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Ep 101: Elwin, Keith Elwin
65 Plays3 years ago
Elwin is back! We're talking Godzilla, Bond, Indisc, and maybe even some new hints about his next cornerstone. You're not going to want to miss this one.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode 101 Kickoff
00:00:06
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the loser kid pinball podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
We know you thought we weren't coming back.
00:00:11
Speaker
Guess what?
00:00:11
Speaker
It's episode one Oh one.
00:00:12
Speaker
Whoa.
00:00:14
Speaker
I am Josh Roop with me.
00:00:15
Speaker
My co-captain as always Scott Larson and Scott.
00:00:18
Speaker
Uh, it sounds like more pinball machines
Buying Insider Connected Units
00:00:20
Speaker
are being made.
00:00:20
Speaker
Where are you buying yours from?
00:00:22
Speaker
Well, I, I, okay, do you know, I actually did just pick up and I got shipped out the other day is I bought four insider connected to install in all my games that are compatible with it, but not, weren't currently installed because I purchased them before.
00:00:37
Speaker
So Zach and Nicole Mania at Flipping Out Pinball, they've always been good to me.
00:00:41
Speaker
They're really easy to work with.
00:00:43
Speaker
And not just pinball machines.
00:00:45
Speaker
I got banners from them.
00:00:46
Speaker
And you can eat Translize.
00:00:48
Speaker
Just all that fun stuff that they've always been really a good friend of the show.
00:00:53
Speaker
So we appreciate their support.
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, if you need anything, just give them a call.
00:00:56
Speaker
Give them a text.
00:00:56
Speaker
I like to message them through Facebook.
00:00:58
Speaker
Zach's easy to get a hold of that way.
00:01:00
Speaker
So look at their current list.
00:01:02
Speaker
They just updated at the end of January.
00:01:04
Speaker
They've got a ton of games on there.
00:01:06
Speaker
Go ahead and hit them up.
00:01:07
Speaker
They will take care of you very well.
Acknowledging Jeff Teolis's Support
00:01:11
Speaker
All right, Scott.
00:01:12
Speaker
I want to do one shout out before we start this.
00:01:16
Speaker
We'll make our guests wait just a little bit longer.
00:01:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:19
Speaker
So Jeff Teolis did his top 10 for 2022, and he put us on there at number eight.
00:01:26
Speaker
And I appreciate the words that he said.
00:01:28
Speaker
That was very nice of him.
00:01:30
Speaker
We love you too, Jeff.
00:01:31
Speaker
You're an awesome dude.
00:01:32
Speaker
And honestly, he's kind of been a mentor in some of this as well.
00:01:37
Speaker
Are you sure he wasn't drunk when he made that list?
00:01:39
Speaker
Maybe.
00:01:39
Speaker
You know what?
00:01:40
Speaker
I have learned from Jeff.
00:01:41
Speaker
He's only sincere like one time out of the year.
00:01:44
Speaker
It's usually the top 10.
00:01:45
Speaker
So I feel like he was either pulling our leg or he was being very sincere.
00:01:49
Speaker
Pranking us.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:01:52
Speaker
Jeff's always been a good friend of the show and Marty too.
00:01:54
Speaker
So today we have a very special guest.
00:01:57
Speaker
The guest that's been on our show more times than any other guest.
00:02:01
Speaker
The guest that gets consistently the most downloads.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yes, and he has been named the GOAT for many reasons.
00:02:09
Speaker
The greatest of all time.
00:02:10
Speaker
In playing, definitely has that locked up.
00:02:14
Speaker
The greatest of all time player and rapidly approaching what could be the greatest of all time designer.
00:02:20
Speaker
So Josh, who do we have on board?
Guest Introduction: Keith Elwin
00:02:23
Speaker
None other than Keith Elwin.
00:02:24
Speaker
How are you doing, Keith?
00:02:26
Speaker
Hello.
00:02:27
Speaker
I don't know if I have that wrapped up because, you know, when I was in my prime, there was just no tournaments.
00:02:33
Speaker
So, you know, here I am an old man and, you know, these kids like Escher and Jared and Neil are just, yeah, they're very good and they're going to have so many.
00:02:44
Speaker
World Championships to win that, yeah, I don't think that's going to last, but I'll enjoy it while I can.
00:02:51
Speaker
That had been one of the best finals I had ever watched, it coming down between you and Escher and that bonus there on Flash Gordon.
00:02:57
Speaker
I know you probably don't want to relive it, but how was that experience for you?
00:03:00
Speaker
I mean, that was great.
00:03:06
Speaker
I mean, it's just, I don't do this because I need the recognition.
00:03:10
Speaker
I don't need the money.
00:03:11
Speaker
I do it because I enjoy it.
00:03:13
Speaker
And
00:03:14
Speaker
I would much rather have something like that and lose than just plow through finals.
00:03:22
Speaker
That's over before the third game even starts.
00:03:23
Speaker
I think that's boring.
00:03:26
Speaker
The fact that Indisk uses the format where you cannot...
00:03:33
Speaker
picked the same game twice through the entire, you know, the entirety of the finals.
00:03:38
Speaker
So here we are.
Strategies and Tournament Experiences
00:03:41
Speaker
I was third seed and Zach McCarthy and Eric Stoner ahead of me.
00:03:46
Speaker
So I was like, well, there's no way these guys are getting knocked out in the opening round.
00:03:51
Speaker
So I was, I used all my, my choice picks in my first round.
00:03:56
Speaker
And then lo and behold, they got kicked out.
00:03:58
Speaker
Then I was like, oh, okay, well now, you know, now I have to strategically pick up these games.
00:04:04
Speaker
Like some of them I'm not even that familiar with like bad girls.
00:04:07
Speaker
I had played that once in qualifying, had no idea what I was doing.
00:04:10
Speaker
Um, you know, didn't even have the right backlash in it.
00:04:14
Speaker
So I was like, uh, what, what is this game?
00:04:16
Speaker
Uh, but you know, I felt comfortable in it, but I had no idea what to do.
00:04:22
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, okay, this is fine.
00:04:23
Speaker
I would never pick this as a pick, but, uh,
00:04:25
Speaker
you know, that came back and bit me, but it was actually, it was fun.
00:04:28
Speaker
It was like that.
00:04:30
Speaker
Um, I watched Escher play and I was like, Oh, you know, they helped to watch somebody good play it, you know, on the screen that they're, they had up there.
00:04:38
Speaker
And I was like, okay, that's what you do.
00:04:39
Speaker
And then, so I adjusted my strategy, but yeah, I couldn't quite catch up to him.
00:04:43
Speaker
And then, uh, yeah, I was kind of down to, uh, do I want to pick rush against Escher?
00:04:50
Speaker
Not really.
00:04:51
Speaker
Or I can play flash Gordon.
00:04:53
Speaker
So, uh,
00:04:54
Speaker
Yeah, I chose Flash Gordon.
00:04:55
Speaker
I own one.
00:04:55
Speaker
It's a fun game, but obviously it's a drain monster.
00:05:00
Speaker
So the fact that him and I, I mean, even he was just like, I can't believe I came back on Flash Gordon.
00:05:04
Speaker
I hate this game.
00:05:06
Speaker
So I was like, you know what?
00:05:07
Speaker
That was such an exciting ending.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:09
Speaker
Even though I lost, it was just like, it was fun.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:13
Speaker
It was fun for us too.
00:05:14
Speaker
I mean, it was, that was quite intense.
00:05:16
Speaker
I think between that moment and Travis Murie getting a double zero, I think we're the two best moments of that final.
00:05:24
Speaker
Travis going for the donut.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, I have not seen anything like that since an EM where like the old Gottliebs that they didn't care if he had zero.
00:05:34
Speaker
And it's like, wow, I think all of us are like, what?
00:05:37
Speaker
I cannot believe he didn't get disqualified.
00:05:38
Speaker
I mean, that would have been awful for him to just walk up and plunge player four.
00:05:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:05:43
Speaker
Because he didn't notice the different blinking scores.
00:05:46
Speaker
So, yeah, good on him for, you know.
00:05:49
Speaker
Keeping us aware of such a thing exists.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:52
Speaker
I think we were all pretty shocked in that moment.
00:05:54
Speaker
His face said it all, which was great.
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:57
Speaker
He just like looks up, looks back.
00:06:02
Speaker
But it's great to see you going up against Escher.
00:06:04
Speaker
It's given us quite these games over the last, you know, I've been watching the last few years now.
00:06:10
Speaker
And it seems like you and Escher, at some point in every...
00:06:13
Speaker
leading up to a final, go into the same group with each other.
00:06:17
Speaker
And so it's kind of cool to see the young versus the talented and the experienced.
00:06:24
Speaker
The seasoned?
00:06:25
Speaker
The seasoned, yes, the seasoned player.
00:06:28
Speaker
It's just really cool to see kind of a transferring of the torch, so to speak.
00:06:32
Speaker
And these young kids, it's getting scary how good they are.
00:06:36
Speaker
Well, they cheat.
00:06:37
Speaker
They have YouTube now.
00:06:39
Speaker
That's fair.
00:06:40
Speaker
When we were playing in the late 90s, early 2000s, they come across a
Generational Differences in Pinball Learning
00:06:45
Speaker
game you'd never seen before.
00:06:46
Speaker
You can't watch a video on it.
00:06:47
Speaker
You can't watch any flipper skills.
00:06:49
Speaker
And so I actually think all these streamings and the rigs that they've come out with and everything has really helped promote...
00:06:58
Speaker
these kids getting so good so fast because i think pretty much all of them you know their parents are into pinball and right you're like oh how do i play this game so they'll watch you know carl stream or whatever it's like okay this is how you blow this game up and so you know they'll take that same approach and all of a sudden they're they're just as good as the rest of us and uh so we have to rely on picking these older games so uh we still have that going for us well and those those older games really are brutal so it gives us quite quite a spectacle watch too so
00:07:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it depends on the game.
00:07:28
Speaker
You know, Flash Gordon obviously is pretty brutal, but, you know, some of the games that they had there at Indisc, like Surf and Safari and even Bad Girls, it was pretty controllable, even though there were no ramps or anything.
00:07:38
Speaker
They were controllable.
00:07:41
Speaker
I guess, I don't know if you want to give this information away, but what is your go-to old game if you have one in a tournament?
00:07:48
Speaker
Usually it's Frontier.
00:07:50
Speaker
I didn't really, I wasn't crazy about how the one there played in Classics 2, so it became Super Sonic.
00:07:58
Speaker
That's just a game where you do absolutely nothing with the right flipper, but tap past to the left flipper.
00:08:02
Speaker
And I'm pretty good at that.
00:08:04
Speaker
So that was my go-to game.
00:08:06
Speaker
Nice.
00:08:07
Speaker
In finals, it was high speed because I've just been playing that game since it came out.
00:08:14
Speaker
I love it.
00:08:14
Speaker
And yeah, I probably have more time logged on high speed than probably any other game.
00:08:20
Speaker
That's including the games you've made, huh?
00:08:23
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:23
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:08:24
Speaker
You know, once my game gets released, I don't want to play it for a year.
00:08:28
Speaker
So when was the last time you played Godzilla?
00:08:31
Speaker
Actually, I played it just a couple of days ago because we have a minor update coming out for Carl's thing he's running.
00:08:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:43
Speaker
There was a couple of minor bugs, and then we put a little tribute to Dean Grover in there because he passed away since the last code update.
00:08:51
Speaker
And yeah, he did a few modes on the game, so we wanted to make sure that we recognized everything he did.
00:08:58
Speaker
So we put a little tribute in there to him and just cleaned up some bugs.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, so that's the last time I played it.
00:09:05
Speaker
But last time I played it for fun, it's probably been a while.
00:09:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:10
Speaker
My girlfriend plays it all the time, but I'm usually like, yeah, I think I need another six months and then I'll want to play it again.
00:09:17
Speaker
It's the same with all my games.
00:09:18
Speaker
After Jurassic Park came out, I didn't want to play it for a year.
00:09:21
Speaker
Same with Avengers.
00:09:22
Speaker
But, you know, it'll come around when I'm not playing it to look for bugs or code ideas.
00:09:28
Speaker
Then then it becomes fun for me.
00:09:30
Speaker
I've actually been playing Jurassic Park a lot the last two weeks.
00:09:35
Speaker
So even though I, I've been playing around and playing Godzilla and all, all the new stuff.
00:09:40
Speaker
And then I was like, I haven't played Jurassic park in a while and I am getting really into that game again.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:46
Speaker
That's funny.
00:09:46
Speaker
It was the same thing with me.
00:09:48
Speaker
Um, it's, you know, it's been here for a while, but I never played it.
00:09:52
Speaker
And then, uh, once Godzilla was, you know, got to the point where Rick wasn't working on it full time anymore, then I started playing, uh, Jurassic park again.
Revisiting Past Game Designs
00:10:03
Speaker
And, um,
00:10:04
Speaker
I was just like, ah, man, I really do enjoy this game.
00:10:08
Speaker
And of course, my Avengers is still in this box, but I will get it out probably this summer.
00:10:14
Speaker
It's my goal to get it out of the box in the game room.
00:10:18
Speaker
I actually just sent off my Avengers glove to be customized.
00:10:24
Speaker
And so it actually looks pretty impressive, and I can't wait to put it back in the game.
00:10:30
Speaker
You make it look like the movie?
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:32
Speaker
See, that was that thing.
00:10:34
Speaker
It was the comic book version of the glove looks so different than what they use in a movie.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
People are like, why is there a dishwashing glove?
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:41
Speaker
You look at the comic, that's literally what it looks like.
00:10:44
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:10:45
Speaker
Yeah, it does.
00:10:46
Speaker
And the cool thing is I just sent you a picture and you can look at it.
00:10:50
Speaker
And he had the Marvel runes and he put an LKP on my glove.
00:10:56
Speaker
So I sent it with my friends.
00:10:57
Speaker
So we have loser kid pinball.
00:10:58
Speaker
They'll be in the game.
00:11:00
Speaker
Ooh, those are nice.
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:02
Speaker
Man, you should have made an extra one for me.
00:11:05
Speaker
You didn't ask.
00:11:06
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know.
00:11:07
Speaker
His name is Alex.
00:11:08
Speaker
He'll, he'll do it for you.
00:11:10
Speaker
I'll have to, I'll have to hit him up.
00:11:11
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:11:12
Speaker
It looks really cool.
00:11:14
Speaker
Well, and one thing I want to bring up with Godzilla is like in Jurassic park and Avengers, you had those side modes that you could just access from the, the pushing the two flippers in.
00:11:23
Speaker
Why didn't you go with that on Godzilla?
00:11:26
Speaker
Yes.
00:11:27
Speaker
We are.
00:11:29
Speaker
It's taking longer, but... Yeah, we're definitely going to have something.
00:11:35
Speaker
Worst case scenario, we'll throw in like maybe... What is that?
00:11:42
Speaker
Not Monsters or the other one.
00:11:44
Speaker
Oh, Terror of Mechagodzilla.
00:11:46
Speaker
I think we'll at least throw that in soon and then work on the one that was actually planned from the beginning.
00:11:55
Speaker
hopefully we get that out, you know, sometime this year, but, um,
Designing Godzilla Pinball
00:12:00
Speaker
yeah, it's definitely there.
00:12:01
Speaker
We will definitely put something in there because, uh, uh, I remember when Dwight first put that in, um,
00:12:08
Speaker
Ghostbusters and then we put it in Jurassic.
00:12:10
Speaker
I was like, yeah, this is this is cool.
00:12:12
Speaker
It's fun.
00:12:13
Speaker
Every game should have this.
00:12:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:14
Speaker
So it's definitely it's getting done.
00:12:18
Speaker
Not sure when, but it's definitely getting done.
00:12:20
Speaker
OK, I just figured when we hit one point, I was like, well, dang it, it's not happening.
00:12:23
Speaker
But you heard it here first, people.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, it is happening.
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah, not at one point.
00:12:30
Speaker
It's happening simultaneously with the topper, I guess.
00:12:33
Speaker
You might be on the show.
00:12:38
Speaker
I kid, I kid.
00:12:40
Speaker
I gotta say, Godzilla is so refined.
00:12:42
Speaker
Like, I can see, I've owned all your games, and I've kind of watched as the code has evolved, and you've taken bits and pieces of each code from your other games.
00:12:53
Speaker
And Godzilla has somehow just perfectly refined that all together.
00:12:56
Speaker
Are you feeling like you're creating your own style through all this?
00:13:01
Speaker
Because I think the one complaint people had with Avengers is that they got so focused on the gems, they thought that's what it was about.
00:13:08
Speaker
And then you realize, well, it's really just shooting the Avengers.
00:13:11
Speaker
And so with Godzilla, it feels like there's something accomplished no matter where you're shooting, whether you're going for tanks or a bridge or even just raid.
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:21
Speaker
So I guess my question is, do you feel like you're starting to get that figured out and you're just kind of evolving on what you've done before?
00:13:29
Speaker
So I have a theory here.
00:13:30
Speaker
Um, it seems like a good percentage of the players just want to turn their brain off and flip and have fun.
00:13:38
Speaker
Uh, there are other diehards that like, uh, you know, like set your example of Avengers.
00:13:43
Speaker
They're like, well, here's this perk I put on this shot and you know, when do I want to do it?
00:13:49
Speaker
Um,
00:13:50
Speaker
So, you know, I have to take the approach of, yeah, not everyone wants to do that.
00:13:55
Speaker
Some people want to be told what to do and other people just don't care.
00:13:59
Speaker
So a good example is the power-up system in Godzilla was something entirely different.
00:14:08
Speaker
And when, you know, we started getting early code into the game and playing it and I was like, do I really want to put this menu up here of, you know, what,
00:14:19
Speaker
what you want to buy.
00:14:20
Speaker
So basically you're, we're gonna, you're building up this power and then you could cash it in for an award.
00:14:25
Speaker
And so, yeah, and you have six.
00:14:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:27
Speaker
And I get, I get all these, this list of things I can choose from, and then they all cost a certain amount of energy.
00:14:33
Speaker
And, um, I talked it over with Rick and I was like, you know, it's just, this, this is going to slow the game down.
00:14:39
Speaker
This is going to make too many options.
00:14:40
Speaker
People just want, you know, okay, I'll give me one or the other.
00:14:44
Speaker
Cause it's kind of like, you know, it was a throwback idea.
00:14:47
Speaker
to how the old Data East games worked, where, you know, like Star Wars is like, oh, do I want that or do I want 20 million?
00:14:53
Speaker
You know, you don't spend much brainpower thinking of that.
00:14:56
Speaker
So it's like, okay, yeah, one or the other.
00:14:57
Speaker
So we completely refined the power-up system, just one or the other.
00:15:03
Speaker
And I think that it worked out for the best because I haven't heard one person complain that is like, I don't understand when these power-ups do.
00:15:11
Speaker
I don't understand what to choose and when.
00:15:12
Speaker
It's because we pretty much made it simple.
00:15:15
Speaker
So my designs are, I think I've learned, it's like, oh, this is what people want.
00:15:23
Speaker
They want some ball time.
00:15:24
Speaker
So in Godzilla, we introduced a new ball save system where you get a certain amount of time, no matter how many actual ball saves you get.
00:15:35
Speaker
And so...
00:15:37
Speaker
We implemented that.
00:15:38
Speaker
Even though it's been in all my games, it just wasn't defaulted to it.
00:15:42
Speaker
So this is the first game we defaulted to it because, you know, you're plunging onto the play field, the ball drains, it kicks it back out, you drain again, then you feel robbed.
00:15:50
Speaker
So we implemented that into here.
00:15:53
Speaker
And then we noticed, well, you know, we keep seeing the same video over and over of Godzilla kicking his son.
00:15:58
Speaker
So I talked to Rick.
00:16:00
Speaker
He's like, can we just make this like its own little side story of, you know, Manila's quest?
00:16:05
Speaker
uh, you know, to beat that monster.
00:16:07
Speaker
So yeah, we did, we added like seven or eight, you know, little snippets.
00:16:10
Speaker
So every time you got a ball save, you'd see a different video.
00:16:13
Speaker
So we, we kind of had fun with it.
00:16:15
Speaker
Nice.
00:16:15
Speaker
And I think people enjoy that.
00:16:17
Speaker
Cause at least they don't feel robbed.
00:16:18
Speaker
I mean, it's like, if you don't get the ball under control after, you know, four or five plunges, that's on you.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:24
Speaker
So you have a game coming out that was just announced anyway.
00:16:29
Speaker
I know that my friend down the street is on the list to get one, and that is obviously Bond 60.
00:16:37
Speaker
So the first question is, when were you approached to do a playfield for Bond?
James Bond 60th Anniversary Pinball Design
00:16:44
Speaker
It was probably about a year ago.
00:16:49
Speaker
Whenever George kind of like full-time took over,
00:16:54
Speaker
the Bond Cornerstone, the rumblings of, you know, the licensure wanted, you know, kind of a retro throwback, old school design, you know, featuring all the bonds.
00:17:09
Speaker
And when I heard about this, I immediately volunteered because I knew it was going to be a while before Maddox game came out.
00:17:17
Speaker
And so, yeah, I had a meeting with George and he's like, yeah, you know, have fun, knock it out of the park.
00:17:23
Speaker
And so,
00:17:25
Speaker
I kind of paused the project I was working on and pivoted over to this.
00:17:32
Speaker
And yeah, just got started.
00:17:34
Speaker
Well, my understanding too, as we kind of talked a little bit before this, you pretty much just did the design the play field, whereas most of your other cornerstones, you're
00:17:42
Speaker
you're helping with the code you're helping with your, you're, you're doing the whole project, right?
00:17:47
Speaker
So how was it different doing just a play field?
00:17:50
Speaker
And do you have any nervousness with the code, not lining up with your vision of, uh, how, how your play field is going to be laid out?
00:17:58
Speaker
So, yeah, actually when, I mean, I'm on a cornerstone, I, you know, I'm, I'm dealing with the licensor.
00:18:03
Speaker
I'm dealing with, um, the artists, um,
00:18:08
Speaker
I'm designing accessories.
00:18:10
Speaker
So it is a very time consuming process.
00:18:14
Speaker
So in this case, yeah, it was actually kind of nice just to design a play field and then hand it off.
00:18:20
Speaker
And then it's not to say I abandoned it, but I worked closely with Mark Panacho, who came up with the rules for the game.
00:18:27
Speaker
And if he did something that I thought was questionable, I'd say, yeah, I'm not sure about this.
00:18:32
Speaker
And then there's some other things that he put in there that's like, yeah, this is pretty cool.
00:18:35
Speaker
So between the two of us, you know, coming up with a, you know, kind of a, I wouldn't say a simple rule set, but a more straightforward rule set than like you would have on a cornerstone.
00:18:49
Speaker
So it was actually a lot of fun.
00:18:51
Speaker
It's a fun game to shoot.
00:18:53
Speaker
The music's good.
00:18:54
Speaker
You know, it's, it's very fast.
00:18:57
Speaker
So that, that was actually my goal was to take, okay, you know, you want to,
00:19:02
Speaker
simple no-ramp game, but it doesn't mean I can't make it fast.
00:19:07
Speaker
We got two control gates on there, so lots of looping shots.
00:19:12
Speaker
I wanted to feel like you're in the car chase or something.
00:19:16
Speaker
I just wanted to always keep you on your toes.
00:19:18
Speaker
I didn't want the ball to just sit in the pop-umpers for an hour like traditional old-school classic games.
00:19:26
Speaker
We got a ball saver.
00:19:26
Speaker
We don't need to keep the ball in the pops for 20 seconds.
00:19:29
Speaker
We can just
00:19:30
Speaker
You can super scale shot around, get it right to your flipper and go to town like you would a modern game.
00:19:36
Speaker
So you, this is the first time that Stern has done two games with a, you know, with a single license.
00:19:44
Speaker
How does that affect your choices when George is designing a game and you are simultaneously designing a game?
00:19:51
Speaker
It didn't really affect, you know, my choices at all.
00:19:55
Speaker
Other than, you know, we're sharing the same narrator.
00:20:00
Speaker
uh, we have separate recording sessions, but it's the same guy.
00:20:05
Speaker
Um, yeah, we were not originally George had the, uh, the spinning disc on his game too, but where he had it, he didn't like it.
00:20:12
Speaker
So I think he, he yanked it out for that reason, but where I have it, it's much less in the way.
00:20:17
Speaker
And I think it actually, uh, adds a lot to the game.
00:20:21
Speaker
Despite what I see people saying, Oh no, not another disc.
00:20:23
Speaker
It was like, nah, this one's a little different.
00:20:25
Speaker
It's, uh,
00:20:27
Speaker
It's more of a fusion of the Batman disc and the Avengers disc, whereas it homes to a certain position to kind of be always in a meat zone.
00:20:38
Speaker
So when you hit it, it spins a long time because it has these special bearings that they use on the Batman and then it homes to a certain position.
00:20:48
Speaker
So it's not like the Avengers disc at all.
00:20:51
Speaker
And obviously everyone's loving the idea for optical spinners.
00:20:54
Speaker
Was that just like, I've got to do this from the get-go or?
00:20:58
Speaker
I originally had three and then there was this shot on the left.
00:21:05
Speaker
When you rip that figure eight loop, it would just come flying down this left lane.
00:21:09
Speaker
It was like, wow, I can put an optic spinner here and get a bunch of spins there too.
00:21:14
Speaker
So I just...
00:21:16
Speaker
I just told Rob, the engineer, he's like, you know, let's just throw another spinner in here.
00:21:19
Speaker
Let's see how it does.
00:21:20
Speaker
And then once we shot it, it's like, oh, yeah, that's staying.
00:21:24
Speaker
And so I was like, wow, a four spinner game.
00:21:28
Speaker
I'm not sure that had ever been done before.
00:21:30
Speaker
And then we actually have an achievement.
00:21:32
Speaker
If you get all four spinners going and the spinning hat, you get an achievement.
00:21:36
Speaker
You also get a bunch of points.
00:21:37
Speaker
It's like 500 points, which is a lot in that game.
00:21:40
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:21:41
Speaker
I remember you talking on Stern Insider podcast that like your highest score was 18,000 or something like that.
00:21:48
Speaker
That was recorded like last summer.
00:21:50
Speaker
So that was before any of the wizard modes were in.
00:21:53
Speaker
I think my high score is 80,000 now.
00:21:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:57
Speaker
Which is still, so I think it goes to like 200 something, because once you completely roll all the lights, then the over the top light adds as the 110,000.
00:22:11
Speaker
So it's going to be extremely hard to roll.
00:22:13
Speaker
I'm sure Carl will take that as a challenge.
00:22:17
Speaker
You can only get two extra balls in a game.
00:22:20
Speaker
So it's going to be pretty challenging.
00:22:23
Speaker
I'm sure someone will find a way to do it.
00:22:26
Speaker
Can you set it to 10 ball, though?
00:22:29
Speaker
I think it goes to five.
00:22:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:32
Speaker
All right.
00:22:33
Speaker
So they now actually you, you just got into the scoring, which I wanted to bring up.
00:22:38
Speaker
So when this came out and it was announced a long time ago by George is like, Hey, it's going to have reels in it.
00:22:44
Speaker
And then we kind of all, I fell into it too.
00:22:48
Speaker
I saw the release and I'm like, are you kidding?
00:22:51
Speaker
They just put an LCD screen back there.
00:22:53
Speaker
Cause it's exactly where the LCD screen is.
00:22:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:57
Speaker
There was a leak of a render.
00:23:01
Speaker
Um, it, which obviously it was,
00:23:03
Speaker
It looked flat because it was flat.
00:23:05
Speaker
It was just a render.
00:23:07
Speaker
But it's funny, though, because even in real life, if you stand at a straight on angle of the reels, they do look fake because they are so well lit with the LCD lighting system that they have in there.
00:23:21
Speaker
um that they almost do look fake whereas you know because you're used to you know you look at an em you see it's it's bottom lit by one you know yeah incandescent bulb so it has always has this kind of shadowy like it's bright bright on the top and the bottom and kind of darker in the middle but this doesn't have that so yeah it does it's it's not what you're used to seeing as far as a score reel
00:23:45
Speaker
I gotta say though, I love that when you posted the picture with the bezel down or whatever.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, bezel off.
00:23:53
Speaker
Yeah, we really went all out.
00:23:56
Speaker
Virtual panel open.
00:24:01
Speaker
It was great.
00:24:03
Speaker
We talked about going with a single level
Challenges of a Single-Level Playfield
00:24:05
Speaker
of retro field.
00:24:05
Speaker
What are the advantages and disadvantages of confining your design to a single level play field?
00:24:11
Speaker
I mean, the advantage is like,
00:24:13
Speaker
creating ramps is actually much harder than you think.
00:24:16
Speaker
Um, cause it usually take up a lot of, uh, entrance space and you didn't got to figure out where do they go and how do they interact with the other ramps.
00:24:26
Speaker
And it's actually like, um, my current, um, current project I'm working on, uh, my, my engineer Harrison and I have been just like, it took us like two months to figure out how the ramps would all interact with each other.
00:24:41
Speaker
It's very time consuming.
00:24:43
Speaker
we do a lot of trial and error.
00:24:45
Speaker
So for this, you know, there's none of that.
00:24:46
Speaker
It was just, you know, Hey, it's an old school game.
00:24:50
Speaker
There are no ramps.
00:24:51
Speaker
That means I can put drop targets wherever I want.
00:24:53
Speaker
You know, I can, you know, have all these dangerous shots, but you know, lots of shots you can bank off of other shots.
00:25:01
Speaker
It's kind of a fun, like relax your brain, just kind of have a throwback.
00:25:06
Speaker
What, what did these designers do?
00:25:08
Speaker
You know back when they were designing these games and then I realized oh I have such an advantage because I'm using you know CAD and then we can 3d print you know whatever we need to You know instantly try, you know, whatever shot we're trying to do.
00:25:22
Speaker
So Yeah, it was actually it was very smooth I was gonna say too.
00:25:28
Speaker
I mean this this game looks fantastic it I don't recall any Old-school game, you know pre DMD
00:25:37
Speaker
that looks like this.
00:25:37
Speaker
Was there any influence that you got outside of, like, is there one of your favorite games that you were trying to put on here?
00:25:43
Speaker
Or was it just kind of like, this is what I'm feeling.
00:25:45
Speaker
This is what I'm doing.
00:25:47
Speaker
I wanted to use, so I actually designed a shot that I never used.
00:25:51
Speaker
And I, I kind of like the, uh, the Harry Williams designs of the, uh, like both cheetah and Ali, they had the rope, a dope little thing.
00:26:00
Speaker
And even that nine ball has it too.
00:26:02
Speaker
So I was trying to do my take on that.
00:26:04
Speaker
And I was like, well, how about instead of just flying back in the middle of the play field, I have it, you know, loop back around.
00:26:10
Speaker
And, um, so yeah, I went to work on that and fast.
00:26:15
Speaker
Wow.
00:26:15
Speaker
This works really well.
00:26:16
Speaker
Then they had it, you know, dropped down and then it's like, yeah, this is cool.
00:26:20
Speaker
And of course later I find out that, uh, I guess diamond lady has a very similar shot, but I was like, oh, well, oops, that certainly wasn't what that was from.
00:26:30
Speaker
But, um, um,
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, I was actually surprised when someone posted that.
00:26:37
Speaker
I was like, oh, okay.
00:26:39
Speaker
I can't say I had much time on that game, but I didn't remember that.
00:26:43
Speaker
I've never even heard of that game.
00:26:44
Speaker
I'm looking it up right now.
00:26:46
Speaker
Diamond Lady, yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
Somebody posted, oh, it gets very similar.
00:26:49
Speaker
And I looked at it and I was like, oh, yeah.
00:26:51
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:26:52
Speaker
This looks straight out of the 70s.
00:26:54
Speaker
I want you also to explain to us, because I heard this on the Insider podcast about these drop targets and how they're unique because somehow you can trigger them with the lockdown button.
00:27:05
Speaker
Yeah, so these are trippable inline drop targets, which is something we've never done.
00:27:11
Speaker
So if you've played Metallica and somehow a ball got stuck behind a target, it would just be stuck there.
00:27:18
Speaker
So yeah, we designed these trippable to prevent section from that from happening.
00:27:25
Speaker
But then I realized, oh, we can actually take advantage of this.
00:27:27
Speaker
But you get this gadget that'll enable the action button to just drop the targets so you don't take those dangerous shots.
00:27:36
Speaker
Of course, the trade-off is each one of those targets lights something on the play field that helps you.
00:27:40
Speaker
So when you get this gadget, you can bypass that and go straight for multiball.
00:27:44
Speaker
But you don't get the benefits of actually hitting the drops.
00:27:48
Speaker
So that's how that came about.
00:27:50
Speaker
And yeah, it's actually, I'm really glad we put that in.
00:27:53
Speaker
I was skeptical at first, I was like, why would we need this?
00:27:56
Speaker
I don't see how the ball's gonna get stuck behind the targets, but then I was like, okay, yeah, I'll take it and then I'll use it in a gadget.
00:28:04
Speaker
What's your favorite shot in this game?
00:28:06
Speaker
Definitely that figure eight loop.
00:28:09
Speaker
Also the left orbit is kind of fun, especially from an in lane.
00:28:13
Speaker
So each time you're rolling over an in lane, it lights a spinner.
00:28:18
Speaker
a related spinner for 10 points of spin.
00:28:20
Speaker
And that's fun.
00:28:22
Speaker
The left-hand lane also lights the hat for 10 points of spin.
00:28:27
Speaker
So those are definitely my two favorite shots.
00:28:30
Speaker
I want a list of some of your favorite single level games and why you like them.
00:28:36
Speaker
I grew up playing Frontier Skateball and 8-Ball Deluxe, and I like them all for different reasons.
00:28:44
Speaker
Frontier is just kind of like
00:28:47
Speaker
yeah, here's all these dangerous shots, you know, you need to hit these targets that go right down the middle on you half the time.
00:28:53
Speaker
But it's like, it dares you to do it, so you got to try, because they're worth too much.
00:28:59
Speaker
Again, my Skateball, I thought it had some really cool shots, a lot of flow for its time.
00:29:08
Speaker
It had the reverse in lane and out lane, which I didn't hate, for once, because I usually hate those.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:15
Speaker
uh, obviously eight ball deluxe was just an amazing game for, you know, the memory drop targets, the easy theme that, that bonus collect scuba that all came together.
00:29:25
Speaker
And of course inline drop targets.
00:29:28
Speaker
So, uh, those are the games I grew up playing.
00:29:31
Speaker
Um, I, as I, you know, kept playing, you know, ramp started coming in, but it's still some of my favorite games.
00:29:38
Speaker
Like, um, even it's a terrible game, but, uh,
00:29:43
Speaker
alien star that was at a in disc is like, I mean, it's just a smooth shooting game, even though the rules are really bad and you're just shooting a spinner over and over again.
00:29:54
Speaker
It's just something about that, the simplicity and also the, the, the challenge where it says, Hey, hit these five alien targets.
00:30:02
Speaker
If you want the, you know, multi-ball that's like when you shoot them, then just puts the ball everywhere out of control.
00:30:07
Speaker
And there's just something about that that appeals to me.
00:30:10
Speaker
I like,
00:30:11
Speaker
the more I play pinball, the more I realized that when you're always in control, a hundred percent of the time, um, I think you kind of lose something.
00:30:19
Speaker
So, uh, I try, I'm trying to slowly start incorporating like risky shots that put the ball out of control on my game.
00:30:28
Speaker
I think that adds the variety you need.
00:30:30
Speaker
So like in Godzilla's case, here's this pop bumper.
00:30:33
Speaker
It's like, well, I'm never going to aim for that.
00:30:34
Speaker
And I was like, well, okay, well, I'll make you aim for it because there's an extra ball here and there's, you know, you have to hit it to advance some modes.
00:30:40
Speaker
So that's kind of where my head was at with that, you know, trying to get the ball out of control like these old flat, you know, games.
00:30:49
Speaker
It's kind of like pinball used to be.
00:30:52
Speaker
So one question I had about Bond is, and we all know that it's limited to 500, but did any of the design that you put into this compensate for maybe some competition play?
00:31:01
Speaker
Because it would be awesome to see something like this, a modern throwback in a competition.
Competitive Suitability of Bond 60
00:31:08
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:31:08
Speaker
Neil McRae is already talking about how it's going to be the UK open.
00:31:13
Speaker
So there, I mean, there's no random awards per se, so it should be fine for a competition.
00:31:20
Speaker
There's no lock stealing.
00:31:21
Speaker
So, yeah, it's, you know, Mark Panacho, you know, he went over a couple of things that he did, but there's nothing egregious that you can do in multiplayer that you can't do in single player, which is kind of a shame because I don't entirely hate lock stealing.
00:31:37
Speaker
It actually adds a lot of strategy when they're asking us, you know, what position we want to go in, what game in a tournament, you know, sometimes you strategically pick to go first, you know, it's just, you know,
00:31:50
Speaker
it adds a different element that you're not used to.
00:31:52
Speaker
And how was it working with Mark?
00:31:54
Speaker
Cause is this his first game doing code kind of on his own for Stern?
00:31:58
Speaker
For Stern.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:00
Speaker
Um, he's great.
00:32:01
Speaker
Um, he, he works from home primarily.
00:32:03
Speaker
So, you know, we, him and I would see each other like once a month and we'd huddle around the game, play it, uh, get some feedback, get some feedback to Jerry Thompson, the sound guy.
00:32:11
Speaker
And, um,
00:32:14
Speaker
He's very receptive to my criticisms.
00:32:17
Speaker
Some of the things I didn't like, I told him about, and he either changed them or just trashed them entirely.
00:32:23
Speaker
He came up with a lot of stuff himself.
00:32:27
Speaker
It's my first time working with a team other than my own Cornerstone team.
00:32:32
Speaker
It was a different experience.
00:32:34
Speaker
I got to work with other guys, and it was fun.
00:32:36
Speaker
Do you think that this design and cause he came from originally he came from Valley Williams.
00:32:42
Speaker
And so the last code set he did was in the nineties.
00:32:44
Speaker
Do you feel like this game kind of, um, helped bring him into more of a modern era because of the design and the retro feel it was going for?
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:53
Speaker
Well, he, um, his last game was fishtails and yeah, and he definitely threw his hat in a ring to program this.
00:32:59
Speaker
Uh, he was brought on board for our, uh, IC system stuff.
00:33:03
Speaker
And, um,
00:33:04
Speaker
When this game was getting developed, I know he threw his hat in a ring and, uh, you know, George gave it to him.
00:33:11
Speaker
And so he was excited and I was excited to have him.
00:33:13
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, I think that's a perfect, uh, launching point for him to, uh, you know, if he wants to program games in the future, then, you know, this is perfect.
00:33:23
Speaker
Hey, look, look what I did and this people like it.
00:33:25
Speaker
And, um, you know, if he wants to do it again, I'm sure, uh, he can.
00:33:31
Speaker
Now, in this game, you had to choose, it looks like, the six villains, but every Bond movie has a villain.
00:33:37
Speaker
How did you whittle it down to the ones you wanted?
00:33:41
Speaker
Basically, I had to choose from each era my favorite villain.
00:33:51
Speaker
There was one exception, I think.
00:33:53
Speaker
I think there are two from the Roger Moore.
00:33:57
Speaker
Yeah, the Oddjob and Jaws.
00:34:00
Speaker
No, it's, oh yeah, it's Jaws and Christopher Walken, his character.
00:34:06
Speaker
Oh, gotcha, yeah.
00:34:08
Speaker
That was because, yeah, we had one extra, and so it was a wild card, and I got to pick whatever I want, and I was like, well, I grew up with Roger Moore, did the movie, so I decided to pick Jaws because he's the most famous, and then...
00:34:24
Speaker
Max Zoran, it's because that was his last movie, you know, Roger Moore's last movie.
00:34:28
Speaker
So that's why I decided on him.
00:34:30
Speaker
Are you a fan of Bond or is it just something you kind of grew up with?
00:34:34
Speaker
I grew up with, uh, I grew up with Bond.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:36
Speaker
Um, I remember, um, for your eyes only was on HBO.
00:34:42
Speaker
Like,
00:34:43
Speaker
It's like they would play all the time.
00:34:45
Speaker
And I'd watch that movie so many times.
00:34:47
Speaker
It's probably not one of his better movies, but I really enjoyed it.
00:34:50
Speaker
You know, I was just a dumb little kid.
00:34:52
Speaker
And so then every time, you know, a movie came out after that, I was like, all right, this is my bond.
00:34:57
Speaker
You know, and of course, Jaws, you know, every kid growing up was like, oh, I want to grow up to be Jaws.
00:35:02
Speaker
You know, it was he just bit a chain with his teeth.
00:35:07
Speaker
And, you know, it was amazing.
00:35:08
Speaker
it was just kind of, you know, a kid thing that's like, Oh yeah, this, this movies are cool.
00:35:13
Speaker
You know, I love them.
00:35:14
Speaker
And as I got older, uh, yeah, I didn't, I still watched the bond.
00:35:17
Speaker
I just still not a movie I haven't seen, but yeah, as a kid, you're, you're just, uh, you know, worshiping these, you know, action heroes of the time.
00:35:27
Speaker
Do you and Gomez ever get in it over, uh, who's the better bond with Connery and, and more?
00:35:33
Speaker
No, I already know that George, George is always telling stories about, you know, we would go to the theater and,
00:35:39
Speaker
and see these, you know, these Connery Bonds.
00:35:42
Speaker
And I was like, okay, so I, yeah, I probably never went to a theater to see a more bond, but so I know he's a lot more, he's pretty passionate about Connery.
00:35:53
Speaker
So this is your first game that is a two flipper game.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:57
Speaker
So tell me about that versus all your other games.
00:36:00
Speaker
Cause you, you, you added extra flippers and all the other games.
00:36:04
Speaker
And so this is your first traditional fan layout.
00:36:08
Speaker
This is true.
00:36:09
Speaker
This was by design.
00:36:10
Speaker
I wanted, you know, I wanted just, when I think of a throwback game, I don't think of like cross shots and other things.
00:36:18
Speaker
So it's like, I just want two flippers at the bottom.
00:36:22
Speaker
I want a bunch of drop targets.
00:36:24
Speaker
I want spinners everywhere.
00:36:25
Speaker
That's how I approach this.
00:36:28
Speaker
In this case, like I'm trying to think of a game.
00:36:33
Speaker
I think this stupid hot-dogging game that we played in Classics 2 where it's got this flipper built into the slingshot.
00:36:41
Speaker
You're like, this is totally a gimmick.
00:36:43
Speaker
You're never going to use this.
00:36:45
Speaker
It's like, why is this here?
00:36:48
Speaker
A lot of those extra flippers on these games of those eras just seem like a waste.
00:36:54
Speaker
I was focusing more on a classic game with traditional flippers in a traditional spot.
00:37:00
Speaker
Not doing anything wacky.
00:37:02
Speaker
I would have loved it.
00:37:03
Speaker
I almost thought about doing the twin flippers like Harlem and Captain Fantastic.
00:37:08
Speaker
That would have been fun, yeah.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah, that would have been fun.
00:37:10
Speaker
But I decided against that at the last second.
00:37:13
Speaker
So you've elevated the bar quite a bit with Godzilla.
00:37:16
Speaker
At least that's the response I'm hearing.
00:37:18
Speaker
Between all the awards that won last year, and everyone's claiming it's probably the best game ever made, and even Pinside, you've dethroned Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars.
00:37:28
Speaker
Do you feel like there's quite a bar to achieve with your next game you're working on?
Pressure to Surpass Godzilla's Success
00:37:33
Speaker
I always strive to do the best I can.
00:37:37
Speaker
So I take it as a challenge if people say that, oh yeah, he'll never top this game.
00:37:42
Speaker
Then it's like, okay, well, give me a chance.
00:37:45
Speaker
So as much as I love Godzilla, I play it now and it's like, oh, there's a couple of things I wish I'd done differently.
00:37:52
Speaker
And hopefully I learned from that.
00:37:55
Speaker
And one of these days I'll release the perfect game in my mind and then I can just retire.
00:38:03
Speaker
We hope that day never comes then.
00:38:06
Speaker
Keep falling short.
00:38:11
Speaker
Well, and listening to Gomez, he's done quite a few interviews over these last couple of months about Bond and whatnot.
00:38:16
Speaker
And he said that they were going to the two cornerstones again this year.
00:38:20
Speaker
And we've kind of done the math and it kind of puts Eddie.
00:38:23
Speaker
He hasn't done anything really since Mandalorian and Jack danger.
00:38:28
Speaker
He still hasn't put anything out since that the JP pin.
00:38:31
Speaker
Does that mean we're not seeing anything from you this year?
00:38:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:35
Speaker
No trippies from me next year.
00:38:36
Speaker
No.
00:38:38
Speaker
And none this year either.
00:38:39
Speaker
What the heck?
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:42
Speaker
Well, you know, it's nice to give, um,
00:38:45
Speaker
my program of Rick Nagels, you know, a break he's, uh, he's been busting his ass.
00:38:50
Speaker
Cause we had back to back short schedule games and that was, um, Avengers and Godzilla were both considered short schedule cause they were kind of on each other's heels.
00:38:59
Speaker
So, um, he, you know, got through those and we're like, Hey man, take a break.
00:39:04
Speaker
You need to serve it.
00:39:06
Speaker
So, um, yeah, here we are.
00:39:08
Speaker
It's, it won't,
00:39:09
Speaker
have a nice, like fully fleshed out game upon release.
00:39:13
Speaker
Whereas Godzilla, I think released it maybe 0.8.
00:39:16
Speaker
Uh, I think people saw the bones and realized, Oh yeah, this is gonna be a cool game.
00:39:20
Speaker
But in reality, we were, we were still writing rules like, you know, four or five months ago for that.
00:39:26
Speaker
So, um, yeah, it'll be, uh, nice to give this team a little bit of a breather.
00:39:32
Speaker
Has it been a different experience too?
00:39:33
Speaker
And do you feel like you've been able to be more creative with your new game because of the breathing room you've received from
00:39:39
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:39:40
Speaker
I actually, uh, pretty much completely redesigned two or three shots on it already, just because I've had the time, uh, time to like, you know, I do what's called a white with zero where I just take existing parts and bend them and, uh, either 3d print what's missing or just like, you know, just finagle parts together and try out shots.
00:40:02
Speaker
And, um, it's nice to be able to have that time to, you know,
00:40:07
Speaker
get the rough kinks out and it's like, Oh, this is, this works great.
00:40:10
Speaker
This is never going to work.
00:40:11
Speaker
I need something else here.
00:40:12
Speaker
And so, yeah, it's actually, it's, it's nice.
00:40:16
Speaker
I won't lie.
00:40:18
Speaker
So how do you design a great shot?
00:40:21
Speaker
Like what makes a shot feel great?
00:40:23
Speaker
To me, it's a combination.
00:40:27
Speaker
Uh, is it smooth and it's, does it do something interesting?
00:40:30
Speaker
So in a case we'll use a bond 60, this is an example.
00:40:34
Speaker
Um,
00:40:36
Speaker
So you asked me my two favorite shots.
00:40:37
Speaker
Well, that figure eight shot is not only smooth, but it does something interesting.
00:40:43
Speaker
The left orbit shot, it's smooth.
00:40:47
Speaker
It's not necessarily interesting, but what it does, it feeds your right flipper on the fly for you to hit something that is more interesting.
00:40:54
Speaker
So to me, that's what's important.
00:40:56
Speaker
Is the shot itself interesting?
00:40:58
Speaker
No, no.
00:40:59
Speaker
then it's gotta set something up.
00:41:02
Speaker
It's either gotta feed a device that's interesting or feed another shot coming up that is interesting.
00:41:09
Speaker
That's how I approach it.
00:41:10
Speaker
So I don't wanna have like a clunky shot leading into an unfun device, you know?
00:41:17
Speaker
That's not fun all around.
00:41:18
Speaker
So those are my two rules.
00:41:20
Speaker
If you have a clunky shot, it's gotta be there for a reason, it just has to be there.
00:41:25
Speaker
Otherwise, there's no excuse.
00:41:27
Speaker
That's how I feel about the original Jurassic Park.
00:41:30
Speaker
The loop shot's great and all, but it is clunky, and you're lucky to get to go around a couple of times.
00:41:35
Speaker
Which loop shot?
00:41:38
Speaker
The one on the original Jurassic Park.
00:41:40
Speaker
The Data East one.
00:41:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, I thought you meant my spinner shot, the center spinner shot on my Jurassic, which I intentionally have that clunky because originally that flew around so fast that you didn't have time to react.
00:41:53
Speaker
So I have it kind of like slamming into the back.
00:41:56
Speaker
back of the panel and to slow it down.
00:41:58
Speaker
Uh, yeah, like I said, sometimes a clunky shot, like, is that a fun shot?
00:42:02
Speaker
No, but it sets up your upper flipper shot and which is important and does have smooth shots.
00:42:08
Speaker
So I need advice how to, uh, consistently hit the Raptor tower shot.
00:42:14
Speaker
Cause I, that is, that is the most elusive luck shot for me in that game.
00:42:19
Speaker
Really?
00:42:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:20
Speaker
That flipper should be aligned to pretty much hit it.
00:42:22
Speaker
It's the shot above that, that I designed to be extremely hard.
00:42:26
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:42:26
Speaker
No, I, I hit that one all the time.
00:42:29
Speaker
The one that circles around, but I, are you sure your flippers on a line too high?
00:42:32
Speaker
Cause that's, Oh, I don't know.
00:42:34
Speaker
I'll have to double check.
00:42:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:36
Speaker
Cause I'm like that, that Raptor tower shot.
00:42:38
Speaker
I'm like, Oh, I got it like one out of 10 times, but I can always sling that sucker around to the upper shot.
00:42:45
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:42:45
Speaker
Then that upper shots death.
00:42:47
Speaker
That, that was, um, that was never designed to be a repeatable shot.
00:42:52
Speaker
So what I did is I, I made it, um,
00:42:56
Speaker
you know, special that the tower combo.
00:42:58
Speaker
So if you can shoot that and then the Raptors tower, I thought it was a fun one, two punch.
00:43:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:03
Speaker
But yeah, that shot was definitely not, you know, meant to be de looped or do anything.
00:43:08
Speaker
That's super interesting.
00:43:09
Speaker
It was just meant to scream the ball out of control.
00:43:12
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:43:13
Speaker
No, it's exactly what it does.
00:43:16
Speaker
I can de loop it a lot.
00:43:18
Speaker
Well, I think we actually tried code where the post comes up for that.
00:43:21
Speaker
And it was just like, nah, because it bounced halfway back across the play field.
00:43:24
Speaker
And it's like, nah, I'll just have it come flying at you.
00:43:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:28
Speaker
Well, and if you forget to tap the flipper, the upper flipper, you're like, oh my gosh, it made me go down the middle.
00:43:36
Speaker
So your new game, can we ask how many flippers you got on this one?
00:43:40
Speaker
There are two full-size flippers.
00:43:45
Speaker
And there are two other flippers.
00:43:48
Speaker
Other flippers you're bringing the banana flipper back, aren't you?
00:43:51
Speaker
I am bringing the banana flipper.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:53
Speaker
We're going Iron Maiden 2.0, but with banana flippers, banana flippers and they're going to look like hot dogs.
00:43:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:59
Speaker
I miss the banana flipper days.
00:44:02
Speaker
Nothing quite like playing a time warp.
00:44:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:44:05
Speaker
So Keith, you are 12 years.
00:44:07
Speaker
Oh, go ahead.
00:44:08
Speaker
I will say it has three flippers on one side.
00:44:12
Speaker
There's, there's your hint.
00:44:13
Speaker
Oh, three flippers on one side.
00:44:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:44:17
Speaker
The, uh, it's Saturday afternoon.
00:44:19
Speaker
You're a 12 year old kid.
00:44:20
Speaker
You can watch any Bond movie on HBO at four in the afternoon.
00:44:25
Speaker
What are you picking?
00:44:27
Speaker
For your eyes only.
00:44:29
Speaker
Haven't you seen that a million times?
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah, but that was just, that was the movie that got me hooked on Bond when I was young.
00:44:35
Speaker
So yeah, like I said, I'm not saying it was the best Bond.
00:44:39
Speaker
It clearly was not, but.
00:44:41
Speaker
That's when I grew up watching.
00:44:43
Speaker
Is that the one where they climb up like in Greece, like to that chateau on the – there's like an ice skater up there or something like that?
00:44:50
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:44:51
Speaker
Very inappropriate relationship that she tries to have with it.
00:44:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's that one.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah, OK.
00:44:57
Speaker
It's cringey today.
00:44:58
Speaker
It is.
00:44:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely cringeworthy.
00:45:00
Speaker
But I do remember that one.
00:45:02
Speaker
Of course, I remember the one that came out that for some reason we watched a billion times was Octopussy.
00:45:09
Speaker
So that was always an interesting bond to like, hey, you want to watch that?
00:45:17
Speaker
I remember when that came out.
00:45:18
Speaker
I don't remember much about it.
00:45:20
Speaker
I remember...
00:45:22
Speaker
after I watched a four guys only, I watched moon raker and I was like super excited, you know, it's jaws in space.
00:45:27
Speaker
And then it was just like, Oh, this is not that good.
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:30
Speaker
Moon raker was not that good.
00:45:32
Speaker
I don't think I've seen it all the way through because the, they kept doing it like the, the ABC Sunday night movie.
00:45:38
Speaker
And I think the only reason why they kept doing that is because they probably didn't have to pay anything.
00:45:45
Speaker
But no, yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
Other than that, I liked, I liked all the, the Roger Moore movies that I saw.
00:45:50
Speaker
Um,
00:45:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:51
Speaker
Moonraker wasn't my favorite, but I liked the artwork.
00:45:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:55
Speaker
What one was it that I shared with you the other day, Scott?
00:45:57
Speaker
It makes me laugh every time.
00:45:58
Speaker
Cause like for some odd reason, Bond always had to be attacked by like an animal in his hotel room.
00:46:03
Speaker
And so there's one where they drop a Cobra.
00:46:05
Speaker
It's a snake.
00:46:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:06
Speaker
Where he, he uses a blow torch on it.
00:46:08
Speaker
He uses the, his hairspray and like his aqua hairspray.
00:46:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:14
Speaker
It's funny because I had never really watched the, uh,
00:46:20
Speaker
The Connery Bonds.
00:46:22
Speaker
And when I had the old school Netflix account where they sent you DVDs, I actually made it a point to watch all those.
00:46:29
Speaker
And I thoroughly enjoyed them.
00:46:31
Speaker
And I was like, I'm actually surprised because I was expecting it just to be way too cheesy and campy for me.
00:46:36
Speaker
But I thought they were great.
00:46:38
Speaker
So how does that affect your time now that Stern, at least for the foreseeable future doctor, George Gomez has announced that they're doing two cornerstones.
Impact of New Design Cycles at Stern
00:46:50
Speaker
How does that affect your process?
00:46:53
Speaker
Because that seems to slow it down a little bit because with four designers, you probably were on about a 16 month design schedule.
00:47:01
Speaker
Well, that kind of pushes you out to a 24 month design schedule.
00:47:06
Speaker
Well, nothing changes design-wise because we have to design the game like it's still coming out when it was originally coming out.
00:47:16
Speaker
It doesn't mean we all get to take a break and not work on it.
00:47:19
Speaker
It just means that hopefully when the game does release, the code's done, everything is buttoned up tight.
00:47:28
Speaker
Like I said, this is a nice break for us to actually have the time to have everything
00:47:36
Speaker
buttoned up, you know, when you watch the Jack Danger stream, when we do it, it's like no one's going to say, oh, why is there a placeholder stuff here?
00:47:43
Speaker
It's like hopefully that's not going to happen and we can deliver a kick-ass game day one.
00:47:50
Speaker
I was going to say, so obviously you took on four optical spinners and, and that's a record as far as we know, as, as many spinners on a pinball machine.
00:47:59
Speaker
Are you going to try to attempt something like haunted house and have like a basement main level, upper level and do like nine flippers instead of eight?
00:48:09
Speaker
Oh, I thought you can bring up inline spinners.
00:48:11
Speaker
That's what I was about to say.
00:48:12
Speaker
Why don't you do inline spinners do four inline spinners.
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:18
Speaker
I imagine that probably doesn't work as well as you think, but that'd be interesting.
00:48:22
Speaker
Well, what if you fed it to like the rocket kickback on Guardians of the Galaxy and it shoots it up through four optical spinners?
00:48:29
Speaker
I'm guessing you would see four broken optical spinners.
00:48:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:48:37
Speaker
This is my wish list for Stern.
00:48:39
Speaker
You can just take it for what it is.
00:48:42
Speaker
My only complaint about this Bond 60 is it's limited to 500.
00:48:46
Speaker
So you're not going to get the Keith Elwin saturation market, market saturation that you're typically getting for a game.
00:48:54
Speaker
So here's my wish list.
00:48:56
Speaker
Sometime down in the future, they release a game that's priced for the masses with the same play field.
00:49:04
Speaker
So just put that in the back of your head and take that to George.
00:49:07
Speaker
Okay, I'll tell him.
00:49:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:11
Speaker
I thought you were going to ask him outright and say, are you going to do that?
00:49:13
Speaker
No, I guess I, come on, come on.
00:49:18
Speaker
I'm not going to ask that.
00:49:19
Speaker
I'm just suggesting.
00:49:20
Speaker
Cause I, I would have to sell a couple of games to afford this, even though I have considered it, but I, I'm, I still have all four L ones.
00:49:32
Speaker
So I just need a fifth.
00:49:34
Speaker
You have all the cornerstone L ones.
00:49:35
Speaker
How's that?
00:49:35
Speaker
Yeah, there you go.
00:49:37
Speaker
I wish I still did.
00:49:39
Speaker
There's only so much – that's the bane of our existence, right?
00:49:41
Speaker
There's only so much room and only so much money.
00:49:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it is.
00:49:45
Speaker
It just makes – it's just crazy to think about how long pinball has been around, how many games have been produced, and how few in the past 30 years have actually been trashed.
00:49:53
Speaker
I mean they're all going somewhere.
00:49:55
Speaker
yeah so you know back in the day the operator would just throw it away but you know those days are long gone so every game produced is getting parked somewhere indefinitely so that's that's why everyone's problem is space yeah i was gonna say even like a decade ago i remember when i first got into the hobby it seemed like the operators still didn't realize what they had you know there was there was a lot of operators that run nickel arcades or whatever and it was you know once they'd run its time they'd either trash them or
00:50:21
Speaker
I mean, that's how I got my World Cup.
00:50:22
Speaker
I got it for like 500 bucks and the guy thought he was ripping me off and I didn't have a soundboard.
00:50:27
Speaker
And I was like, I'll take it, you know?
00:50:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
Different times.
00:50:33
Speaker
It's weird.
00:50:34
Speaker
Keith, how many games do you have?
00:50:36
Speaker
Because you basically had a pinball business down in San Diego before you moved up to Stern, right?
00:50:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:43
Speaker
I have less than 40, more than 30, I think.
00:50:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:50:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:49
Speaker
How do you choose which ones to get besides the ones you design?
00:50:54
Speaker
I actually haven't bought a game in quite a long time.
00:50:59
Speaker
But I would always, you know, back when I was running the business, I would buy something that, hey, is this on location anywhere else in San Diego or L.A.?
00:51:09
Speaker
No, then I had to have it.
00:51:10
Speaker
You know, case in point, I bought a Secret Service just because I had not seen one on location since I was a kid.
00:51:17
Speaker
No one else had one.
00:51:18
Speaker
I bought that.
00:51:19
Speaker
I bought a Bonsai Run for the same reason.
00:51:23
Speaker
That pretty much influenced my decisions.
00:51:26
Speaker
Some games I bought because I wanted to have.
00:51:29
Speaker
I bought Walking Dead Premium just because I wanted to have it.
00:51:32
Speaker
I had no intention of operating it.
00:51:34
Speaker
So it's just how you're feeling.
00:51:36
Speaker
I bought Sea Witch because I thought it looked cool at this bar by the ocean that we had, and people loved it.
00:51:44
Speaker
They also loved Beatier.
00:51:47
Speaker
Some of those games I bought for dirt cheap that I ended up operating for years, it was an incredible time.
00:51:53
Speaker
If you're an enthusiast operator, some of those games that you just don't see anywhere, they can be gold.
00:52:02
Speaker
Well, it's funny, some of these older games too, that like my wife has played Riviera recently within the last six months or something like that.
00:52:10
Speaker
She's like, that's the game I got to have.
00:52:12
Speaker
And people keep sending me listings.
00:52:14
Speaker
But it's funny because it's just not a game you think of.
00:52:17
Speaker
It's not one of those, you know, I think the problem is we get in this mindset that anything made, you know, pre-70s is all the same, maybe even pre-75.
00:52:27
Speaker
And there were some unique...
00:52:29
Speaker
the ideas that went into those games, like you said, they might be gimmicky to a point, but it's, it's cool to explore that because it just, we don't see that anymore.
00:52:38
Speaker
You know, I think, you know, any enthusiast operator is going to try to put something else that, you know, on location that nobody else is.
00:52:45
Speaker
And I think that's actually going to work in a favor of this bond being limited is like, you know, obviously you're not, you're not going to see them everywhere on location, but there are going to be these enthusiast operators like, well, if I put this out,
00:52:57
Speaker
Or else is anyone going to play this?
00:52:59
Speaker
This is going to draw people to my bar.
00:53:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's yeah.
00:53:03
Speaker
Yeah, it works.
00:53:04
Speaker
And trust me, because I've been there.
00:53:06
Speaker
I did that.
00:53:07
Speaker
It's like anytime I came across a gem that I didn't know if I'm located anywhere in Southern California, the people would would come play it.
00:53:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:16
Speaker
And that's like Sunshine Laundromat having Supreme.
00:53:21
Speaker
I don't think I'll ever play Supreme unless I go to Sunshine.
00:53:24
Speaker
That game is surprisingly fun.
00:53:26
Speaker
Oh, I'm sure it is.
00:53:26
Speaker
Yeah, I remember that there was a Whitewood in our lab, all of us, because this is before we were working from home.
00:53:34
Speaker
We would have daily tournaments on the things.
00:53:36
Speaker
It was just so damn fun to just play a quick, simple, fun game that was actually – it wasn't that easy to beat, but it was fun.
00:53:47
Speaker
So are you guys still working from home or is it because you're getting ready to move or have you already moved to a new operating facility?
00:53:55
Speaker
I actually don't know what's going on with that.
00:53:57
Speaker
But we are, I mean, I work, I mean, last week I went in every day, but it depends what I'm doing.
00:54:04
Speaker
If I'm writing rules or doing any kind of CAD work, I do it from home.
00:54:08
Speaker
If I'm actually working on Whitewoods, you know, test lab, anything, I'm there at the office.
00:54:14
Speaker
So the programmers are mostly
00:54:17
Speaker
working from home.
00:54:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:54:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:20
Speaker
We didn't know if it was business as usual or if COVID has now made the unnormal now normal.
00:54:25
Speaker
So possibly.
00:54:28
Speaker
So Keith, what are you looking forward to in the next year?
00:54:29
Speaker
Oh boy.
00:54:33
Speaker
I'm finally going to an international tournament in, in May.
00:54:38
Speaker
I'm going to Germany.
00:54:40
Speaker
Something has been on my lists to do, but it's everything always aligns improperly and it doesn't happen.
00:54:46
Speaker
So yeah.
Excitement for International Tournament in Germany
00:54:47
Speaker
That's what I'm most looking forward to.
00:54:50
Speaker
All right.
00:54:51
Speaker
That sounds good.
00:54:51
Speaker
Germany's on my bucket list too.
00:54:53
Speaker
That reminds me.
00:54:54
Speaker
So are you, did you qualify as the state champion for Chicago or for, yeah, for Illinois or.
00:55:01
Speaker
Cause I saw Escher did wish Wisconsin.
00:55:03
Speaker
I didn't play in that.
00:55:04
Speaker
I qualified in California, but since I was out there the previous week at Indus, I didn't want to come back.
00:55:10
Speaker
So I, I forfeited my, my spot.
00:55:15
Speaker
You figure a second at the end disc is good enough.
00:55:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:20
Speaker
Keith, always a pleasure having you on.
00:55:22
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:55:23
Speaker
Uh, we have some more, uh, some more updated beanies.
00:55:25
Speaker
We'll get out to you.
00:55:27
Speaker
That sounds great.
00:55:28
Speaker
And once again, we do appreciate you helping out with, with flipping the script on autism, man.
00:55:32
Speaker
That's, uh, it was a great cause and we're happy that you helped us out with it.
00:55:37
Speaker
Yeah, that was fun.
00:55:38
Speaker
That was, uh, when I walked into it, I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do, but, uh,
00:55:42
Speaker
Amanda was saying, what do you want to do?
00:55:43
Speaker
I was like, I don't know.
00:55:44
Speaker
Let's just wing it.
00:55:45
Speaker
And it was a lot of fun.
00:55:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:47
Speaker
I don't think any of us knew what we were going to do.
00:55:50
Speaker
It was such a unique experience.
00:55:52
Speaker
It was pretty wonderful by the end of it, though.
00:55:54
Speaker
It was funny, though, because I was telling Zach because he was trying to sell his Deadpool before that.
00:55:58
Speaker
And now I'm looking at him like, so you're ready to sell this?
00:55:59
Speaker
He's like, you're joking me, right?
00:56:01
Speaker
Like, I've got Keith that's touched it.
00:56:03
Speaker
Now it's Rogers touched it.
00:56:05
Speaker
That thing was butter.
00:56:06
Speaker
That was a great Deadpool.
00:56:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:56:10
Speaker
And I love the mods that he put on there.
00:56:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:56:13
Speaker
The NSFW mods where you're like, wow.
00:56:17
Speaker
Just ask about Greg Bell.
00:56:18
Speaker
Yeah, just ask about Greg.
00:56:22
Speaker
But thanks again.
00:56:24
Speaker
I guess if you don't want anyone to get a hold of you, where do you want them to send you email that they're not going to get a response to?
00:56:35
Speaker
Fan letters.
00:56:36
Speaker
Just send directly to George.
00:56:41
Speaker
Send it to my guys.
00:56:42
Speaker
All right, Keith.
00:56:44
Speaker
Well, definitely love all the games and can't wait to see what the next ones are laying out for you.
00:56:51
Speaker
And I know you'll do a great job.
00:56:53
Speaker
I'm really glad you crossed over from playing to designing because you certainly impacted the newest generation of enthusiasts.
00:57:03
Speaker
So it's been a lot of fun playing and owning those games.
00:57:05
Speaker
that's good to hear that all my decades of experience can now be put to new use, but thanks.
00:57:10
Speaker
I appreciate it.
00:57:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:12
Speaker
Thanks, Keith.
00:57:13
Speaker
I'm going to say, it's been five, six years since you created Archer.
00:57:18
Speaker
Did you think this would all come about because you did a homebrew in your garage?
00:57:22
Speaker
That was my hope.
00:57:25
Speaker
When the, yeah, the P-Roxer thing came out and, you know, people could make their own games.
00:57:29
Speaker
I was like,
00:57:30
Speaker
God, when I was a kid, I used to design games all the time, you know, just out of just stupid household items.
00:57:35
Speaker
And I was like, I'm going to see if I can do this.
00:57:38
Speaker
And then I was like, hey, this thing actually shoots pretty fun.
00:57:40
Speaker
And when Stern reached out to me, I was like, yeah, let's talk.
00:57:45
Speaker
Well, I think it's been good for both of you.
00:57:48
Speaker
Yeah, no complaints.
00:57:50
Speaker
I do miss Southern California.
00:57:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:57:53
Speaker
Especially this time of year, right?
00:57:54
Speaker
The weather in Illinois is not awesome.
00:57:57
Speaker
It is awesome three months a year, yes.
00:58:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:01
Speaker
You should come here where the snow foot, or our snow is up three foot right now.
00:58:06
Speaker
Yeah, we have a lot of snow right now.
00:58:07
Speaker
Oh, it's ridiculous.
00:58:08
Speaker
Awful.
00:58:10
Speaker
Well, if you want to get a hold of us, we are LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com.
00:58:13
Speaker
You can also get a hold of us on the socials on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, maybe YouTube, all at LoserKidPinball.
00:58:21
Speaker
We're trucking along, man.
00:58:24
Speaker
I don't know what else to say, Scott.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:26
Speaker
See you in about two weeks.
00:58:28
Speaker
See you in two weeks.
00:58:38
Speaker
Shut up and sit down.