Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We are on episode 164. It's going to be an epic podcast, as always. With me, my co-host. Scott Larson. I'm Josh Roop. And if you are looking for the new King Kong Myth of Terror Island, today is the day to be hitting up Flippin' Out Pinball with Zach and Nicole Menny.
Speaker: They will get you hooked up. Uh, if you want to L E, I don't know if you can get one, but hit them up. You better jump on it. Yeah. Yeah. yeah its They're going fast. I hear these are sound like hotcakes. This game looks insane and there's no one better to talk to, to do about this than the, the goat himself, Keith L one.
Speaker: So Keith, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. I know it's a very busy day again. You're the unofficial official third host, right? Exactly. that' Yeah. I hear that Travis Murray is trying to buy for your spot though.
Speaker: he He keeps trying, but Travis started his own podcast, so he doesn't care anymore. i go on this podcast and he doesn't show up. So yeah, it's, that's what, that's what happens. You know, had to go to like a local seven 11 for their internet. So you catch the last 30 minutes of the podcast.
Speaker: Wasn't he walking, wasn't he walking around in the podcast? It was like, he was walking around his house trying to find service. Yeah. Yeah. He had just moved in, didn't have any service. Yeah.
Speaker: Nothing like paying five bucks to the gentleman at 7-Eleven. You still have Wi-Fi. Hey, can I get a Slurpee and the Wi-Fi password? Yeah. okay Okay. So we have Keith Elwin. We are, ah we are trying to be very careful about Keith's time because he has a very busy day. This is release day. Um, just a quick recap in case you are living under a rock.
Speaker: Uh, Keith burst onto the scene with iron maiden, which is right above my head and then followed it up with Jurassic park and, iron, sorry. Um, the Avengers.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Avengers, infinity stones, and then Godzilla. He also just sneaked in a ah ah bond 60. And now he then then he finished up with jaws and now he's on to King Kong. So we can definitely solidify Keith as the King of monsters.
Speaker: and the and And has sold more monster pinball machines than anybody in history. So again, Keith, welcome to the show. ah We always love having you on because of the insights that you bring.
Speaker: And ah okay, so how has the release been? just Just want to get your get your feedback on that. It's been a strange day, man. I walk in my office and there's there's a banana sitting there.
Speaker: The banana flippers are out. oh It's great. Okay, but did you leave the banana flippers in it? Yeah. Did you leave the banana flippers in the coin box, though, as like a mod that you could do?
Speaker: ah To answer your question, there is pro behind me that has banana flippers in it. Yes. So I've had these banana flippers for decades.
Speaker: I don't know where I came across them. And I used them once, put them in ACDC as a mini tournament at my house. and Everyone's like, oh, my God, this is so hard. This is great. And that's the only time I've ever used them. And then when we were you know developing Kong, it was like, yeah, for the hell of it, I'm just going to put banana flippers in the pro.
Speaker: And everyone went crazy. So it turned off extra balls, made it extra hard. And we were having, you know, competition to get the highest score with banana flippers. Yeah, it totally changes the game, obviously, because all the trajectories that you've memorized over the years, they go right out the window. Can you trap up on banana flippers or do they kind of oscillate? That's pretty much you do, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Trap and sling. It's very hard. You probably have just milliseconds if you're shooting anywhere than up the middle.
Speaker: Yes, got this nice little friendly zone at the middle, but if you're trying to shoot the side, either flip and miss or you're you just going too soon and up the middle. They're pretty infuriating, but it's hilarious if you've been playing pinball a long time.
Speaker: so yeah Everybody's looking at pinball life now. See if there's banana flippers for sale. God, they're so expensive.
Speaker: It's serious. they They're very expensive. did ah Is that why you had a cart of bananas also that you posted a picture of today? Yeah, well, our producer Kevin was rolling around the banana cart, giving everyone a banana.
Speaker: So I got a picture of the cart before that emptied. That's awesome. Okay. Although I am super excited for Kong, I was secretly wondering if this was a Donkey Kong, um but if if this was a a tease for a Donkey Kong as opposed to King Kong. But however,
Speaker: King Kong is perfect. It's right next to Godzilla. Now the question is, did you know that you were going to be working on both of these themes or did Kong come after you had already started working on Godzilla?
Speaker: So after Godzilla released, George was like, Hey, let's do King Kong. And I'm like, no, part of monster games. like, well, think about it. Think about it. I was like, all right. And then then when jaws popped up and I was like, yeah, sure. I'll do that.
Speaker: And then We were getting near the end of Jaws cycle, and George was like, yeah, the King Kong, you know, King Kong. And, you know, he he kind of grilled me for three days, and finally, all right, I'll do it.
Speaker: If you give me another Bond style on the side. just
Speaker: Yeah, that was fun. I love Bond. and But i I will say this, okay. I think it's genius by the way, doing George is a hundred percent right on this, having King Kong and Godzilla because anybody who has Godzilla is going to want the complete package.
Speaker: And the one thing I really want to know, is there a secret Kong versus Godzilla mode in the game? Obviously that's multiple license issue.
Speaker: Okay. Kong versus giant lizard, radioactive lizard guy. I'm not going to lie and say we don't have some funny call-outs. Okay. Reference a lizard, a name.
Speaker: but ah Yeah. yeah that We're actually you know always looking into that. but Like I said, it's pretty complicated. We're going to need three different licensors on the same page to do work with our own IP, which it's – it's It's tough.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's 100% not off the table, but it's tough. So if you've been in the hobby long enough, you know that ah there was originally a Data East King Kong.
Speaker: And as soon as I saw this, that King Kong artwork front and center is very similar to that Data East. Did of that original game inspire what you did here? just or just the art?
Speaker: um So... Kevin O'Connor started off as the sole artist on this game. And it was kind of a tribute to him. So I was like, how do you feel about you know taking this project do you work so hard on that hardly anyone has seen? you know Kind of doing the same insert arrangement and artwork down by the flipper area. And he was all for it. So i was like, all right, we know we'll make it work.
Speaker: So that's how that came about. That's awesome. For those that don't know, Kevin O'Connor is one of my favorite. He did World Cup soccer. That's the one that's famous to me. He's he's been around for he's a legend. ah You know, Gomez was not lying in the in the trailer when he said between Greg Ferris, Kevin O'Connor and and ah ah Jeremy Packard's on the Yeti.
Speaker: And this is quite the legendary lineup of artists. Why? Why did all three collaborate on this one project? So I was really trying to get Greg Ferris to do this project. I knew he was retiring soon. you know, it was kind of, come on, man. Let's justs just one last rodeo. and that became the the project code name was rodeo because we were trying to get Greg Ferris to do one last rodeo with us.
Speaker: He's like, nah, nah, I'm good. And then um like two months after he retired, ah Sebastian, our then art director, reached out to him. And he's like, you know what?
Speaker: I'll do the play field. All right. Awesome. And then as you know, we're getting closer to the end date, Jeremy jumped on to kind of help bring it to the finish line.
Speaker: So basically that the compositions, a lot of the compositions were Kevin and Greg and Jeremy did a lot of the cabinet art. Nice.
Speaker: You know what? The play field art, it does have a little bit of that retro feel. yeah it feel it It doesn't feel like ah any of your recent games because it feels a little bit more of that kind of blocky 90s stuff.
Speaker: And in many ways, it's a total throwback. I love it. Yeah, it's definitely greg greg's Greg's artwork, you know, other than the middle part, which is inspired by the old King Kong and Kevin's artwork. ah Greg pretty much filled in the rest all around that.
Speaker: and So this, yeah, go ahead, Josh. I would just this artwork looks really amazing. And one thing I've got to, to congratulate the whole team on, on this is, is the fact that you were able to tie jungle with city and make it look cohesive. Cause it's, you, you're definitely like the left is more of an aesthetic of the jungle with New York being that upper right and right side.
Speaker: Was that hard to kind of gel and whatnot? Or was it just, it's King Kong and it just makes sense. It was the only, uh, struggle I really had was, the gong had to end up on the right side, which, you know, higher up than mostly other jungle artwork.
Speaker: That was really the only the struggle with that. Otherwise, yeah, it was pretty much jungle at the bottom and kind of fused into New York city in the upper right. And if you've ever read the book, you know, like the New York scene is like six pages.
Speaker: It's, yeah it's really an afterthought in the book. It really is. and That's what's what's funny, though, is is iconically you look at King Kong and you think of the Empire State Building, you think of him hanging off of that. But really, New York's not actually a ton of the to the to it. so No, it was mostly about you know the interactions and then trying to rescue Anne.
Speaker: It's very little New York, which was crazy. i had no idea until I started this project and read it. and I was like, that's it? So he escapes the theater and climbs the building. Okay.
Speaker: so So, okay, King Kong is a little bit like Godzilla in that there have been so many movies, so many different ways that the story has been told and retold.
Speaker: So on King Kong, so, but This is actually the first that I'd heard that it was a book. I really had no idea. I thought it was like some silent film from like the 1920s or something.
Speaker: So you have so many options, including the, the you know the latest ah Kong iterations and then, you know, getting into Kong versus Godzilla, all those, all those things.
Speaker: So what do you bring from all that material to tell your story in the game? Well, we have to tell our story because we don't want to infringe on any particular thing that happened in a movie that didn't happen in the book.
Speaker: The only request I got was, you know, we can't do a damsel in distress. We got to make Anne more of the explorer type. not She's just not there, just constantly needing rescue.
Speaker: So I kind of came up with, you know, kind of a Tomb Raider vibe. yeah They're there yeah looking... for treasure, they're archeologists, but Carl Denham's there filming the whole thing for, you know, the newsreels back in the theater back then.
Speaker: so it's kind of the whole vibe of the movie. They they arrive at the island. and They're looking for treasures. So part of the game is you're actually looking for treasures. We have a bunch of different treasures. And then they, you know, they come across Kong. You know, it's kind of just kind of picks up with the book from there on where, you know, they come across Kong and lot of the adventures happen.
Speaker: ah very similar to what happened in the book all the way up to New York. So so you're you're speaking of ah like Kong and everything in the jungle and whatnot. this When I look at this game, I see a lot of throwback to like Congo and to Indiana Jones, and I even felt some of it in the sound clips.
Speaker: Did those two games kind of influence this design? Because even like the airplane in the top right above the wire form is something that's similar into Indiana Jones and stuff like that. Not so much. Indiana Jones? Yeah, definitely has some Congo vibes.
Speaker: um If you look closely, you know some of the hieroglyphs in the ah artwork near the bottom, you'll see you'll see some Easter eggs from Greg Ferris in there, kind of like a ah Congo did. Kevin O'Connor did the same thing with Congo.
Speaker: But yeah, you know obviously if it's a jungle-based game, it's going to have kind of a vibe of one of those two. Yeah. But I would say, yeah, i would lean more towards the Congo than ah Indiana Jones.
Speaker: Does it yell hippos? Hippos. There There are some references to hippos, yes. Yes. Yes.
Speaker: That's great. It sure made it super fun to do any kind of script work. So this was kind just do everything, whatever you want then, huh? I mean, to a point. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: I can't do something that Seth and George look at. He's like, what were you thinking? but so Okay. So did you have to go through any other, i King Kong is typically associated with universal.
Speaker: And, and so did you have, or because you were going off the source material of of the book, is it so old that you had a little more, you know, kind of like, you know, like a wizard of Oz book, you know, that you could go through or Alice in Wonderland or something like that, where you're not tied to anybody who's holding the license or did you still have to work through licensing?
Speaker: Nope. We just, as long as we kind of stuck to the book and their characters, we didn't we didn't have to deal with anyone.
Speaker: So, okay. So here's the question now, because we all know the dance that goes along with licensing and them having influence over what you can and can't put in the game.
Speaker: Tell me about the freedom that you can have while having the story to tell in your own way, but also not having to go through, go through approval. I can see it as being a little bit of a double-edged sword. And I would argue that um there, some, sometimes having that stop gap will help you keep you, you know, focused and keep you on on goal.
Speaker: But at the same time, sometimes it can, in it can inhibit something that's really cool that you want to put in the game. Yeah. This is a double-edged sword. i mean, Yeah, technically it's unlicensed. I can do whatever I want, but I pretty much have to follow the guidelines of the book, which is the only public domain of the property. So if I start veering off, oh, Kong battles a robot Kong in outer space or something, then Toho's going to say, well, hey, we have Mecha Kong.
Speaker: So it I really had to follow kind of a straight line of the the story, but we can embellish it in our own ways. But it pretty much sticks true to the book other than, you know, the backgrounds of the characters, what they're doing there and how it ends.
Speaker: Does that also give you some freedom into like the bill of material? If you, if you don't have to worry about paying for a license, does that, does that help you and say, Oh, cause I know I, and jo Josh sent this out and it, it's a crazy list of all the things that are in the game.
Speaker: And you have the Kong sculpt, you have the custom gong sculpt, you have the four drop targets. You have the log diverter, have the airplane, the punch kickback, the bouncing spider ah with the magnet underneath. And so and you you forgot the subway that also lock the balls in Yeah. and the And the Kong mech itself.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. No, they're actually separate bombs. Oh, okay. Okay. that That extra money probably went to pay the three dollars artists. I don't know. that That's ah a decision on the other side of the building. But yeah, have our our bombs all stay the same no matter, you know, licensed, unlicensed.
Speaker: That's actually good to know because we have speculated behind the scenes many times about, okay, if you get, is it is it detrimental to get a ah mega license because you have to recover the money? Obviously that money will come from somewhere and it's generally not in the game bomb itself because we we pretty much have a static number that we work for. it you know Obviously as inflation goes up, that number of slides up a little bit, but there's nothing crazy. Oh, this is unlicensed. You can do you can have 20 mechs on it. that That's not going to happen. You can have lasers in the back glass and yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: You'll do a smoke show, but then it gets vacuumed out after, after each game. Uh, so, I mean, there is a ton of mechs in this. So like, is there anything that didn't make it? Cause there, yeah it feels like you put the kitchen sink. in Yeah. Um, we did run out of coil drives and we are,
Speaker: i really I originally wanted Kong's mouth to move, and it's got the point, well, if we have that, we have to pull out something that's cool. and it wass like So I kind of had to give and take on that one.
Speaker: Okay. Was the mouth moving? Was that the goal to eat the ball? Because I know everybody wants Kong to eat the ball. Yeah, be a very, very small ball. Kong does eat the ball, just not on the play field.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: That is amazing. Yeah, I'll make everyone happy when they get an extra ball.
Speaker: I really wanted to see Kong as like the potato sculpt, ah like in Jaws when it ah it just looked kind of odd when would you were trying to work on that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rocking out the play field. I don't think we ever had a phase that bad.
Speaker: I had an old 3D print somewhere, but it looked pretty much just like him. Yeah. Just unpainted. It never had that many iterations. You brought one to Expo and it looked like a potato that launched out of the play field. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was cabiz because that was a unique mech. That's when the shark ate the ball.
Speaker: You know, we didn't want to you know spend a bunch of money because we weren't sure that mech was even going to work, much less survive. And then it ended up just getting cut anyway. So they never finished it. They're like, well, here's your mech back. And it's like Harrison and yeah, it looks like a baked potato. I guess I guess they didn't get too far on it.
Speaker: Well, if you have a vegetable, if you would do a veggie tells, you now know what. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That would be amazing.
Speaker: Oh, my goodness. To answer your question, okay, there was a drop target in front of the cave in the white early Whitewoods. But actually, I deemed that to be too annoying because it catch air and jump over the flipper. was like, yeah, this isn't fun.
Speaker: Yeah. So you usually aim for a good balance between like stop and go, but more ah but a lot of flow. I know that you've stuck you've kind of kept away from scoops and stuff like that. And then you know if it if if the theme deems it appropriate, you put it in. Like with Godzilla, there's a lot of flow there, but to stop it, you had the scoop.
Speaker: In this game, I noticed there's a little bit of stop and go with... ah You got kind of, i don't know if you consider a scoop because it does go to ah a buck there underneath the punch. um And then you've got like a subway lock.
Speaker: And then trying to think, I guess where there was one more spot where it kind of stops. Is that kind of your three? There's two bucks on one wire for him. Okay. can And so that kind of, I don't know.
Speaker: Is this still as, as, as flowy as your other games, I guess. This flows extremely well, I'll say. um So the little thing and on the right, here the little punchback thing you're talking about, actually designed a whole game around that shot.
Speaker: It was originally do something else, but then it wasn't working as consistently as I wanted. And this so I tried just sticking one of those kicker targets in there and firing it back at the upper right flipper. And I was like, oh, wow, yeah, this is this is awesome.
Speaker: Yeah. and So, you know, if you hit it too slowly or sometimes we actually want to stop the ball in a little dump out scoop there, it won't fire the target. So the ball will spiral around, hit the target and drop into the buck.
Speaker: It'll for locking island locks and starting New York City events. But other than that, it fires the ball right back at you. So, yeah, this game, it's really fast.
Speaker: The magnet that kind of down there by the the flippers, the sweepable drops also kind of ricochet and go all the way around to the upper right flipper if you do it right. We have rules dedicated to that.
Speaker: Amazing. and So the gong, I noticed on the Pro, it goes into the scoop, but on the premium, is it a kickback behind the gong as well that shoots back at you? So there's two coils on the gong, and what what they do is they latch they latch a spring.
Speaker: So when the gong is locked, you but you hit the gong. fires the ball back at you. And then it kind of swings a little bit. Once you're qualified at in Island mode, that, that those two coils unlock the gong and you can shoot through it.
Speaker: It's like a kind of a swinging target kind of Mando style. Nice.
Speaker: So you, you are known for having a lot of creative wire forms. and I don't see as many plastic forms on your games is if, Is there a fascination that you have with having the wire forms? Because the wire forms have very creative paths that move all over the place. And Godzilla, you have the crisscross on Infinity Quest. You have you know the big launch that goes all the way around the game, probably one of the longest shots in pinball.
Speaker: ah tell Tell me about why. What are your thoughts on putting the habit trails in? ah You can do more with them. ah You know, obviously I can't have plastic ramps crossing the play field for numerous reasons.
Speaker: One of which is if you ever worked on Arabian Nights and put too much weight on your arm and watch that thing. yeah They're, you know, they're fragile. They obstruct your view. i think the wire forms are just clean and neat.
Speaker: And like I said, you can do more with them. It's easier to do helix and whatever else you need done. And you can kind of see through them a little bit better than the plastic as well, especially with those cross shots that you have going on.
Speaker: It looks much cooler. that's one thing. Another thing is, um, Do you calculate on the shape of the form to see how much speed the ball is going to have? Because so an example would be like Lord of the Rings, how they have that that habit trail that that the ah seesaws back and forth and it really slows the ball down.
Speaker: Is that what you take into account when you're designing a a helix or a a habit trail? Yeah, yeah. You'll see, we have a the wireframe to drones on the left side. We have it doing a little S-curve to slow the ball down a little bit.
Speaker: um Obviously, if you place it, you know, the ball's going flying around. So on the biplane ramp, one that does the helix, we actually have, you know, extra wire on the top because it's flying around that helix.
Speaker: So it's actually held in with gravity at certain points and then goes back to a regular wireframe.
Speaker: ah know And for the slow ramps, like the We call it the CliffsRamp. It's a ramp that crosses over from the upper left flipper to the upper right flipper. That one's fairly slow, so it's only on two wires, and then it has a unique dump off at the end. So instead of kind of just dropping by the flipper, it actually pushes the ball back up the right orbit a bit for a nicer setup shot.
Speaker: Well, know that like on Godzilla, that Gomez is what the one that told you actually to put the the spirals and stuff in because it slowed down the ball, right? now He's like, how can you design Avengers and design a ramp like this? And I was like, I was trying to save us money. She's like, no, put a Helix in it. I was like, all right. so How dare you?
Speaker: That's a true story. I was petrified of how over Godzilla was, over budget. But George is like, no, you can't do Avengers and do a boring ramp game like this. So yeah we added the ah Helix.
Speaker: Which one, the Helix ah over the Tesla shot area? ah right upper Yeah. I originally had a Helix there and then Harrison was like, oh, that's going to be so expensive. And then it's like, all right, so we we did a version two without the Helix.
Speaker: And George saw that and he went, no, get that out of here. Put the Helix back in. It is, i i like that the, ah all the wire forms, it does make the, fee part of it,
Speaker: Part of pinball, the fun, is just watching the ball move around and move all over the all over the play field. And having those extended ball paths really capture the experience for me.
Speaker: So that that's one thing that i so I suspect connects a lot of people with your games is that even when they do something, even something simple, it looks really cool with the ball moving all the way around. Yeah. And admit, if you just look at a picture of this game, you're not going to have any idea where any of the shots go because...
Speaker: It's really hard to figure it out. still true I'm still trying to figure it out. So yeah, we have this diverter. So basically it's almost like a mini play field. It's not a mini play field because we have this floating ah upper left flipper and there's a little diverter. It's like a dynamic inline that pops are up to feed the upper left flipper and it stays up for a few seconds, drops back down. So you have a few seconds to hit the drops. Otherwise it can fall back down into what we call the river.
Speaker: or you can use it to shoot the ah clips ramp across to the other flipper. So we can use this so you can actually keep comboing those two shots, kind of like a figure eight. If you shoot the the clips ramp and then there's a ah shot above the biplane ramp that'll feed right back into the diverter.
Speaker: So there's one mode where you're you're trying to cross the chasm and you can actually just keep shooting the figure eight between the upper two flippers. for a while. But obviously we don't want players to that all the time, which is why we have that in lane on a coil.
Speaker: So, you know, on normal play, it's like it'll be up for very long. You can also use the action button to bring that diverter up for a few seconds too. Kind of like flip lock.
Speaker: A little bit. So if you shoot the center or spinner, it comes around, it'll almost always bring that diverter up. But sometimes you're shooting to draw targets from the lower flippers and the ball just kind of ends up in that area. You can yeah you hit the action button to bring that to the river up to feed the upper left flipper. Otherwise, it's going to dump down the little zigzag a river thing we have.
Speaker: Gotcha. i did Did I see this right in the trailer as well? do You guys generally talk about this, but is the center a spinner that feeds to the left orbit that's also a spinner? Yeah. So what's the purpose of a double spinner on the same trail?
Speaker: Because it's... The shot on the left is an orbit to the upper right flipper. Okay. So, okay. So you have a spinner, spinner from the left flipper and a spinner from the right flipper.
Speaker: So shooting the right, the spinner in the middle is going to activate both spinners. But if you shoot it from right flipper, it's just the left spinner. Nice. So ah go ahead, Josh. finish I was just, I was just thinking, cause like in Godzilla, like you get a bridge bonus by hitting somebody's switch hits.
Speaker: So using that double spinner to your advantage could really, if you have any switch modes in this, in this game, it could really, the trade off is the center spinner is a little bit of a tighter shot than the left spinner.
Speaker: Okay. You're already thinking about all this, man. You've already got this all down. It's like, he's been looking at this. Okay. The, the very left side of it, is that, what am I i seeing that? Is that like a kickback but on the far left? Cause I see, ah you know, you have the out lane, but then you have a lane past the out lane.
Speaker: What is that? So that's called the river. So when the, when that diverter for the upper left flipper is down, it'll drain down a river. It's a zigzag path. Okay. It's such kind of a, it's a translucent sculpt of a river area. And,
Speaker: Zig-zags down basically because we have some modes where you shoot the ah but center spinner and it goes all the way around and it goes through the river and then feeds the left flipper. And this is the the dreaded out lanes? Actually, you're in lane and you're in lanes, you're out lane, right?
Speaker: No, no. there's a There's a left in lane. There's the out lane to the left of it. And the lane to the left of that is just a feed from the the upper area to the bottom of the flipper.
Speaker: it doesn't It doesn't appear that the ball will accidentally fall into the river. and There is a spot there, but I i bet that's not. It does? Okay. It does. You guys will see tomorrow. We're going to stream.
Speaker: Okay. Nice. So tell me about the modes in this game. I put in the quarter and and the you know the theme music comes up. what are my How many options do I have the modes to start off with?
Speaker: So our main mode is King Kong climbing. So yeah around the play field, you see climb arrows. So when you start the game, you'll have a set of c climb arrows. You complete that set of c climb arrows. It awards you one of the windows on the building.
Speaker: You'll see there's probably, don't know, maybe 10 or 12 inserts in the middle of the play field that are windows. For each one of those complete, you get award a mode or a perk. And each time you complete an entire floor in the building, it lights a New York City event.
Speaker: It's going to be selectable events. Right now, we just have one. One in there is called Stage Fright. But in the future, it's going to have a bunch of different things you can choose from that take place in New York City. So that's the whole climb feature.
Speaker: The pit is a magnet, the spider. That's kind of the... bozo multi-ball if you will you you hit the pit like three times and it lights one of the three different multi-balls that are in the pit of the three different creatures that are in there obviously it's a little dangerous uh because of the magnet but it's it's there you know if you get a couple get a couple hits in there and he's like well i gotta go for it now because that's that's a multi-ball uh we have uh the king kong multi-ball when you complete the uh the kong drop targets on the upper left there ah you'd be lighting the center ramp to uh
Speaker: ah for the King Kong locks. Uh, the gong is like said, when it's in the bash state, uh, it will throw the ball back at you. And then once it's unlocked, once you do that enough, uh, you shoot in there, shoots into the buck and you can start at one of the Island scenes.
Speaker: So there's, i think there's six Island scenes. Um, the collecting King Kong letters is pretty big. You do various switch hits.
Speaker: ah We'll eventually light the gong to collect the King Kong letter, or you can get it from certain achievements like skill shots, doing well on in an island mode will also spot you King Kong letters.
Speaker: If you spell King, you'll start, you'll light a mode called Deadeye, which is it's basically ah a tribute to skill fire in Congo, where it's basically a It's a mode with nothing but skill shots.
Speaker: The difference being after you hit enough of them, you light a jackpot and you plunge to a different area try to try to collect that jackpot. Yeah,
Speaker: then you have the biplane modes, which is you shoot in the biplane ramp. ah You shoot that enough, it'll start a biplane attack. And then we have King Combos, which you also activate with the Kong drop targets.
Speaker: It's a bunch of combos you you work different different combos with different reward thresholds. And one of those is power-up, which it's not in yet, but eventually the combos light your power-up.
Speaker: um And then the last real feature is the, it's called the Lost Temple. Every time you hit the punchback target or the gong, it'll ah light what's called the Lost Temple. And then when you shoot the the center spinner, you're trying to solve kind of ah a puzzle, a Mayan puzzle, kind of like you do in video games. You're like,
Speaker: trying to figure out the cipher. And all you're basically doing is hitting the lit drop target. Just one lit, you have to hit that drop target. You do that you know four times, fill up the whole glyph, then you and then it unlocks that target behind the drop targets, the you know the treasure target with Gary on it. You hit that and you collect a treasure.
Speaker: but so there's ah There's a lot going on. It sounds like it. So I know one of the things I love about your games that I feel like ah No one really else ever does. Is there something going on in the background that is achieve like pushing you further to a different goal?
Speaker: So like in Jaws, it's bounty hunt. you know You're getting your spinners. getting your stuff like that. Avengers, you're collecting. I know the Avengers is actually the main part of the game, but you know you're collecting the Avengers. You're doing this. But is is there anything like that in Kong that you're trying to do?
Speaker: Yeah, it's the the climb feature. It's the climb feature? Okay. That's always active. It's active during multiballs, wizard modes, everything. That's something you're constantly progressing through. And like I said, that lights other wizard modes that you collect via the New York City insert in the ah little punch bag area.
Speaker: I see you got a little friend with you there up on the front screen. You said he just got printed. He's wet on the right shoulder. No, this was this is a 3D printed sample that we got months ago, and it's still wet. yeah I don't know why. Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, all all our sculpts are roto-molded. and So this is the 3D print. very Very nice 3D print. Yes. But it is a 3D print, and just the paint just doesn't dry. so you can see where I've touched it.
Speaker: Yeah. So is it just the right arm that moves up and down? or does that like It looks like the left arm moves too, right? Yeah, both arms move. The torso moves.
Speaker: guys you know yeah everything Everything half a gorilla does. Okay. The one question I have is when I saw this, I was, I am a little bit concerned about, you know, and, and the original Avengers, when you have Hulk back there where the arms go up and down and it seemed like the ball always gets stuck in there. So how is, is it because the way you position, I mean it's, it's far in the back on the back, right. And so it's, it's less prominent than the Hulk was.
Speaker: But how do you prevent like ball hangups? Cause that is, that is the nightmare of a designer. He's actually in the back panel. So the only interaction he has at the ball can get stuck is when he grabs a ball on the ramp.
Speaker: Oh, so that's intentional. There's no way for him to accidentally trap the ball. Oh, okay. He can also punch the glass when you get a replay. Are you serious?
Speaker: Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. That's so great. You know, they had a shark fin in here, but they they kept launching off the the shark fin and it landed in his arm all the time. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. No, yeah this was designed to be off the play field and interact with the balls coming both on a ramp. And then he obviously bashes the train to flip it over and dump all the balls out.
Speaker: When you start a design and you get a a theme, what is the first thing you do besides putting, you know, this the bottom, the bottom flippers in, how do you start engineering a play field?
Speaker: um Yeah, that's a tough one. ah Usually I try to have a couple of shots in mind that I want to do Then I try to figure out, you know, what kind of toys is this going to have? And then fill in the rest of the shots. Generally, like I said, this game was completely designed around the right orbit.
Speaker: punchback thing. And everything everything else just kind it's like, all right, I want to have a giant you know gorilla in the back right corner. This this spiral thing is an interesting ball path, but also it's flat, so I can have this big gorilla taking up me on the entire quarter of the the play field the back right corner there.
Speaker: All the rest of the shots just came through. um I really wanted to do I really wanted to do another floating flipper upper flipper like I did Godzilla, meaning there's no nothing behind it.
Speaker: And so i was like, well, how can I improve on that? Because I don't you know i like repeating myself unless I can at least prove upon it slightly. I was like, well, that's when I came up with the you know the disappearing in lane for the upper left flipper. was like, okay, if I make this a diverter, boom, it's a floating flipper that's suddenly not a floating flipper. So now you can easily feed it when you need to. And if you need it to go through, will just ignore it.
Speaker: Like I said, it's like a mini play field. It's not a mini play field. There's no pop bumpers either, right? Nope. and Is this their first game that actually has a shot behind a flipper too? I mean, and excluding like a floating flipper, but like on the right side, you shoot behind It it goes into a VUK, right?
Speaker: Well, whoever filmed that was holding up the right flipper. You don't need to hold the right flipper up to shoot that shot. okay. yeah but Yeah, you can, but you don't have to. I got you know Spider-Man vibes, Star Trek, yada, yada. Somebody else messaged me that too, and I was like, no, you don't have to hold the flipper up.
Speaker: It's a normal shot. Oh, okay. yeah that would Yeah, whoever filmed that, come on now. I'm not saying it doesn't make it easier, but you don't have to do that. Yeah, style points.
Speaker: Actually, some of the modes, you get more points for not doing that. so Similar to Iron Maiden? Yeah. yeah Forgot about that.
Speaker: Okay. So on the, uh, the subway car, that is a physical ball lock. Correct. Yeah. So you can put that in there and it seemed like you, it's almost like the, the turtles van and the bridge breaking that you did in Godzilla had a baby and they, they made that. And so is, is that a physical ball lock for, and, and can you steal locks?
Speaker: and How many does it hold? It holds three balls. You cannot steal locks because come on, you know, my tournament passed. I can't do that to people. Yeah, I know. I know. The trainer was actually a pretty late addition. I originally had Kong grabbing, grabbing a ball. If you look at his hand.
Speaker: Yeah. grabing Having been grabbing a ball, but then releasing it was a problem. I said, well, we can throw it. And it's like, well, yeah, nobody was a fan of that. So he's like, well, let's, what else can he do? was like, well,
Speaker: You can have them dump over a ah train full of balls. Everyone thought that was the greatest thing. i was like, all right, let's try it. and It looks cool. I was like, yeah, that's actually pretty cool. Yeah, so what started off as like, yeah but maybe let's just try this. And then it's like, oh, actually, this is really cool.
Speaker: how How quickly, it looks like it reacts pretty quickly when that kickback hits to that upper flipper. is there Is there any? No, it's actually, it's not quick. You just have to expect it.
Speaker: I think first time people play the game, they're expecting that to be a right orbit and it's not. And so, cause they're like, Whoa, wait, what? It's coming back. Yet the left orbit also feeds to the right flipper.
Speaker: Yes, man. You confuse me sometimes on your ball pass without giving hands. I, you know, I'm sorry. I told you, if you look at a picture, you're going to assume the ball goes somewhere where it doesn't actually go. And that's great. You know, I,
Speaker: ah Seth was actually complaining to be He's like, you know, it's like, I don't know what to call these shots. Cause this isn't an orbit. And i was like, yeah, no, it's not. i don't know what to call it either. hide I love that. I love those shots. It's it's, it reminds you kind of theater magic style, right? Where you're shooting. It feels like it's far enough, right? It should be an orbit. And all sudden like turns into a ramp and it's like, wait a minute, what's going on here. That's what, that is one of my favorite shots of all time is on jaws that right.
Speaker: orbit to ramp whatever it is it just it feels so satisfying geometry like from the geometry to hit that and it doesn't feel it like if you hit it solid it doesn't reject and even then like there's a little bit of give to it it just i feel like a lot your shots do that it's same with avengers avengers did that as well on the right side it's just some of these shots they just feel so good when you hit them so yeah i love that shot on jones too i'd say that this I think this is the game where I actually have a left orbit. I don't think any my other games have ah left orbit where it traditionally would be.
Speaker: Yeah. I guess you don't. I was going to maybe Iron Man or doesn't. No, no, because Iron Man in the orbit, it's kind of a center. yeah it's ah it's It's a center type thing. Holy crap.
Speaker: The first time in orbit. I had one and I hated it, so then I made it do the... the return instead. Yeah. Loop to loop. And that is, you know, that is a really cool shot too, where you feed it from the upper and it drains it right back or it comes right back at you through that left side. That's.
Speaker: Yeah. See that again, that was a pivot. That was originally a giant helix. And then Harrison's like, Oh, I got bad news for you around a room. Cause we couldn't, couldn't, it didn't have enough space to do an entire helix. So it kind of just,
Speaker: took the helix, cut it in half and bent the wires backwards. And so, well, let's see if we have enough inertia to do this. And we did. Oh, great. This is actually one of my favorite ramps in the game.
Speaker: Is there any, cause one of your, I would say maybe a signature, I don't know, is, is the one 80 ramp. You've got it on Jurassic park. You've got it on. There's a lot of games that you have. Is, does this have a one 80 in it as well?
Speaker: No, it does not. Okay. and I don't want that to be my signature ramp. You know, this doesn't have a Newton ball. I know everyone everyone's probably predicted it would. Yeah. Those are Newton ball and the one 80 ramp, you know, trying to do different stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it all, it's all working out great. And I just know like with, with Jurassic park, you had that. And i think ah jaws definitely had that as the wave ramp or whatever, but um yeah, I just didn't see that on this. I know that some people do complain about the one 80 ramps, but you know what, if you hit it better, if you hit it more on,
Speaker: You don't worry about it. yeah I like 180 rings. I like 180s. Yeah. yeah no I like them. But like I said, i I try not to repeat myself too much. And since Jaws had two of them, was like, yeah, I'm probably not doing it.
Speaker: yeah Yeah. Looking at the color scheme, this is a very poppy color scheme. like yeah So I'm i'm ah wondering a little bit, and maybe Jeremy can talk a little bit more to this.
Speaker: that There is a question about, well, it's Kong. Should you do more of like a subdued you know, a subdued color palette, but this, I mean, this has purples in it. It has, has greens. It has it, you know, fuchsia.
Speaker: I think, well, I don't think that was really a Jeremy's call. It was kind of set up early by Kevin O'Connor. I think it's kind of a throwback to the color palette of the original Kong. Sure.
Speaker: As to why that was done. Cause like I said, Jeremy came on pretty late to help finish up the the cabinet art. So it was, you know, those colors were already in place.
Speaker: Why did they only make 10 Kongs, the originals, the the Data East ones? From what Gary said, one, it wasn't a good game. And two, Back to the Future is on its tail.
Speaker: Oh. Gotcha. Okay. I just like, it's it's just a really cool game. And it's you don't see a ton because they only made a handful of them. and did you guys get did you play this Did you play the original Kong much while you developing you have an original Kong there?
Speaker: No. No, I haven't played one of those before. 30 years. I mean, it's whenever it was at expo a long time ago. time Time to get people to bring more Kongs out to expo.
Speaker: I don't know. I heard one of them burned down or something. there's only nine left. Okay. I, I will say when I heard about the fires in LA, was, I was li legit thinking I'm obviously a terrible thing, but I'm thinking those are a lot of expensive houses. I wonder how many pinball machines were in there.
Speaker: Yeah. It might be the only one who thought that I'm sure. yeah that's That's why you get your insurance company to call Flippin' Out Pinball to send you ah a new King Kong to replace. Yeah, exactly. yeah yeah And upgrade your collection anyway, right? Yep. yeah there's There's the silver lining right there.
Speaker: Get the Godzilla and the Kong to go right next to each other. I think i the problem is I need to figure out a way to get Godzilla and Kong next to each other because i I'm out of space, but I i don't know what i don't know how it's on me to modify things. Play these smaller games.
Speaker: Yeah, get a safe crack. Yeah. Get a revenge for Mars. Okay. Is revenge for Mars really that much smaller? It's like a foot smaller, but it still covers the same footpath.
Speaker: Yeah. There's more room for a monitor and boards, but I think it's pretty much the same footprint. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Well, is there anything else like that you were just excited about this game that we haven't touched on yet, Keith? Yeah. What are the things that we should have asked that we're not smart enough to ask?
Speaker: Oh, um,
Speaker: um'm like yeah I'm excited to people watch the stream to see the flow of the game. Those sweepable drop targets are so satisfying. that um you know I like this so much in Quicksilver. I just like, I want to do my own take on these.
Speaker: And i think it it just works. First try, which was really weird. We had the first Whitewood. I just kind of guessed how they should align and then we never moved them. so It's still my favorite part of the game. It's just sweeping those, have come all the way around. You shoot the biplane ramp for a sweep combo.
Speaker: its yeah It's just fun things like that, fun pinball moments. This game has lot of energy, the music, the sound. Jerry Thompson killed it. It's a very high-energy, fast-paced game. you know As opposed to kind of a slog adventure you know type of game, which i don' I'm not a fan of.
Speaker: Honestly, that's what that was petrified when Jaws came out because I thought everyone would thanked that because, to me, know It's not my style really. is I have kind of a slow, you know long story based game, but people really like it. And I was like, oh that's amazing because I was i was so scared.
Speaker: This is boring. This is no energy. was like, this is this the movie though. yeah This is what, if you've watched the movie, and it's not action packed. But this game, it's a lot more action packed. I don't know. I had a lot of fun making it and I hope everyone gets to enjoy it. So thank you.
Speaker: I did want to follow up on one thing. And I thought about this before sweepable drop targets. So how are they engineered differently than your standard drop targets? It's all about the angle.
Speaker: So, the you know, you you know, nice ball trajectory path. You get those targets kind of alignment, same trajectory, and you can, you can sweep all four of them. If you do it just right, you know, cause didn't have a sweet feature, but that was a three target bank.
Speaker: And that was kind a little further, further in the middle. So it's all about, it's all about that angle, man. If you ever played classic Sterns, they, they live on the sweep. It's like flight 2000, you shoot that spinner and it's like almost tries to sweep by itself. You know, you don't need to do anything.
Speaker: It was always one of my favorite features. Uh, when I was playing those games as a kid, you know, spinners and sweepable drops. I can design games around those all day. zi how but How many spinners does this one have?
Speaker: Two, two optic spinners. so So the real question that's on everyone's mind that know that you've already Does it eat the ball? Huh? Does it eat the ball? Does it the ball? No, no. So they noticed that when the gong was released last week, Rick Nagel's initials were on the gong.
Speaker: Poor Rick. Huh? I said, poor Rick. I know. so So why did he quit Stern? Yeah. And why did he start Nagel Oil? How's his new job? Yeah. Nagel Oil is doing well.
Speaker: He's on the gong. He's just on the side. Oh, gotcha. I'm sorry. It's hilarious. Those glyphs wrap around to the sides. Oh, okay.
Speaker: Gotcha. No, it's funny when people start speculating. They're like, oh, Rick's initials aren't on there. He must have quit. He's done. He's done. You know, RIP, Rick. RIP. You had a good run. You had a good run. Well, know, there's a lot more lot more of a design team than five or whatever there was room for initials for in the front. So, yeah, they wrap around.
Speaker: How did the gong, the gong feels a little bit like the swinging bell in ACDC. So ah like, can you tell me, was that an an inspiration or was it it just your own way of doing things?
Speaker: Oh, you know, actually I really liked, liked that on ACDC. wouldn't say was an inspiration, but you know, I was kind of hoping for the same swinging feature.
Speaker: Whereas ACDC, you know, you kind of hit it and then it hits the ball back at you. Yeah, it kicks it back at you. Yeah, I wasn't looking for that. I really wanted the gong to fire back at you. So we put a really heavy spring on there. And then there's times where I wanted to shoot through, or um unlike ACDC, good luck getting it past it.
Speaker: So, you know, the coil releases you, you can shoot right through to the speed buck. Awesome. i I don't know. Everyone, I haven't heard a negative thing yet. I'm excited for this game.
Speaker: I'm I'm slightly jealous of Scott. I won't be there Thursday, but Scott gets to come up and hang out with you, go through Kong and play this and give it a try. Yeah, man. ah Just congratulations.
Speaker: it's It's another home run. Thanks. This is the best day because then I can move on to the next project. You can actually talk about it and move on. Yeah. Okay. I started this thing like a you know year and a half ago. So yeah it's like, it's always great to like, all right, time to start something else. I'm i'm ready.
Speaker: Okay. And another thing people are going to ask about ah accessories, like, ah are they in some state of development? I know the goal would be to have them pretty close to launch because you want, if people are buying the game, a lot of times they're just like add, add, add and complete package.
Speaker: Yeah. ah Hopefully they will be soon. Okay. ah Most of them are done or we're still working on the topper. hopefully people really like this topper I really like it so here is this hair Harrison is designing this topper and I think he did an amazing job wow actually the the two questions our audience always loves us asking I don't know why but we'll do it anyway how many designs ahead are you Keith and how many flippers are on your next game yeah three flippers are on my next game and that's that's my where I'm at designing I haven't haven't gone forward
Speaker: Wow, you're you're only one design your on the current current design after this. and that Okay, but but it is a ah it is the center. It is a flipper that the action button changes where it goes. either flips left or flips right, right?
Speaker: Yeah, it's on a turntable. Yeah, absolutely. no i' got but My days of working ahead are over. You can only do that for so long. Yeah. Well, it's because you've got you also teaching classes down there how to design, right? Yeah, exactly. I'm also...
Speaker: cutting up clips for jaws still, you know, it's just, once you have a lot of projects under your belt, you're just constantly having to maintain them for various reasons, you know? Yeah.
Speaker: yeah Okay. That is actually a question though, since you don't have ah since this is an unlicensed, you know, unlicensed theme, you have to actually develop all of the LCD stuff.
Speaker: yeah in In addition to that. and so that can be challenging too, because if you have movie assets or something, it's easier to to just grab a clip and throw it in there. But this, you actually have to have an animation department do something to make it interesting.
Speaker: Yeah. So again, we're talking about the double-edged sword. Is it great having assets? Yes. Is it tough having assets? Yes. I experienced that with Jaws. I was like, all right, I'm going to ride a moat around you these guys fishing.
Speaker: Okay. How do I do that? well, it's got to match what's going on on screen and not much is going on screen. Two dudes like casting the pole. It's just classic. That's why I gave it to Elizabeth. it's like, have fun with this.
Speaker: It's like, it's so tough to write rules that actually match what's going on the screen. Whereas with this, I could say, all right, you know King Kong is battling a T-Rex, and then two other T-Rexes come out. It's like, wow.
Speaker: So we can just make this stuff up. Obviously, it's more of a drain on the animation department, but again, I get more freedom in what's going on on the screen and both and with the rules.
Speaker: um I guess one other question I actually did have before we get past it. Impractical Joker's Brian Quinn, how the heck did he get involved in a project like this? Well, you know, I have no idea.
Speaker: We were looking for voice talent and Jody was like, oh, Brian Quinn wants to be in that. He was like, oh, okay. So it all happened within like a week. Oh, really? We actually have, this is the most actors we've used. We have, I think we have four different voice actors plus Brian Quinn did.
Speaker: so we have some of the sailors and he did some of the Kong grunts and growls. Okay. he did one of the characters named Jimmy, who's kind of a minor character, but you know, he did a great job.
Speaker: I love the video. Cause it looks like he's recording his kitchen. There's like a fridge behind it on the radiator. Like I said, this was all put together last second. He was like, yeah, I can do this. Oh, this looks great. So, you know, we, we got him a script and yeah It happened so fast, it was crazy. But yeah, we have like Rick Zeep from Godzilla.
Speaker: His daughter actually did some voice work for us and a couple other news actor friends helped us with all their voices for the characters. Well, that that is one thing that's actually been exceptional in your games is that like the, you know the voice call outs for Godzilla, the voice calls for Iron Man, they have been spot on with not just detracting. Cause there are some games where you play and you're like ah, that's not exactly how I want the the voices, but it's, you you guys have been able to merge very well your themes with the right actors. And I've really appreciated that on your games.
Speaker: Yeah. that's when we can choose whoever we want, it's great. You know, sometimes you have to work with the the studios actor, you know, if they're having a bad day or don't want to be there, it makes it tough. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, even the lines, the lines are great. You know, some of those, some of those lines are just so quotable from all the games, you know, we we definitely have some reused quotes from other games for sure.
Speaker: Any chance there's a shoot the wamps in this one?
Speaker: Uh, there's a big chance of that. There's also shoot the wamps. ah Shoot the wiver. Yeah. shoot the one Love it. Well, we know you're on a tight schedule today, Keith, and we know you got an appointment coming up here shortly.
Speaker: um ah We appreciate you coming on again, man. like Congratulations. this is This is epic. I'm excited i to play this. Scott, do you get anything else for us before I do the outro?
Speaker: ah You definitely need to to buy this game. This is one of those where you look it and you're like, yeah, you you need to have this in your collection, especially if you have a Godzilla. Absolutely. it's It's necessary to have it in your collection. At least wait to play it. Play it.
Speaker: Okay. I'll play it on Thursday and then i'll and then I'll tell you that I'm really going to order it. I will play it when it's in my house. No, you're right. Do get your hands on it. there ah The Pinball the Zoo is coming up this weekend. this is going to be the first appearance for Kong there.
Speaker: If you can get to the show, get to the show, get your hands on Kong. It's definitely going to worth it. I think we're also coming to the Golden State Festival. And the ah the Seattle Tacoma show will will have a big booth there, too.
Speaker: So it sounds like you guys are going to be all over the nation here in the next couple of months. So yeah there shouldn't be a reason not to get out and put your hands on it. Yeah, she should definitely talk about. the So our Patreon that we're working on.
Speaker: Uh, Josh started the patron and the whole goal of the patron is actually to to to, really help fund us going to these events so we can get stuff for you. And I big thank to thank you to Stern and Zach Sharp, because we actually have two people, part of the, the winter kids club. And, ah we, we reached out and both of them wanted to come. So if you want your chance in the future,
Speaker: um Join the Patreon. Also send us feedback. Tell us what things you would be interested in the Patreon. All the money actually goes directly back into really ah providing material for you in the podcast. So we want to make sure you you get any value for your money. The whole purpose of this is just to keep things going and to bring you a better product.
Speaker: And so definitely check that out. And if you are interested, ah join the high level. And then we do a random drawing to see ah who will be able to come with us. And we'll contact you. And so it's, you know, we can't pay for your way out, but it's an opportunity to come out with us and you can help support to Josh and me by getting us out there.
Speaker: Yep. Definitely. If you want to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com. You want to get a, get ahold of us on any of the socials at loser kid pinball, subscribe, subscribe, all that jazz. You know, you know how it goes.
Speaker: Uh, we, thanks again, Keith, uh, Scott, give us our give us our last words. By King Kong. Actually, you know what? I want Bang-a-Gong. and That's what I want in this game. Bang-a-Gong? I know what you want.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. yeah
