# Grilling the Game: The Recipe Behind Barry O's Barbecue Challenge **Source:** American Pinball **Type:** video **Published:** 2024-08-20 **Duration:** 13m 41s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6TErafuez4 --- ## Analysis American Pinball co-designer discusses the development history of Barry O's Barbecue Challenge, a tribute to legendary designer Barry Oursler who passed away during production. The video walks through early design iterations, explains the thematic pivot from a car-themed game to barbecue, and details how the team honored Oursler's legacy by completing the game after his death. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Barry Oursler submitted his whitewood design in January 2022, just three days before his death from cancer complications — _Speaker recalls exact timeline: 'probably 3 days after he submitted his drawing to us uh his wife called me'_ - [HIGH] The game was originally titled 'CarHop' but was renamed 'Barry O's Barbecue Challenge' after Oursler's passing — _Speaker explains the name change decision made within two days of Oursler's death: 'the name changed from barbecue challenge to Barry always barbecue challenge'_ - [HIGH] The speaker's first pinball game ever played was Space Shuttle, which influenced his decision to become involved in pinball — _Direct statement about personal history and connection to the project_ - [HIGH] Barry Oursler was known as 'the fastest gun in the industry' for rapid game design — _Speaker states 'Barry was the fastest gun in the industry' multiple times_ - [HIGH] The game features ramp spinners, which were inspired by Capcom's Kingpin — _Speaker explains spinner design history: 'we could see it on some games like capcom's Kingpin on the center ramp'_ ### Notable Quotes > "I got like I get to have my name anywhere near Barry to release a game based on Space Shuttle my first experience in pinball is the reason why I'm in pinball today" > — **Co-designer (American Pinball)**, Early in video > _Explains personal emotional connection to the project and why Space Shuttle theme mattered to design process_ > "probably 3 days after he submitted his drawing to us uh his wife called me to tell me that he had we had he had passed due to complications doing his cancer treatment" > — **Co-designer (American Pinball)**, Mid-video > _Key moment describing Oursler's death and its impact on the team_ > "we brought the team together and that's when the name changed the name changed from barbecue challenge to Barry always barbecue challenge right we knew we were going to honor the man" > — **Co-designer (American Pinball)**, Mid-video > _Documents the decision to rename the game as a tribute to Oursler_ > "you got to risk it for the brisket" > — **Co-designer (American Pinball)**, Late in video > _Catchphrase explaining core game design philosophy about risk/reward gameplay_ > "simple on the outside but hard to master it also you got to risk it got in order to get it you got to risk it for the brisket" > — **Co-designer (American Pinball)**, Late in video > _Articulates game design philosophy that bridges theme and mechanics_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Barry Oursler | person | Legendary pinball designer with 40 years of game design experience; deceased; original designer of Barry O's Barbecue Challenge | | American Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer producing Barry O's Barbecue Challenge | | Barry O's Barbecue Challenge | game | Pinball machine in development/released by American Pinball, themed around barbecue and cars, tribute to Barry Oursler | | Space Shuttle | game | Classic pinball game; speaker's first pinball experience; inspired thematic direction of Barry O's Barbecue Challenge | | Steve Bowen | person | Co-designer and American Pinball staff member; worked with speaker on Barry O's Barbecue Challenge completion | | Capcom's Kingpin | game | Historical pinball reference for ramp spinner mechanic design inspiration | | CarHop | game | Gottlieb game from 1984-1985; prevented Barry O's Barbecue Challenge from being car-themed due to title similarity | | Williams | company | Historic pinball manufacturer referenced for classic game design philosophy (Taxi, Diner, Fish Tales) | | Bally | company | Historic pinball manufacturer referenced for classic game design philosophy | ### Topics - **Primary:** Game design process and iteration, Barry Oursler's legacy and passing, Thematic design and Americana setting - **Secondary:** Risk/reward gameplay mechanics, Pinball history and classic game references, Team collaboration and tribute process - **Mentioned:** Display technology decisions (alpha-numeric vs dot matrix) ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.85) — Predominantly celebratory and respectful tone honoring Oursler's legacy; emotional moments around his death balanced by pride in completing the game as tribute; enthusiasm about game design and mechanics ### Signals - **[community_signal]** American Pinball streaming gameplay of Barry O's Barbecue Challenge to community, including competitive matches featuring American Pinball staff (confidence: high) — Speaker mentions: 'Steve and I have been playing against each other we've actually streamed it you could see it on our American pinball stream' - **[design_philosophy]** Barry O's Barbecue Challenge designed with explicit philosophy of being 'simple on the outside but hard to master,' echoing classic Williams/Bally design era (Taxi, Diner, Fish Tales) (confidence: high) — Direct statement: 'it's like we said before simple on the outside but hard to master' and thematic connection to classic games - **[personnel_signal]** Speaker describes serving as Barry Oursler's understudy in game design, taking over design responsibilities after Oursler's death during cancer treatment (confidence: high) — Speaker states 'essentially me serving as Barry's understudy on my journey to become a game designer myself' and describes taking over rule set development after Oursler's passing - **[announcement]** Barry O's Barbecue Challenge development documented; game appears to be in production or recently released based on streaming and seminar references (confidence: high) — Speaker references streams, seminars where people have played the game, and ongoing gameplay sessions --- ## Transcript [Music] there he is hey Dave here you go I just came back from the car show right car show you know how much it was they got cars and bikes and everything here at the barbecue challenge absolutely something that I'm hoping you're going to discover when you play this game Bario's barbecue challenge a game that I am pleased and thankful to both American pinball bar aler and a whole team here to have this game developed and present to you I I'm just hoping that this is a worthy tribute to Barry alzer's 40 Years of game design I'll tell you when I was talking with Barry yeah and he let me know what the gist of the initial design was going to be when he was inviting me on the pro on the project to be CoD game designer with him and he said space shuttle and I got to tell him I got to remind him that space shuttle was my very first pinball game I ever played in my life so that is why space shuttle holds a very close feeling in my heart it's like the release of this game is a loop of my life okay really that's what it feels like that I got like I get to have my name anywhere near Barry to release a game based on Space Shuttle my first experience in pinball is the reason why I'm in pinball today and then some people ask me all the time they go why barbecue well so originally the game started out as car right but I explained to Barry that a game called CarHop had already been developed by gly back in 84 85 and not only that times have changed there weren't really a lot of car hops in in the United States however we came across something that's truly Americana Americana to the point that every summer there are hundreds if not thousands of barbecue festivals corn boils big kind of outdoor Gatherings where there's car shows or just like the one we're right here at right right yeah going on across America and in these moments there's some real fun things to do so we captured that Essence in the pinball Barry was the fastest gun in the industry understand that so in January of 2022 right Barry had already submitted his Whitewood drawing in fact I think St he had submitted this drawing already to us and in fact if you can see over here on the right there's the the drop targets are way over here on the right side The Spinners are still on the ramps the saucers are in the spots there's just a few fine points that we had to make um the barbecue theme is not random I went to many barbecue restaurants in Texas with Barry it was one of the very uh one of his favorite things to do right and when he was ready to go to lunch you better be ready absolutely okay I do the same thing with you you better be ready okay and so there were quite a few barbecue restaurants we Texans went and visited uh many days so and it was one of the things that he took his uh good friends to and I was I'm glad to be able to count myself one of them so so to go back a few quite a few years earlier in 2009 okay this is some time ago wow I put on a pinball show in Niger Falls New York and it was with a barbecue festival at the same time and we had a car show so we had a barbecue festival outside a pinball show inside with about 100 pins and we had a car show going on at the same time plus a band and a bunch of other things and it was a it was a hoot of a weekend perfect and most people were like this this is what's going on well when we talked about barbecue it just started coming together when uh this game was going to be called CarHop and we started to work on it uh we just want to get something down nice and quick just to get the ideas down absolutely all right just to get anything on paper based on the you know quick design the first draft and here it is here is the first ever draft draft there's not much on it but I keep it for the history of it because it is literally the first thing that Barry and I wrode on to see what was going going to be in the game all right and this is one of those just get it down really quickly and as we're talking about other things we'll get back to it later and then you know at least we'll have this and we'll get things started and my initial rule set was based off this skeleton got it right and if you look back far enough even right there we already had the Spinners on the ramps because the ramp Spinners were something that I had always thought would be really cool we go back in history far enough we could see it on some games like capcom's Kingpin on the center ramp so there are many times that you know we borrow little things but we definitely had some fun with this so Barry was the fastest gun and he was developing this very fast he had basically submitted this to Steve myself the engineering team here at American pinball and that was on a Friday and he was uh with the phone call was pretty easy uh he was so excited about shooting the game playing it couldn't wait to come back up here to Chicago to spend time with people and talk about it and uh he um gave me all the paperwork I had set up a time frame with him it was the end of January and I said to uh Bar says give us about a month to two months maybe you know he was going through some cancer treatment at the time and he said probably by around April he'd be good so we we while this is happening understanding in the background Barry and I are still talking I mean I'm on the phone with him we're talking about you know updating certain different versions of this I can go over here get more versions of it and this like wait let me give me a give me a moment I'll be back okay I'm back okay more more iterations right so this is so while that that timeline was going on here I have a second iteration where we started getting in what some of the inserts were going to be so some of them right so we have m we have CarHop we have Burgers we have fries we have drinks we have soda here right so things are starting to come together yes we are still finding that these are the locks the drop Target Bank was still on the right we were still wanted to see how was that going to work would it be possible to have that sweepable effect into the top hole so we were still experimenting with some of that then I started to get a little bit of what the rules might I mean this is still very dirty as far as the inserts this is just getting them down as to what the numbers might be notice you might notice the scaling is quite small yep on this or different plans on what what type of scaling this might be correct would it be a uh alpha numeric right we we to alpha numeric we toyed with a dot matrix dot matrix display right because I mean one of the keys of this game is to have it be a simple looking game right also more affordable game more affordable game all right so that's kind of where the scaling was you can see The Telltale rule of three action going on with the ramps and some of the other aspects that are classic Barry design I would say absolutely and so we move on to the next contestant here right so here is where you can slowly start seeing the radial design coming into play as far as the inserts right this would be would become a key Point later yeah it does look like a clock for a subtle reason which wasn't quite developed here yet but was in my mind right so and so yes things are more start starting to go into play we still have the malt we still have the soda we still have the targets here we still have this we still have the Spinners on the ramps and all of that so as you can see I'm very glad I was able to keep all this history by the way this is this feels this is uh very very very close to my heart and I'm glad I have all this and I'm glad that you all will be able to see this absolutely as it was being developed because I mean it was and is a great honor and privilege to have been working with Barry knowing that I mean as you we were talking about Barry was in discussion becoming up here yep to Chicago I already was up here I was already going to be discussing things that I needed to talk with Barry about like I wanted to ask him what uh medium Burger means that doesn't you know things like that you know that we were working on to to uh to really solidify the design get it made get it shooting and then move on from there and essentially me serving as Barry's understudy on my journey to become a game designer myself correct that was the plan yes and we kept developing the plan and we were about ready to build the whitewoods right and then unfortunately that fateful day probably 3 days after he submitted his drawing to us uh his wife called me to tell me that he had we had he had passed due to complications doing his cancer treatment which took the wind out of our sales for a moment I know you were beside yourself I know where I was I was in I can point to right to that room where I was in the office you you were standing outside my office and you had that look and I had already known man before that time I mean yeah before that time I got the call from Kathy right we talk okay I uh calm myself down I think you know I grieve do what you have to do right I think we all grieved for a bit right then you got to get yourself together and be a professional understand that Barry had touched a lot of people in this industry yeah a lot and we had a lot of people in this industry come together and basically called out you know that Barry was a great guy and we we we did a press release about his passing and it was tough on his family of course and we we worked hard but I think it was like a two days after this we brought the team together and that's when the name changed the name changed from barbecue challenge to Barry always barbecue challenge right we knew we were going to honor the man and Steve kind of locked himself in his office for the next couple days at that point I was like I I decid first thing I did was there were again as I said before there were things I were going to be discussing with Barry got it when we met yep I hurriedly wrote down wrote down and got all my notes together so I didn't lose anything CU if I lost anything that would just hurt so much if I did so I want to make sure I get everything down make sure these are the things that Barry wanted these are things that I wanted these we talked about these are things we were going to discuss right got them down on the initial rule set so that they would be retained and then as I was doing that slowly but surely I started making the game Barry's game correct and you'll see what that means later those of you who have already played the game those of you who have been to the seminars know what that means be pointed these things out but we'll get to that later and and some people are still discovering what that means and don't be feel bad when John Youssi this video and you learn some new stuff today so I mean granted this is a great game it's like we said before simple on the outside but hard to master it also you got to risk it got in order to get it you got to risk it for the brisket right you got to risk it for the brisket there you go I like that that's a good new term understand that you know Barry 's barbecue challenge Steve and I have been playing against each other we've actually streamed it you could see it on our American pinball stream there was one night where during the stream it was Ray and me versus Steve right and I we had put on a one billion points and Steve Bowen was at 20 million with one ball left cuz I did nothing one ball Bowen I had did nothing up to that point because I was risking things and not cashing in he risked it off like my Barbecue Cooking was just not quite there like I had it but then I would mess up at the end and just like barbecue shows you got to present your meal correctly that's correct otherwise you will be punished for that and I was and they weren't up to that point yeah but you you ended up putting like two billion points three billion points in you know pass this and we were like okay understand that barbecue challenge is yet not a a just you know weird title but it's a great title because it fits in with the genre of the classic games from the gone by Era of Williams and Bal when they did things like taxi and Diner fish fish tals you know now we have barbecue challenge la _(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 45dbeb93-60f3-47bd-a142-f18926e3579a*