now you can use your weapon.
00:49:55
Speaker
It'll spot all the shots on the play field for you.
00:49:59
Speaker
So if you collect the Hemispheres album and then you start La Via Strongiato,
00:50:05
Speaker
you know you can hit that button and uh depending on you know if you're if you want to go really next level you can actually choose which direction it spots the shot based on the diverter so it can go left to right or right to left you can you know use go as big brain as you want um but basically the idea is you get an album you get a perk with the button in multi-ball that perk is an add-a-ball so that's the one i think people are going to really pay attention to they're going to learn
00:50:27
Speaker
which combos go to which albums, go to which songs, go to which multiballs so they can get their addaballs.
00:50:32
Speaker
And then the other thing that you mentioned about raising your values, that's all records based.
00:50:38
Speaker
So if you can, you shoot the record shots that are scattered around the play field, there's six of them and they're actually all color coded.
00:50:45
Speaker
So when you're collecting colors of a record, that'll determine which mode starts.
00:50:50
Speaker
So if you have three blue records and it'll start spirit of the radio or whatnot,
00:50:55
Speaker
And you can keep collecting records once you light the mode, and that'll give you a 10%, 20%, you know, more and more boost.
00:51:02
Speaker
But you can also, there's even another thing where the song shot, the record shots that are the same color, those are 2x.
00:51:09
Speaker
So if you really want to, you know, get the biggest mode possible, you'd get all six records, the same color, you'd start your mode.
00:51:15
Speaker
And now every shot in that mode is amplified by its percentage and it's double, you know, all that stuff.
00:51:19
Speaker
So,
00:51:20
Speaker
But you can also just ignore that and just shoot around because all the shots feel so good.
00:51:26
Speaker
And basically the more stuff you're hitting, you know, the more points you're going to be getting.
00:51:31
Speaker
Everything Raymond just said made a complete sense to me.
00:51:35
Speaker
And Scott, when you get your LE and have a month on it, everything he said will make complete sense to you as well.
00:51:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:42
Speaker
It actually reminds me of Led Zeppelin.
00:51:45
Speaker
When you have the Zoso, the little symbols down at the bottom, I actually, that was one thing I had a question about.
00:51:52
Speaker
And I, I, I even mentioned, um,
00:51:55
Speaker
That was one thing I had a question on Led Zeppelin because it seems very similar in that if you're trying to level up all the icons together, then it works symbiotically.
00:52:04
Speaker
And so it seems like you're implementing a similar vibe here, which I think is really, really good.
00:52:10
Speaker
I mean, with a rock and roll pin, you want to be ripping shots and rewarding combos.
00:52:14
Speaker
And yeah, the more shots you're hitting, the more things are going to be set up for you.
00:52:19
Speaker
So I have to know, now that pinball is your official job title of where you're working, how has it changed from being a hobby to being a profession?
00:52:30
Speaker
I'll let Raymond start with this one.
00:52:32
Speaker
I stream, you know, I'm more busy, so I can't stream as much.
00:52:37
Speaker
And I have to ask for, like...
00:52:43
Speaker
time off, but it's a little easier to ask for time off if it's pinball related because it's pinball so I can go to this pinball tournament.
00:52:50
Speaker
But then also, you know, I'm kind of still learning to balance the, you know, everybody...
00:52:58
Speaker
who are talking to me about pinball and then where to draw the line when they ask like a work question that I can't answer.
00:53:04
Speaker
So that's been probably the biggest shift for me is like, I want to tell people everything about everything.
00:53:10
Speaker
Like even as I'm developing the rules for rush, as you can just tell, I just kind of like spewed out what I've been holding in for the past two months, you know, like I want to, I just want to talk.
00:53:19
Speaker
I just want to like tell people about everything, but you know, sometimes you can't.
00:53:23
Speaker
So that's, that's probably the biggest, the biggest thing.
00:53:27
Speaker
So don't buy drinks to Rayday while he's at a tournament.
00:53:31
Speaker
Well, it actually reminds me of it.
00:53:33
Speaker
So Tim, you actually went on Slam Tilt before you were hired at Stern.
00:53:39
Speaker
And so you had free reign to talk about whatever you wanted.
00:53:42
Speaker
But now it seems different than that you have to be very careful about what you're allowed to talk about and what you're not.
00:53:50
Speaker
And for Josh and I, we can do a podcast because we can just wildly speculate.
00:53:56
Speaker
There's nothing that we can't talk about.
00:54:00
Speaker
But with you guys, it seems to probably walk in that fine line of,
00:54:04
Speaker
being social and being involved in the, in the hobby, but still you are, that is your job now.
00:54:10
Speaker
And so there are things that you need to be more guarded about.
00:54:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:14
Speaker
The shift is pinball is now what pays my bills and my rent and everything.
00:54:20
Speaker
And I, you know, want to continue to do this because it's fun.
00:54:24
Speaker
I don't want to lose the opportunity to do what I do because I run my mouth or,
00:54:29
Speaker
I get someone upset with me, right?
00:54:31
Speaker
So I just want to be respectful, even though I have a lot of passion for pinball and I have a lot of opinions, it does me no good to just go and tell everyone what I think when I have the opportunity to actually demonstrate what I believe and what I've learned through my work.
00:54:48
Speaker
So, you know, within the building of Stern, within our communication on Slack and Zoom at work,
00:54:57
Speaker
I say whatever I want to a much smaller group of people, right?
00:55:01
Speaker
It's not on a podcast.
00:55:02
Speaker
It's not on my Facebook feed anymore.
00:55:05
Speaker
It's just, you know, we're all on the same team, though, at Stern, where we want our games to be as good as they can be, everyone at our company to be supported, to be able to grow at the company.
00:55:19
Speaker
So it's, you know, this is how people at Stern, like, if we...
00:55:25
Speaker
aren't making great products and people lose their jobs.
00:55:28
Speaker
Like that's something we're partially responsible for in product development.
00:55:33
Speaker
So it makes it, you know, serious in a way where, you know, we're all looking to do this and have fun and make great games, but you know, people are making a living because this is their job.
00:55:47
Speaker
And we want that to continue for two reasons.
00:55:49
Speaker
One, because people ought to have
00:55:51
Speaker
jobs and be able to make a living and put food on their table.
00:55:54
Speaker
But two, because we want pinball to stick around and we want pinball to continue to grow and thrive and go to this next generation and this current generation of people who are discovering it and continue the growth it's having because that means it'll last that much longer for the next generations.
00:56:09
Speaker
And we find it fun.
00:56:10
Speaker
So we want to pass that along.
00:56:13
Speaker
So do you feel like people have been more respectful to both of you knowing that you work at Stern now?
00:56:17
Speaker
Or are you getting people that are dillweeds that are like, you know, you really should tell me what's coming up next?
00:56:23
Speaker
Or why don't you just do this with your code because that makes more sense and they harp on you for that?
00:56:28
Speaker
People are excited because they love pinball.
00:56:31
Speaker
That's the main thing.
00:56:33
Speaker
They want to know what's next because they just can't get enough of pinball.
00:56:38
Speaker
They want to know what's coming.
00:56:39
Speaker
They want to...
00:56:40
Speaker
think about how great things are going to be in the future.
00:56:44
Speaker
It's just for everyone.
00:56:45
Speaker
I think it's always hard to live in the moment of enjoying what's going on right now.
00:56:50
Speaker
And, you know, we are trying every day, like our moment is creating the next moment for people.
00:56:56
Speaker
And it's just, you know, I understand where it comes from and I just try
00:57:01
Speaker
When people do come up to me at a show or something and they try to tease out what the next title is going to be, I've heard it now at this point.
00:57:08
Speaker
I know kind of how to smile and say, is that what you think is coming?
00:57:13
Speaker
That's good for you, man.
00:57:14
Speaker
I hope you're having fun at the show.
00:57:17
Speaker
I hope you enjoy Stern Games.
00:57:20
Speaker
Just kind of take the focus to what's going on right now.
00:57:24
Speaker
And at Stern, if we go to a show or something, let's say we go to Pinball Expo,
00:57:29
Speaker
Raymond and I know Rush is next.
00:57:31
Speaker
Raymond and I know what we have to do with Rush to get it to the stream and, you know, all the changes that are being made.
00:57:38
Speaker
And, you know, we can't talk about that.
00:57:40
Speaker
Some other people might know that there's a game called Rush coming, but they're not going to be able to know where it's going.
00:57:47
Speaker
You know, we have to, we're close enough to that.
00:57:49
Speaker
So we just focus on, hey, you know, we've got a new 40th anniversary Elvira and we've got Godzilla here and Insider Connected.
00:57:58
Speaker
Like,
00:57:59
Speaker
Those are things we've seen everyone work really hard on for months and years at Stern.
00:58:04
Speaker
I think Insider Connected, like watching the effort of software and marketing and legal and just the outside groups we're working with, like everyone involved in this.
00:58:15
Speaker
It was such a big project that we all wanted to succeed so bad that it wasn't hard to just focus on
00:58:22
Speaker
this is what we have at expo.
00:58:23
Speaker
This is insider connected.
00:58:24
Speaker
It's awesome.
00:58:25
Speaker
You get achievements.
00:58:26
Speaker
Now when you play the games, your name pops up automatically.
00:58:29
Speaker
Would you like log in?
00:58:30
Speaker
Pitbull has never been connected to the internet.
00:58:32
Speaker
Isn't this cool?
00:58:33
Speaker
And there's a special, special badge.
00:58:34
Speaker
You can only get an expo.
00:58:36
Speaker
So make sure you, you get it or you won't have a chance.
00:58:39
Speaker
Got to get that shiny badge.
00:58:41
Speaker
We did get the badge.
00:58:42
Speaker
Josh and I got the badge.
00:58:43
Speaker
We did.
00:58:43
Speaker
Yep.
00:58:45
Speaker
Well, what makes, makes me laugh.
00:58:46
Speaker
I I'm assuming you guys, I know Raymond comes from a video game background.
00:58:50
Speaker
Cause obviously the banjo Kazooie.
00:58:52
Speaker
Um,
00:58:52
Speaker
there's always that one video game you play and it's like the second you start, you get an achievement.
00:58:57
Speaker
It says like, so it starts or something like that.
00:59:00
Speaker
You guys need to do that.
00:59:01
Speaker
Like as soon as you push the start button, you pretty close to the flipper achievements on each game.
00:59:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:06
Speaker
Well, I've got, well, and flipper, I've got Jurassic park and I've got Avengers both connected now.
00:59:12
Speaker
And, um,
00:59:14
Speaker
the first game on Jurassic Park, I wasn't even attempting for much.
00:59:17
Speaker
And I got like 26 achievements.
00:59:19
Speaker
I was like, dang.
00:59:20
Speaker
And same with Avengers.
00:59:22
Speaker
I think I got 20 in the first.
00:59:24
Speaker
It might have been more because it seems like once you start a gem and once you complete a gem, you get an achievement.
00:59:28
Speaker
And so, I mean, there's 10 achievements just there alone plus six Avengers.
00:59:32
Speaker
So there's, you know, there's 16 achievements right there.
00:59:35
Speaker
But anyway, it,
00:59:37
Speaker
I've been nervous about converting my Jurassic Park LE and my Avengers LE because I like the way it looks right now.
00:59:46
Speaker
So maybe I'll have to figure out some other way of doing it.
00:59:50
Speaker
But yeah, I'm really excited to get all my games connected.
00:59:52
Speaker
And most of my games are newer games.
00:59:56
Speaker
I've been able to sell off most of the older ones.
00:59:58
Speaker
So it's been really fun to see the evolution.
01:00:00
Speaker
I think they look a lot less invasive on a premium LE than they do on a pro.
01:00:05
Speaker
But I don't know what your guys' game plan is.
01:00:09
Speaker
The thing about the Insider Connected kits is it's
01:00:13
Speaker
They've kind of got like an expiration date on them, right?
01:00:15
Speaker
Because like you can only put them in so many games because you already put them in the new games and there's only so many in the back catalog.
01:00:22
Speaker
So it kind of defeats the purpose of like customizing each apron and what stuff.
01:00:28
Speaker
The back catalog is a lot of games.
01:00:30
Speaker
I mean, you're talking like 17 Spike 2 games or something.
01:00:33
Speaker
That is a lot of games out there.
01:00:36
Speaker
And think about the SKUs, Pro Premium LE.
01:00:38
Speaker
I mean, it is a lot.
01:00:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that's true as well.
01:00:43
Speaker
But I didn't know if there, I don't know.
01:00:46
Speaker
I've got on JP and I'm like, I wish I kind of had the stickers to put on the apron so it more incorporates.
01:00:51
Speaker
But it's kind of nice with a premium because you just pop that little window out and put the reader in.
01:00:56
Speaker
You still have all the Avenger stuff on the apron.
01:00:59
Speaker
I think you can transfer your decals from your other apron.
01:01:04
Speaker
Why am I have to do that?
01:01:05
Speaker
There you go.
01:01:06
Speaker
One thing that Rush is known for is they are known for Neil Peart, who passed away, God rest his soul, two years ago from brain cancer.
01:01:18
Speaker
But this is this was a band that when the drum solo came on, that people actually came in to see the drum solo.
01:01:27
Speaker
They didn't leave.
01:01:28
Speaker
That's usually when you decide it's time to go hit the restroom or get a refill on the drink is when the the drummer is playing.
01:01:35
Speaker
But Rush, it was it was an event to see.
01:01:38
Speaker
Neil play.
01:01:41
Speaker
Is there anything like that?
01:01:42
Speaker
I don't even know if that would work well in pinballs to have a drum solo mode.
01:01:47
Speaker
But I saw that there was something about a drum solo, but there's no specific Neil solo mode in this, is there?
01:01:59
Speaker
I guess there's not a Neil solo.
01:02:01
Speaker
Solo mode.
01:02:02
Speaker
I mean, we are trying to be.
01:02:04
Speaker
You see the giant drum, like drums invading the whole LCD screen.
01:02:08
Speaker
You know, it gives you that feeling of like all these drums, like Neil's crazy drum sets when the drum solo starts.
01:02:14
Speaker
OK.
01:02:16
Speaker
We are trying to be respectful to Neil, obviously, as.
01:02:20
Speaker
contributions to Rush, the music world, it can't be understated.
01:02:25
Speaker
And I thought it was cool that Stern did support the Neil Peart Research Award with this game.
01:02:31
Speaker
Right.
01:02:32
Speaker
And talk a little bit about that.
01:02:33
Speaker
I heard you talk about it on the stream, so I wanted to give some air time to that.
01:02:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:38
Speaker
So we actually streamed at the two-year...
01:02:43
Speaker
anniversary of the day when Neil passed on and I was actually just watching the Indus 2020 footage and the news broke, you know, there.
01:02:53
Speaker
And I remember Jeff Teolas, another podcaster, you know, brought it up, did a moment of silence, but you know, he, his impact was incredible for a lot of people and his time came, you know, too early.
01:03:09
Speaker
But one thing he was able to do in his life was set up a,
01:03:13
Speaker
research award that goes to cancer research.
01:03:17
Speaker
And so Stern has.
01:03:19
Speaker
It's part of the rush launch plan, like selling rush, the the details and the orders and everything that we do for that, we are making contributions for all the games that we sell to the Neil Peart Research Award.
01:03:42
Speaker
People are going to talk about how I pronounce his last name.
01:03:44
Speaker
I'm sorry.
01:03:45
Speaker
It's a tough one.
01:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of a Peart.
01:03:49
Speaker
But yeah, I think everybody just calls him Neil Peart.
01:03:52
Speaker
So it's fine.
01:03:55
Speaker
What is it?
01:03:56
Speaker
Is there one Rush song that you're like, if I had to choose one Rush song and jam to it, what would it be?
01:04:03
Speaker
Whenever you ask a question about a Rush song and you phrase it slightly differently, it gives me pause.
01:04:08
Speaker
I'm like, oh, to jam to it?
01:04:10
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:04:11
Speaker
Favorite Rush song?
01:04:13
Speaker
To jam to it for me would be subdivisions, though.
01:04:16
Speaker
Because I could play keyboard a little bit.
01:04:19
Speaker
I could match the rhythm there.
01:04:24
Speaker
I can't play guitar, bass, or drums.
01:04:26
Speaker
So that's my jam song.
01:04:29
Speaker
All right, Ray, do you got one?
01:04:31
Speaker
I think my favorite song is probably working man.
01:04:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:35
Speaker
Just has catchy everything.
01:04:37
Speaker
And like the lyrics are funny and it's like, yeah, I can relate, you know, working man.
01:04:42
Speaker
It's a good song.
01:04:44
Speaker
I heard, I was actually watching a football game and I think it was somewhere around, it was either Cleveland or some, or buff.
01:04:52
Speaker
No, it was Buffalo where I heard that.
01:04:55
Speaker
And they were playing working man as like the outro before they went to a commercial.
01:05:01
Speaker
So my favorite one is actually not in the game, but it's the song right after Subdivisions.
01:05:09
Speaker
It's Analog Kid.
01:05:11
Speaker
And so that's a really great one, too.
01:05:14
Speaker
Signal's album may be the...
01:05:18
Speaker
I know it's a lot of people's favorite.
01:05:19
Speaker
I'm not going to say what's the best because it's my opinion.
01:05:23
Speaker
But it connects to you.
01:05:24
Speaker
That's the good thing about Rush is that it really has four eras.
01:05:29
Speaker
And the reason why I call it four eras is because they kind of...
01:05:35
Speaker
they kind of put a bookmark on the end of that era.
01:05:38
Speaker
So with 2112, that's when they did their first live album, which was all the world's a stage.
01:05:42
Speaker
And then after, after moving pictures, that's when they did exit stage left.
01:05:47
Speaker
And then after hold your fire, they did a show of hands and different, you know, then after,
01:05:53
Speaker
They did tests for Echo at different states.
01:05:54
Speaker
So each of their benchmarks was that.
01:05:59
Speaker
And so the nice thing is I actually grew up more in the synth era of Rush.
01:06:04
Speaker
And so that would be signals, grace under pressure, power windows, and hold your fire.
01:06:09
Speaker
And so that speaks to me more than the other stuff.
01:06:13
Speaker
But my brother, who is five years older, he tends to like the earlier generation.
01:06:18
Speaker
of Rush a little more.
01:06:19
Speaker
And I think that's one of the best parts about Rush is that most bands don't have that.
01:06:26
Speaker
Most bands, they have that one album that they're like, that's the album.
01:06:30
Speaker
If you don't like that album, you don't like the band.
01:06:32
Speaker
But there's a lot of variability in Rush, which makes it accessible and complex.
01:06:38
Speaker
So I'm impressed by what you guys were able to assemble on such a complex project like Rush.
01:06:47
Speaker
Josh, I have a question for you.
01:06:49
Speaker
What was your familiarity with rush before the game was announced?
01:06:53
Speaker
Tim, I am very much like you.
01:06:54
Speaker
I grew up with guitar hero.
01:06:56
Speaker
My dad loved the dad rock, uh, you know, Metallica, AC, DC, great white blue oyster cult.
01:07:03
Speaker
That was all in our house.
01:07:05
Speaker
So I had familiarity with rush.
01:07:07
Speaker
Um, I did enjoy, enjoy playing their songs on guitar hero.
01:07:10
Speaker
I'm kind of one of those people too.
01:07:12
Speaker
Like I enjoy them.
01:07:12
Speaker
I respect them for the musicians they are.
01:07:15
Speaker
Um,
01:07:15
Speaker
I'm probably just vanilla.
01:07:17
Speaker
I like Tom Sawyer.
01:07:19
Speaker
But yeah, they're good.
01:07:22
Speaker
I can't knock them.
01:07:23
Speaker
I can't knock them for a... There's some bands that make it that are just terrible because they're not great musicians.
01:07:29
Speaker
But for some odd reason, they have some presence about them.
01:07:33
Speaker
And that's vice versa with Rush.
01:07:35
Speaker
It's like, if you hate Rush, it's not because they're bad musicians because they are top of their class.
01:07:41
Speaker
So that's my feelings about Rush.
01:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, I've noticed when Rush fans, I did not expect, I mean, just the overlap, I think, between the Rush fans and the pinball fans has been really significant, I think.
01:07:57
Speaker
Scott, you're clearly a Rush fan.
01:08:00
Speaker
When I talk about Rush, I almost feel embarrassed.
01:08:02
Speaker
I don't gush about them the way you do.
01:08:04
Speaker
I don't start listing off every single studio album and live album that followed it in chronological order.
01:08:10
Speaker
And I think it's because, unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to grow up with them, right?
01:08:15
Speaker
Because I'm a young guy.
01:08:17
Speaker
Raven's a young guy.
01:08:18
Speaker
We were born in the 90s.
01:08:20
Speaker
We didn't have...
01:08:22
Speaker
we didn't get the chance to see their albums come out in the seventies and the eighties, right?
01:08:26
Speaker
It just didn't happen when we were around to watch it.
01:08:29
Speaker
So that stuff, it gets lost, but,
01:08:33
Speaker
Coming into it, I think, with the fresh perspective and working with someone like Ed, who has tracked the career of Rush their whole time, and then through Ed, working directly with the band, and then just representing just a fun career, an awesome career, a really impactful career that Rush has had, has been just the joy of a project to work on for me.
Project Management and Design Appreciation
01:08:56
Speaker
How often are you guys working on multiple projects at the same time?
01:08:59
Speaker
And do you ever run into the problem when you're like, you start working on one project, you're like, oh crap, this isn't the right game.
01:09:05
Speaker
You accidentally put the wrong code in the wrong game, and so you have to backstep and fix that.
01:09:12
Speaker
It doesn't happen too much.
01:09:15
Speaker
I mean, there's clearly...
01:09:18
Speaker
a schedule like, and there's a very clear priority of what's important in our heads.
01:09:25
Speaker
And we have a really great team at Stern led by George Gomez and Mark Wehna.
01:09:32
Speaker
Mark Wehna is our executive producer.
01:09:34
Speaker
And because we make a lot of games at Stern, we have the ability to have multiple teams, which is great for me because if I'm working on rush,
01:09:47
Speaker
I don't have to worry about what they're doing on Mandalorian.
01:09:53
Speaker
I don't have to worry about what they're doing on Godzilla because I get time to focus.
01:09:57
Speaker
And that focus time is really important to develop the game all the way out.
01:10:02
Speaker
So the overlap that might happen, let's say we do something like Insider Connected and our systems team reaches out and says, hey, can you review this achievement spreadsheet for Led Zeppelin?
01:10:14
Speaker
Do you think you'd be able to integrate them at any point?
01:10:17
Speaker
Do we need to get someone else to do it?
01:10:18
Speaker
We always work together and we just work with the bandwidth we have.
01:10:23
Speaker
But if we launched...
01:10:26
Speaker
insider connected achievements on Led Zeppelin the week before Rush was scheduled to hit the line, I would just say, no, I can't do it.
01:10:32
Speaker
I need some help.
01:10:33
Speaker
And someone would be able to mark Wayne and George would find someone who could help me and we would get the job done.
01:10:40
Speaker
So it's great to do all those games and it's great that we have a team that supports us to give us the space and time and resources we need to get the projects done.
01:10:51
Speaker
So, Ray, how about for you coming on the project and looking at Rush with fresh eyes?
01:11:00
Speaker
Just like what was the experience of like, oh, we're doing a Rush game?
01:11:05
Speaker
Right.
01:11:06
Speaker
I mean, it's you're a you're a younger guy.
01:11:08
Speaker
You didn't grow up with and you're the peak of Russia's popularity was moving pictures.
01:11:14
Speaker
And that was probably 10 to 15 years before you were in existence.
01:11:18
Speaker
And so, you know, I had heard a couple other hits and and and then when I saw the song list, I realized I actually recognized more than I had first thought.
01:11:31
Speaker
I just maybe didn't know the name of some of the songs, but I'm like, oh, I've heard I have heard the song before.
01:11:36
Speaker
And so as I'm working through, you know, implementing the song modes and I'm I'm hearing the songs, I'm like, oh, yeah, I've heard that one before.
01:11:46
Speaker
And and I was like, oh, this is really cool.
01:11:48
Speaker
They have a lot of different songs.
01:11:50
Speaker
I have different themes like, you know, the working man mode is all about getting through the day.
01:11:56
Speaker
And I really liked working on that one because basically, you know, Tim and John come up with this skeleton design doc of like what the mode should kind of be.
01:12:11
Speaker
And it'll have things like, you know...
01:12:14
Speaker
working day, get through the day with random events thrown in such as this or that.
01:12:18
Speaker
And then it's my task to actually go and do it.
01:12:20
Speaker
And I'll just put in what I think is funny, like fire drill might happen or like, you know, pretending to look busy or fight with the printer.
01:12:29
Speaker
And I was kind of like joking when I put those in at first.
01:12:32
Speaker
But then like when it came time, the art team
01:12:36
Speaker
It's like, oh, we're doing awards for Working Man.
01:12:38
Speaker
What do you need?
01:12:39
Speaker
And I just kind of joked.
01:12:40
Speaker
I'm like, well, here's the 12 that I came up with.
01:12:42
Speaker
They're like, okay.
01:12:43
Speaker
And then they made all of that.
01:12:45
Speaker
So if you're playing Working Man, look out for all the fun little different events that can happen.
01:12:52
Speaker
That's great.
01:12:53
Speaker
I actually can't wait to play that.
01:12:54
Speaker
That sounds hilarious.
01:12:55
Speaker
And if you've seen any of the small videos that Rush put on their show, it is 100% in keeping with the humor that they have.
01:13:04
Speaker
Nice.
01:13:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:05
Speaker
No, it's, it's really cool.
01:13:07
Speaker
I was really, really kind of just pulled in all the way where I was like, Oh, I can really, you know, I feel all these different, you know, La Via Strongiato is like the song with 12 movements.
01:13:18
Speaker
And so it's like a 12 way combo and I got to come up with, well, how do I, how do I plan a 12 way combo?
01:13:23
Speaker
Like, and so it was just a really fun project from beginning to now.
01:13:28
Speaker
I'm not going to say beginning to end cause you know, we're still working on it and it's, it's just, I'm really glad to be on the, the rush team here.
01:13:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:35
Speaker
Well, it sounds like you'd be really good at like a weird owl pinball machine or something.
01:13:42
Speaker
Goofy things.
01:13:44
Speaker
I don't know.
01:13:44
Speaker
And, you know, that would cross a lot of genres.
01:13:46
Speaker
You know, he did rap and pop and rock.
01:13:48
Speaker
I mean, you might want to you might want to kick that out there to your team.
01:13:52
Speaker
You have to build up some reserve of tickets at the arcade, and one day you can cash them all in and be like, I'm working on weirdo pinballs.
01:14:02
Speaker
That would be hilarious.
01:14:06
Speaker
Well, from my perspective, I am super excited what you guys are doing.
01:14:11
Speaker
It feels like it is a project that has some soul to it, in that the people who are involved in it, it doesn't feel like a...
01:14:22
Speaker
like a quick greatest hits album where they just kind of throw things together.
01:14:26
Speaker
There seems to be a reason why the songs are selected.
01:14:30
Speaker
There's a method to the art package and the way things are flowing.
01:14:35
Speaker
And as a Rush fan, I can't ask for a more sincere representation of what I would view a Rush pinball machine to be.
01:14:45
Speaker
So I'm really excited to get my hands on mine, hopefully in the next month.
01:14:49
Speaker
I have a final thought to share.
01:14:53
Speaker
So you're talking to myself and Raymond.
01:14:56
Speaker
We're on the software team.
01:14:57
Speaker
We developed the rules.
01:14:58
Speaker
And we are at the point where we have to make the pinball machine the best pinball experience it could be.
01:15:06
Speaker
And I feel like that is perfect for Rush because Rush, the performance was so sacred to them.
01:15:19
Speaker
They were...
01:15:20
Speaker
so insistent on just delivering these amazing concerts and recording this, you know, really rich, complex music just with three members.
01:15:31
Speaker
And so our contribution to the rush out of it was we're going to make the coolest pinball machine we can make with our team here that just works the best with the team we have.
01:15:43
Speaker
And that,
01:15:44
Speaker
is the justice we could do for a theme like Rush is just to make it make it look like you know 15 people worked on it and it was just it was just two or three yeah okay that's perfect that is absolutely perfect with Rush every time the best compliment people always paid Rush was wait there's only three guys and if you listen to it it sounds like there's about 15 guys
01:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, I have to say Mike Kizovat did join about two months ago to work on some stuff.
01:16:13
Speaker
So it wasn't just the two of us.
01:16:15
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's been us three mostly these last.
01:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, Mike is a really valuable asset.
01:16:23
Speaker
And his brother did some of the art to Tom Kizovat.
01:16:27
Speaker
So lots of people on the team, not just not just us two.
01:16:31
Speaker
Well, I think that's probably the best place to leave off.
01:16:34
Speaker
Do you have anything else, Scott, or should we wrap this bad boy up?
01:16:37
Speaker
No, I just want to, we're in the process of getting new hats made because they discontinued our version of the hat.
01:16:43
Speaker
So we'll definitely make sure you guys get some Loser Kid swag.
01:16:48
Speaker
Awesome.
01:16:48
Speaker
Thank you.
01:16:49
Speaker
Thanks again for coming on.
01:16:50
Speaker
We really appreciate you guys.
01:16:53
Speaker
One for being professional about what you do, but also being ambassadors for the sport too, because I, we have, we have interacted with both of you guys and can attest that you guys are genuinely nice guys and good to work with.
01:17:06
Speaker
If you want people to get ahold of you, how should you, how should they get ahold of you, Tim and Ray?
01:17:12
Speaker
Best way is to email me, Tim.
01:17:15
Speaker
Sexton at stern pinball.com.
01:17:18
Speaker
If you find a bug in the game and you email bug.report at sternpinball.com, those all get sent to me no matter what, if it's my game.
01:17:26
Speaker
So that is another way to get in contact with me.
01:17:29
Speaker
Hopefully not the way.
01:17:32
Speaker
If you just want to send me anything, tim.sexton at sternpinball.com is the best way to get in touch with me.
01:17:39
Speaker
Yeah, you can, I guess you can shoot me a message on Facebook Messenger or my Stern email is just Raymond.Davidson at SternPinball.com.
01:17:48
Speaker
Okay, Ray, but also talk about your side project too and your streaming and what you do.
01:17:55
Speaker
Yeah, I have a Twitch stream.
01:17:56
Speaker
It's just RayDayPinball, so twitch.tv slash RayDayPinball.
01:18:00
Speaker
Streaming usually Stern games.
01:18:03
Speaker
I got a Beatles here and a Deadpool that I jump between.
01:18:08
Speaker
And it's just a lot of fun.
01:18:09
Speaker
Interact with people.
01:18:10
Speaker
And then sometimes I'll film little tutorials, and you can catch those on YouTube, just youtube.com slash RayDayPinball.
01:18:18
Speaker
If you want to see, like, Led Zeppelin and Avengers are the two that I've done that I've done.
01:18:22
Speaker
people find helpful and I'm really happy that people, people get something out of those.
01:18:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:26
Speaker
And if they, if they want some of your rate, a swag, where do they go?
01:18:30
Speaker
silverballswag.com um and then just uh i'm in the the giant list of people just go to the r section if you'd like to get a hold of us we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com we're also on the socials facebook twitter instagram all at loser kid pinball uh we're also on twitch whenever i think the last time i recorded was like october so it's been a minute i need to get back on that um
01:18:55
Speaker
Yeah, if you also want to get a hold of us, honestly, the best way is probably our personal pages at Scott Larson or at Josh Roof.
01:19:03
Speaker
And yeah, I think that pretty much does it for us this evening.
01:19:05
Speaker
We want to thank Tim and Ray Day for coming on and taking break out of their busy, busy schedule.
01:19:11
Speaker
We know that it is night and day over there at Stern Pinball.
01:19:15
Speaker
And at learning at Expo, it seems like there's some hiccups come up every once in a while.
01:19:21
Speaker
It always seems to be a couple days before release.
01:19:22
Speaker
And so you guys are working around the clock to make sure there's a great product still put on the market.
01:19:28
Speaker
We appreciate that.
01:19:31
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for having us guys.
01:19:33
Speaker
Really, it was a lot of fun to talk about.
01:19:34
Speaker
Talk to you guys.
01:19:36
Speaker
A lot of fun to talk to you guys.
01:19:37
Speaker
A lot of fun to talk about Rush.
01:19:39
Speaker
A lot of fun to see these games arriving in people's homes.
01:19:42
Speaker
I think that's been the most exciting thing for me right now.
01:19:45
Speaker
So I'm just looking forward to more people to get the plants in.
01:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's super exciting, and thanks for having us on.
01:19:52
Speaker
Definitely.
01:19:52
Speaker
Send us off.
01:19:53
Speaker
Send us off, Scott.
01:19:54
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:19:55
Speaker
You guys have a great weekend, and we'll see you in one to two weeks.
01:19:59
Speaker
We actually have a few more guests lined up to talk more Rush pinball, so we'll catch you soon.
01:20:06
Speaker
Shut up and sit down.