# Free Play Pinball Podcast Ep 13: Dissecting A Goat - Special Guest Keith Elwin

**Source:** The Pinball Network  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2022-03-09  
**Duration:** 85m 14s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=276gYV_0Y9A

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## Analysis

Keith Elwin, legendary Stern Pinball designer and former competitive champion, joins Free Play Pinball Podcast for an extended interview covering his 40-year pinball journey, Godzilla's Game of the Year success, game design philosophy, early arcade experiences, and his five-year tenure at Stern. The discussion blends personal history, design insights, and community rapport.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Keith Elwin has been the world's best/top-ranked pinball player more than once — _Amanda states 'you have literally been the best in the world at pinball more than one' and Keith acknowledges 'yeah i guess i have'_
- [HIGH] Godzilla pinball won Game of the Year (11 PIA crystals for Stern overall, multiple for Godzilla specifically) — _Amanda: 'Stern cleaned house on the PIAs. They took home, I believe, 11 crystals, and quite a few of those are for this very, very unknown game called Godzilla'_
- [HIGH] Keith Elwin has been working at Stern Pinball for approximately five years as of February 2022 — _Keith: 'uh two days ago was my five-year anniversary of being here' and Amanda confirms 'end of february 2017 stern says hey we know this kid'_
- [HIGH] Keith has designed four commercial pinball games: Iron Maiden, Infinity Quest, Jurassic Park, and Godzilla — _Amanda: 'you've done four games now that have made it out to the the masses um you have iron maiden your initial game... infinity quest in Jurassic park and then Godzilla'_
- [HIGH] Godzilla design cycle took approximately 6-7 months before programmer Rick joined, with earlier months spent on playfield geometry and prototype testing — _Keith: 'I was working on it for probably six or seven months before Rick jumped in on it' and describes testing geometry with 'generic pinball code' before rule programming began_
- [MEDIUM] The Stern factory building was previously a watch factory — _Keith: 'I think it was a watch factory before we were there' in response to question about whether the factory is haunted_
- [HIGH] Keith had his Archer homebrew pinball folded up in storage as of interview date — _Keith: 'It is folded up in my condo... It worked last time I set it up two years ago, so hopefully it still does'_
- [HIGH] George Gomez (at Stern) works 10 hours a day, six days a week — _Keith: 'mr gomez he puts 10 hours a day in six days a week yeah yeah'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I just don't hand out participation trophies. So I got to I got to be the hard parent here and say, no, you got to earn this."
> — **Keith Elwin**, ~37:00
> _Keith's response to Olivia's complaint about not being able to put her initials in Godzilla on first play—reveals design philosophy on score entry defaults_

> "It is not a deal because it was so close to where I grew up."
> — **Keith Elwin**, ~22:00
> _Keith on Disneyland proximity to California home, contextualizing relative value of achievements_

> "So it's great that people like it. It makes finishing the rule set much more motivating, I guess, is the uh the response if i if the game i can't imagine my game's not everyone hates it then you got another six months of rules to write"
> — **Keith Elwin**, ~15:00
> _Indicates Godzilla still under active code development with community feedback motivating continued work_

> "My earliest memories were kind of the old Stern games. I remember we used to play at Galaxy and Big Game. And I remember when Space Invaders came out. So 1980 was like really when I was like really paying attention"
> — **Keith Elwin**, ~45:00
> _Establishes Keith's foundational pinball exposure in early 1980s, key formative period_

> "I think they make uh games i i've heard of them yeah yeah"
> — **Keith Elwin**, ~67:00
> _Humorous understated response to how Stern recruited him to join as designer_

> "It took uh took about nine months from when they initially contacted me until I actually started working."
> — **Keith Elwin**, ~68:00
> _Timeline for Stern's recruitment of Keith and his onboarding process_

> "The whole reason I became an operator is because I don't really like sitting at a desk. So I started buying games, moving them around."
> — **Keith Elwin**, ~87:00
> _Explains career pivot from electronics/desk work to arcade operations, path that led to Stern_

> "people in pinball don't retire some of them should but some of them i hope they never do"
> — **Keith Elwin**, ~79:00
> _Keith's philosophy on longevity in pinball industry; deflects question about his own retirement plans_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Keith Elwin | person | Legendary Stern Pinball designer; former competitive world champion; designed Iron Maiden, Infinity Quest, Jurassic Park, Godzilla; five-year tenure at Stern as of Feb 2022; age 50 at interview; from California |
| Amanda Hamilton | person | Host of Free Play Pinball Podcast; based in Florida; owns multiple Stern and JJP machines; mother of Olivia; married; fan of Godzilla |
| Bill | person | Co-host of Free Play Pinball Podcast; returned from hiatus; owns Godzilla LE machine; plays pinball during work breaks; co-host alongside Amanda |
| Rick | person | Programmer at Stern Pinball who joined Godzilla project approximately 6-7 months into design cycle; responsible for rule set and code development |
| Zach Sharp | person | Stern Pinball staff; son of Roger Sharp; works alongside Keith Elwin; runs Flippin' Out Pinball distributor (external context); grew up with pinball in basement |
| George Gomez | person | Chief Creative Officer at Stern Pinball; Keith's boss; works 10 hours/day, 6 days/week; may have joked about Keith's retirement plans |
| Jack Danger | person | Newest designer at Stern Pinball (as of interview); known for being 'last man standing in the factory' according to recent post |
| John Borg | person | Pinball designer; known for 'middle wire of death' signature design element; praised by Keith; recently designed Rush (winner of recent PIA award alongside Godzilla) |
| Roger Sharp | person | Father of Zach Sharp; pinball industry figure; referenced as 'lord and savior of pinball' in community |
| Scott Larson | person | Co-host of Loser Kid Pinball Podcast; mentioned as having created custody battle joke involving Keith's appearance on show |
| Josh | person | Co-host of Loser Kid Pinball Podcast; praised by Amanda and Keith as genuinely good people; created merchandise |
| Martin Robbins | person | Australian figure who has 'killed off' Keith Elwin in various contexts; described as 'not very nice' to Keith; frequents Australia |
| Olivia | person | Amanda's 7-year-old daughter; owns Godzilla LE; frustrated unable to enter initials on first play of Godzilla; top player on some games; has two dream themes: Godzilla and Alien |
| Harrison Drake | person | Engineer at Stern Pinball; worked on Godzilla; unfamiliar with Triceratops reference during development |
| Raymond | person | Top-ranked pinball player (#1 WPPR as of interview); started ranking around COVID; no office at Stern factory; periodically picks up whitewood games |
| Dwight Sullivan | person | Game designer/programmer at Stern Pinball; made joke about Keith's retirement plans |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; employs Keith Elwin as designer; won 11 PIA crystals; based in Chicago area; operates factory (formerly watch factory); houses multiple designers |
| Godzilla | game | Stern Pinball game designed by Keith Elwin; won multiple PIA crystals including Game of the Year consideration; features Mechagodzilla belly grab, magna-save, kaiju battles; still receiving code updates; Amanda's daughter frustrated about initials entry |
| Iron Maiden | game | Keith Elwin's first commercial design for Stern; based on Archer homebrew layout; Jersey Jack Pinball release; good flipper layout |
| Infinity Quest | game | Keith Elwin's second commercial design for Stern Pinball |
| Jurassic Park | game | Keith Elwin's third commercial design for Stern Pinball |
| Rush | game | Recent Stern Pinball release designed by John Borg; won PIA awards alongside Godzilla; Amanda has not yet played |
| Archer | game | Keith Elwin's homebrew pinball machine; designed with brother; folded up in storage at Keith's condo; worked last time tested 2 years prior; influenced Iron Maiden commercial design |
| Free Play Pinball Podcast | media | Podcast hosted by Amanda Hamilton and Bill; Episode 13 features Keith Elwin interview; distributed by Pinball Network |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Keith Elwin's design philosophy and process, Godzilla pinball critical reception and awards, Keith Elwin's competitive history and current ranking, Stern Pinball game design workflow and prototyping
- **Secondary:** Keith Elwin's early arcade and pinball experiences (1980s), Career path from operator to Stern designer, Pinball industry sustainability and longevity
- **Mentioned:** California vs. Chicago/Florida lifestyle comparisons

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Warm, respectful interview with humor and genuine rapport between hosts and guest. Keith is portrayed as humble despite legendary status; community affection evident. Minor critical notes on design missed opportunities (Triceratops, Spinosaurus) presented as friendly ribbing rather than serious criticism.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Stern maintaining production whitewood machines for designer development and playtesting; Keith running internet-connected whitewood with automated code updates (confidence: high) — Keith: 'It's hooked up to the internet so anytime there's a code update it's a beta code update it gets automatically sent to it... then uh i play tested uh you know we make all the changes and tweaks'
- **[personnel_signal]** Keith Elwin's recruitment to Stern took 9-month negotiation and relocation process; represented deliberate talent acquisition rather than opportunistic hire (confidence: high) — Keith: 'took about nine months from when they initially contacted me until I actually started working... took a while to negotiate... move out here'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Strong positive reception to Godzilla from collectors and casual players; multiple ownership cases (Olivia's enthusiasm despite skill frustration, husband's year-long wait list commitment) (confidence: high) — Amanda discusses husband's commitment ('I want the LE I want everything that comes with it I don't care if it comes with a squeaky dog toy'); Olivia's engagement despite complaint
- **[competitive_signal]** Keith Elwin's design work continues to influence competitive play; 'middle wire of death' credited to John Borg as signature competitive element (confidence: medium) — Discussion of Borg's design signature and how Keith references it; implies designer style impacts tournament strategy
- **[design_philosophy]** Godzilla missing thematic deep cuts (Triceratops, Spinosaurus spinner, John Borg outlane reference); Amanda playfully criticizes design as 'missed opportunities' (confidence: medium) — Amanda: 'Why are there not triceratops... Why is the Spinner not a Spinosaurus... Mothra outlane save... Why is there not a John Borg reference' with Keith acknowledging 'so much work still to be done'
- **[design_philosophy]** Keith Elwin intentionally excludes default high scores to encourage player skill progression; rejects 'participation trophy' approach to game design (confidence: high) — Keith's response to Olivia's initials complaint: 'I just don't hand out participation trophies... you got to earn this'
- **[personnel_signal]** George Gomez (Stern CCO) maintains extremely high workload (10hrs/day, 6 days/week), suggesting intensive creative leadership (confidence: high) — Keith: 'mr gomez he puts 10 hours a day in six days a week yeah yeah'
- **[personnel_signal]** Jack Danger recently hired as newest designer at Stern Pinball, expanding design roster (confidence: high) — Amanda: 'Jack Danger the newest designer at Stern Pinball which is super cool that you guys got him'; Keith affirms hiring
- **[product_strategy]** Godzilla pinball still under active code development with ongoing rule set refinement motivated by community reception (confidence: high) — Keith: 'So it's great that people like it. It makes finishing the rule set much more motivating' and mentions 'another six months of rules to write'
- **[technology_signal]** Standard Stern default score entry behavior (no initials on first play) differs from JJP competitor practice, creating user friction (confidence: medium) — Olivia's complaint that she couldn't enter initials first play on Godzilla but can on JJP games; Keith defends as design choice rather than technical limitation

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## Transcript

 the pinball network is online launching free play pinball podcast what's up everybody welcome to free play pinball podcast i am your host amanda hamilton and it is Lucky episode number 13. It's lucky for me. It's my favorite number. I got Bill back. I'm super excited. What's going on? This was last week. Yeah, Bill took a hiatus. And as previously spoken and promised, we have a super awesome guest. It involved a custody battle. Scott Larson, told you I would take you out, buddy. We have Keith Elwin. What's up, Mr. Elwin? I'm ironically wearing the Loser Kid hat right now. Oh, my gosh. Really? That's actually a great hat. I haven't been wearing it lately. Yeah. It is a great hat. It is. We love our loser kids. Josh and Scott are phenomenal. We're not worthy of them. They got great merch. They do. And they're just genuinely good people. How did they get into pinball? Yeah, they don't belong. They don't. But then again, so I was doing some research, you know, because those who listen to our show know I always do some mid-level, like at least go to second page on Google search, stalking of any guests that we invite. And I learned some stuff about you, Keith. I think. Yeah. So I didn't realize you have directed and produced a movie. Pinball 101. Yes. I also did not realize that you have been mentioned in, I believe it was the it was either the New York Times or USA Today. which I thought was kind of wild. And you've also been killed off a lot by Martin Robbins. What did you do to him? Um, I don't know. Yeah. He's not very nice to me. Have you ever been to Australia? No, I have not. Don't go. Things will try to kill you. I know. I know. But he comes here all the time. He's had his chance. That's both frightening and exciting to know that you're still alive. Yeah, a little worried about it. Are you getting out with Rorden down there? Rorden will show you a good time. He'll give you a boomerang, too. Ooh, that actually looks fun. My husband got a boomerang in the mail after our last episode because he did mention them multiple times. And there's a disclaimer on the front of it. Bless you, I believe. Thank you. Yeah, there's a disclaimer on the front that says, second person required in order to properly operate. so I don't know if boomerangs actually do what you think they do. I don't know if they do what anybody thinks they do, but it's all good. I heard it's hard, yeah. It's fine. You got this. Yeah, no safety glasses, roll out. It's cool. Safety is a thing, it's just not our thing. Exactly. So congratulations, Stern cleaned house on the PIAs. They took home, I believe, 11 crystals, and quite a few of those are for this very, very unknown game called Godzilla that you may have had something to do with. It's too old. Who's heard of that? Yeah, you know, Rush is the new thing. Yay, John Borg. We love you. So that game's pretty cool. Which? Yes. Yes. I have not played Rush yet, but I have played Godzilla. Ah, okay. A time or two. It's all right. Yeah, it's fine. Well, okay. Let's give a little disclaimer here for everybody in the audience. You have a Godzilla LE. You and I talk frequently, and you always tell me that, you know, oh, I just played two games of Godzilla during the middle of the day when you're working, or, hey, I just did this. I never play pinball when I am working. Wink, wink, nod, nod. Here's lunch break. Yeah. My government issued 15-minute breaks. I played this not out of that game. and and keith i've actually messaged you because i finally got to the kaiju battles the secondary kaiju battles and i was super excited and my husband came up behind me with the most delicately cooked cut it with a spoon filet mignon in his mouth chomping in my ear and i thought i needed an alibi because i couldn't complete the battle so you've created this like masterpiece game that I'm actually good at. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. I appreciate it. The people who voted a game of the year appreciate it. Bill played it. Good game. He likes it. Do you like it? I do like it. I saw the whitewood in my house. I still play it every day. Nice. We're still working on rules. So it's great that people like it. It makes finishing the rule set much more motivating, I guess, is the uh the response if i if the game i can't imagine my game's not everyone hates it then you got another six months of rules to write you're just like oh next game thunderbirds yeah well real quick just out of curiosity so it's a whitewood but you have the most up-to-date code on the whitewood right was there any differences on the whitewood versus the production or is it pretty much similar minus artwork yeah it just has no artwork it's in a kids cabinet um it's hooked up to the internet so anytime there's a code update it's a beta code update it gets automatically sent to it um and then uh i play tested uh you know we make all the changes and tweaks and whatnot and then uh after so many uh beta updates we do a full-on release nice okay you have the coolest job ever i know it's not even a job it's weird so just out of curiosity i'm gonna jump in here for half a second, Amanda, if you don't mind. From conception, you know, in your head, to full-on playing in Whitewood, obviously no code, that kind of stuff. How long did that design cycle take on that game, if you don't mind me asking? So usually, the program comes on about four or five, maybe six months into a project. In Godzilla's case, I was working on it for probably six or seven months before Rick jumped in on it. But so what we do is we will put a prototype, the parts, the ball guides and everything. And then we have generic pinball code, which just operates the slingshots, flippers, bumpers, you know, any any kind of coil. It'll just it'll just fire it if we have a switch hooked up. So basically, we've been flipping this game for a while with just flippers and slings and the pop bumper. So it was, you know, it was pretty much dialed in before Rick even got on and started writing rules. Okay. And it's pretty much standard for all design teams. You know, we'll get just the game flipping so you can test the geometry. We actually call it a white with zero, where we're just testing geometry and not the actual mechs. And then once the program is on, we'll start adding code for the mechs. Nice. And this game had some mechs. I mean, like Bill said, we have an LE. We get the Mechagodzilla belly grab, which is fantastic. you have something that is a completely new design or a new innovation for pinball you have that magna grab which i love and i hate it because i cannot make the destruction jackpot even with the code update in the countdown i can make a freaking 20 loops in a row you you tell me it's a destruction jackpot and i'm gonna be like what no i'm gonna screw this up you sure it's dropping in the right place yeah i just suck at pinball oh okay but you can do 20 loops i can i listen i i am actually grand champ on that score on that game i that is my husband's dream theme he has two dream themes godzilla and alien we went on the list for godzilla a year and a half ago when the first rumors came out and my husband literally said i want the le i want everything that comes with it I don't care if it comes with a squeaky dog toy. We did not have dogs at the time. And he was like, I want the squeaky dog toy. I don't care if the game shoots like crap. Then we found out. That's good. The design team was on it and who was coding it and who was doing artwork. And he got really interested in it. And then I started kicking his ass on it. And I don't think he loves it as much as he used to. Oh yeah. Time to sell. No, no, that's a bad word. We don't use those four letter words in our house. I know. I have that same problem. So how many games are you sitting on right now? Um, uh, I probably known about, he had to take his shoes off to add that up. Yeah. It's storage forever. So I don't know, but I probably around a 30. Okay. That's not, how many of them are actually in Chicago? Um, probably 22, 23. Okay. I saw a few games in California. Okay. Not bad. So I'll remember that next time I'm out in San Marcos and be like, yo, Keith, what you got sitting in storage? San Marcos. It's actually not in storage. It's up in L.A. Listen, it's not that far of a drive depending on traffic. Yeah, yeah. So if you hit up 82 in L.A., some of those games up there are mine. Nice. Very cool. So I'm going to ask you a question because Amanda loves this answer. So how many minutes from where you lived to your storage or how many miles? Such a stupid question. Storage? No, it's not. Yeah. Storage is like right across the street from Stern, which is about a half an hour from where I live. So about the same. But how many miles is that? Because that blew me away when I went to Chicago. I think it's 17. I'm going to stir up some crap here, by the way, with a question. I can tell. Well, no, because it blew my mind because I actually lived in Carlsbad, which is your hometown. ironically enough I lived in Carlsbad about 10 years ago I lived there for six months so I was there for a hot minute and that was it I was there long enough to enjoy the food the scenery and a little bit of shenanigans you measure distance and time there and I it it always used to crack me up because like there were no wrecks but you would you would literally go stop and go between each exit and it's either you're going 70 or you're going five so when we went to expo I was Bill was like, oh, yeah, so I live an hour and a half away from downtown Chicago because we went out early and stayed in downtown Chicago. I'd never been there before. Dude, you should never have to measure distance and time. That is not okay. That's how we function out here. No. Yeah, no. In California, yeah, it was distance and time unless it was rush hour. It would never change. Oh, my God. And then you just sat there. Yeah, right here for some reason. And, yeah, it takes forever just to get on the freeway. And then once you're off the freeway, it's just so much more urban area here than where I'm from. So it was a little bit of a culture shock. When was the last time you were home? Were you out there for INDISC? I was out there for INDISC, yeah. Okay. Freaking California. I know. I've been there like two days in the past two years. And it was just like kind of passing through San Diego area. Did you have withdrawals from the Carl Weathers? Oh, yeah. Indus was perfect. I was like, ugh, yeah, I don't want to go back. We may have pinball here, but our Carl Weathers sucks. You guys have good food and pinball. San Diego has good Carl Weathers and good food. Florida, we have, we don't have anything. Florida sucks. We have Florida, man. You got the ocean. You got a hurricane. It's cool. You got Disney. Yeah. I do have a question related to Disney. Now that Game of the Year is pretty much guaranteed to Godzilla, do you get to go to Disneyland? I was just there. It's not a deal because it was so close to where I grew up. Yeah. It's like, what, 45 minutes from there? Yeah. So Disney World would be a bigger deal. So we were Disney Pass holders and we went like 97 times in a year while I was working overnights, which is fun. You should definitely stay up 27 hours straight going to Hollywood Studios and riding Tower of Terror. It is life altering. Well, yeah, because the one in California is gone. yeah they changed it to like uh guardians right yeah i didn't get i didn't get a chance we did lego uh we did legoland but we didn't get a chance to do um disneyland while i was out there wow i remember yeah you're giving away your age sir i know i remember i went there with my nephew they were like you know four and five i was like wow this is really boring for an adult yeah i mean the sculptures terror was so iconic for a long time i'm surprised i got rid of that it's california it probably caused cancer i digress going back to godzilla and code i know that joel went into code and godzilla design very deeply i just have a couple of quick points that i was curious about and wanted to check on my first one is actually it's a question from a fan because I told this particular fan that I would be interviewing you and she was very excited about it. And she had a very, very specific question directed towards you and Rick. This question is coming from Olivia, my seven year old daughter. When we got our Godzilla, she couldn't put her name in it the first time she played it. and she's very upset about that because we also have a lot of jjps where she can enter her initials the first you know game that she plays because we usually let her go first so she literally told us mommy you need to call whoever made this game and you need to call mr zach because we got the game from flipping out pinball and zag many and she goes you need to tell them this game is broken because i cannot put my name in it and i told her i said baby these games don't work like that we have four other sterns in the house they don't work like that well then we got armando and she got to put her initials in so she's really upset with you right now mr elwin oh no yeah default scores there yeah she's she's just not happy that she couldn't put her initials in now i tried to tell her to play better don't pet the cat while you're in the middle of a multiball That's good advice. I mean, it's just common sense. I'm not good at pinball, but that seemed like it made sense. Aim for blanky things. Keep the ball above the things that go up and down. Yeah. All things that made sense to me. So she was just really curious why she couldn't do that, though, and why you made a game she couldn't put her name in. Well, you know, I just don't hand out participation trophies. So I got to I got to be the hard parent here and say, no, you got to earn this. There is no place for him in a life, huh? Yeah. No joke. I will let her know. I will let her know. But I'm making her stronger. I'm making her stronger. And you've been playing pinball for since about that age, right? Like I was reading something that your brother would kind of like drop you off at a pinball machine and go do his thing when he was babysitting, which is responsible. he would play with me oh okay well that's much more but if he was stuck babysitting me yeah he'd bring me to the arcade with him no yeah he didn't abandon me i mean i would abandon myself when i was about 12 or 13 i would just start walking or riding my bike to the arcade by myself but uh when i was like seven or eight yeah he would uh he gets stuck babysitting me he was like all right let's go to the arcade so he he wants something to do and get out of my hair man it was perfect So just out of curiosity, how far was the arcade from your house? Oh, there were so many back in the day. I had so many choices. 7-Elevens had games. There were a bunch of pizza places around my place. And there were two big arcades. One was a place called Steve's Arcade, and the other was inside a Sears of all places. They had their own arcade. That's usually where I did like a little rotation. Did you ever get kicked out of them for hogging the machines? No. Uh, no, I get kicked out for other reasons, but, uh, not that. All right. So if you don't mind, I'm going to, I'm going to pack us up and go, we're going to take a road trip down memory lane here for half a minute. Okay. Um, so how, how old are you? I'm 50. 50. Okay. So 12, let me think here. So you were going with like space shuttle was coming out and, um, firepower and that kind of stuff. Right. And then as you got older, then it was your high speed pin bot, that kind of stuff, right? My earliest memories were kind of the old Stern games. I remember we used to play at Galaxy and Big Game. And I remember when Space Invaders came out. So 1980 was like really when I was like really paying attention to when stuff was coming out. And then when Frontier came out at the Sears Arcade, I fell in love with that. And that's really when I started just playing all the time. And it's never really stopped since then. So out of curiosity, your 7-Eleven, since, I mean, 7-Elevens out here were notorious too. They had two video games and one pinball machine. One of my earliest memories was Elvira and the Party Monsters and Pole Position was the sit-down arcade game and a Pac-Man. Do you remember just out of curiosity What was in your 7-Eleven? Not that it matters Actually they didn't have pinball until I think the mid 80's But the 7-Eleven right by my house They used to have a Tempest and a Stargate And then I remember the first pinball they got I think was a Might have been a Laser War And then it became the Simpsons The Dead East Simpsons And then they stopped They got rid of all the games right after that I guess too many hooligans are hanging out like me. Yeah, that's about when it kind of died out here. That must have been a 7-Eleven corporate thing. Yeah, yeah. I think just too many kids were just hanging out. So they're like, nah, this is a bad idea. Oh, you kids, get off my lawn. Exactly. Oh, yeah, we would just loiter and beg for money and steal candy. I mean, it was a good reason to get rid of that stuff. You mean you can't refill the Slurpee? What? you can't you take one of the giant pools and you fill it up or like a trash bag and fill it up and stick straw in it what's wrong with you absolutely uh we got our first 7-eleven in the town that i live in like three weeks ago oh wow yeah we're a little late yeah i just spoiled because i just grew up with a 7-eleven like right down the street anytime i move somewhere i joke i hope it's by a 7-eleven so one of the things i was really excited about because when i was pregnant with my daughter which was after I lived in California I was in walking distance of a 7-eleven and I was so sick the entire pregnancy the only thing I could hold down was a Slurpee so I ate them every day and it was great but when I when I lived in California we used to go to the 7-eleven and Bresci Ranch all the time because they had the Mountain Dew Slurpees and they were so good oh my god that sounds like a bellyache oh my no you mix them with the cherry Slurpees and you get a cherry Mountain Dew and you can like it's magical you could clean the entire house very quickly um you were much more responsive playing video games you don't have to worry about sleep it's it's fantastic I don't have to worry about focusing yeah I always worry about that when I was 12 years old I had a paper route and first thing I would do on I think it was a Sunday paper I had to wake up at 5 a.m to deliver those first thing I would do is ride my bike to 7-eleven get a 32 ounce Mountain Dew and that was just like coffee for me then and then I would just jam out that paper route you know come home at 8 and fall back asleep somehow it was things that he did to our body to wake up and we still might do I digress I don't wake up at 5 a.m. and drink Mountain Dew anymore I stopped doing that I don't wake up at 5 a.m. anymore yeah I don't wake up at 5 a.m. much less drown a 32 ounce Mountain Dew Well, I don't like either one of you right now. I'm not a fan at the moment. Sorry? No, it's all right. I'm just kidding. Your bedtime monster energy? Literally, yeah. Yeah. So I'm, normally I'm up around 445. Ugh. I start work at 6, then I leave work around 230. So yeah like right now is like the absolute wind down of the night So I just curious Keith You said you don wake up at five anymore but I recently saw a post from Jack Danger the newest designer at Stern Pinball which is super cool that you guys got him. And he had made mention that he was like the last man standing in the factory. And it was super cool, but super creepy. Is the Stern factory haunted? yes yes for sure perfect yeah i think it was a watch factory before we were there so i think many people were killed and um making watches yeah yeah was it was it their time so it's left watches they didn't really take off um bill caught bill caught when i was put down there i make terrible jokes was it their time yeah no that's fantastic because i've worked in hospitals that are haunted and it's creepy as hell I love that though so you kind of have had pinball in your entire life like that has been your thing yeah I guess I inherited it so that actually brings me to a good question because you work with Zach Sharp who is the son of our lord and savior of pinball Roger Sharp is pinball inherited like is there a genetic disposition to come from it or did you just happen to be the first of that line that was like, oh, hey, this is cool. I'm going to do this. Both my dad and my brother played, but it was mostly just free babysitting for the parents. I think that's how it started. Zach grew up with pinball in his basement. If I was a kid, I would have killed for that. I had to ride my bike places. I could see how they latched on to it. That's definitely a family affair. my family you know my brother still plays my dad has one machine so you know we all we'll still keep it relevant yeah yeah we dabble on it sometimes sometimes yeah and I mean like you literally so I don't get to say this very often in life a lot of guys tell me that they are the best at something and usually those are lies you have literally been the best in the world at pinball more than one yeah yeah i guess i have um seems so long ago it's just weird do you know what your current ranking is just out of curiosity like do you follow it anymore no um but i think i just want a bunch of points so yeah i'm not i'm not gonna tell you you're eighth i'm not gonna tell you you're not eighth i'm not gonna tell you who's first but i am curious if the number one player walks around the factory with like that one of those i'm number one like foam finger things well you know it's funny raymond started like right when covet hit so uh he still does not have an office um so the only time i've ever seen him there if he's picking up a whitewood so um no he definitely does not do that ready i'm gonna send you one i got you bud we can do this together we can do this it i i just think it's so cool that literally you are are still kind of newish in pinball like when we look at what you have done design-wise so you've been with stern since 17 yes okay it's actually uh two days ago was my five-year anniversary of being here happy anniversary thanks so end of february 2017 stern says hey we know this kid from california who did this really cool like homebrew of archer which shout out because i freaking love archer and that's a great theme that would not have aged well but it's still very quotable and relevant today and and you you started designing pinball machines for stern pinball because why not yeah why not i think they make uh games i i've heard of them yeah yeah actually it took uh took about nine months from when they initially contacted me until I actually started working. So, you know, because it took a while to negotiate. And then it took me a while to obviously move out here and, you know, take care of everything at home. So it was a long process. And prior to that, you were an operator. This is true. And my back thanks me for not doing it anymore. listen at this age our backs thank us for getting out of bed slowly instead of quickly just pointing that out and heated seats in cars oh god heated seats are magical didn't need them in california no you don't the Carl Weathers was perfect all the time yeah oh if it rained while i was there like literally the first month i was there we had hail twice and I remember my birthday is the beginning of February and we went to the beach because it was like 82 degrees and some freak warm front and we could see the snow-capped mountains in the distance because there was no marine layer it was magical and the best day ever of my life oh god I miss California so so you you kind of have like found your niche and you've made this living and despite the fact that you're five years in and and a much more i don't want to say an older man's but a much more experienced man's genre and kind of field you've been doing this for i i hate to say this out loud but four decades four decades he's just hung up on us yeah but but i mean realistically like if you started loving pinball and then you you kind of did this thing where pinball was always a part of your life you've been doing this for a long long time yeah depressing all right no it's not like i'm kind of jealous no you love what you do though right so i mean if you love what you do it's really not work right i mean so i mean i'm gonna take a guess you don't put eight hours a day in right no that's not true my boss might be listening come on oh okay yeah yeah no mr mr gomez he puts 10 hours a day in six days a week yeah yeah but but realistically and i'm sure there's like 16 18 hour days where the juices are flowing and you're like yes i got this and i don't want to disrupt this and then there's days where you're just sitting there like shooting nerf guns at each other uh sometimes my girlfriend will come over on a saturday and she'll see me doing cad work and like what are you doing i was like oh i had an idea so i'm sketching it out and she's like it's saturday so don't sleep yeah I mean, the idea is there. Why not? Yeah, I'm definitely thinking about it a lot, even when I'm not, quote unquote, on the clock. So I think that's what it takes. Were you ever worried that pinball would not survive? Yeah, I was like, OK, I can do this job for five, ten years. And then once everything dies down again, I'll go back to being an operator. but uh things are looking good so maybe i will not have to go back to being an operator well you know dwight said you were retiring really that's news to me no you should ask him he might have a retirement plan for you oh okay people in pinball don't retire some of them should but some of them i hope they never do yeah but you know is it go ahead you One other sidebar question if you don't mind me asking. So, Archer, do you still have that set up, and how often do you play it, if you don't mind me asking? It is folded up in my condo. I brought it home to set it up, but then when we got sent home, I had to bring my current Whitewood in with me, and I only have room for one game here. So it is folded up next to my Whitewood Godzilla. But it is here. It worked last time I set it up two years ago, so hopefully it still does. is there a pam multiball there's not much any code in that game so no if there ever was was there gonna be a pam multiball oh god i don't remember i think we were just trying to make something that flipped we weren't really you know concerned with you weren't thinking that far in no it was just kind of a fun little project and then my brother got kind of bored and uh so i i just in my mind when i think archer i'm thinking like that's how you get ants mode and oh yeah that was definitely going to be it needed to because that is how you get ants yeah well ant frenzy with lots of scoop um i'm sure i had two scoops i think nice one one entrance on exit scoop so i i do have some questions about your designs because you've done four games now that have made it out to the the masses um you have iron maiden your initial game which is based on the Archer layout and it is a really good game. Like I've played it before. It's a great flipper. It's not a theme that I love, but it's still fun to shoot. I'm not going to say no to it. If I walk up to it, you've done infinity quest in Jurassic park and then Godzilla. I have questions though, because you are, you are now known as the goat. Sure. I mean, maybe I'm the month, but I think I, I think I need a much longer resume. Which, which may be true. and that's kind of where my questions come why are there not triceratops that was in my notebook i don't know how that never made it in i that is literally missing the mark there keith yeah so my engineer harrison drake was just oh have you ever heard of triceratop you know triceratop was like what is triceratop i guess it's some cartoon pops dude no you know come on triceratop you know just have a have a joke for the triceratop and i've never even heard of triceratop and uh so but I like Triceratops. It would have been perfect. Why is the Spinner not a Spinosaurus? Spinosaurus. Well, Spinosaurus is a true one. These are missed opportunities. That Mothra outlane save on the left-hand side of Godzilla. Why is there not a John Borg reference? John Borg reference. It's a left outlane. Well, I don't have the middle wire of death over there. just there's so much work still to be done i digress i i do have a question though like if you're ever playing in competition and you just get completely screwed on a board game do you go in and just like shake his mountain dew uh he loves it you know every time i see him working on a light wood is like all right just gotta have that uh middle middle lane of death huh He was like, yeah, that's my signature now. Freaking Borg. Yeah, he got Borg. He's the best. He's actually a really awesome guy. I've talked to him quite a bit, and I absolutely love him. He is fantastic. So let's go back down memory lane again, but we're going to take a divergent path. So early 2000s, late 90s, and pinball didn't work out. What would you be doing right now? Oh, man. My background is in electronics, so maybe still in there. I don't know. The whole reason I became an operator is because I don't really like sitting at a desk. So I started buying games, moving them around. I started working for a distributor and then another operator. Who did you work for? Just out of curiosity, sorry. I worked for Area Amusements in San Marcos for many years. Before that, a place called San Diego Games. But, yeah, I had a lot of fun working on that stuff. I'm sure all the chemicals and lead solder is going to kill me, but it was fun. It's fine. It's fine. None of us are getting out of this alive. Yeah. Take that off the table. But you have a pretty cool story to tell when you go. I mean. Lead solder kills. Yes. but hey it's better than mercury that's true or less fun i'm not sure so 10 years ago today if i would have said hey look there's you're going to design pinball machines and there are going to be people who buy your games because they know you design them they don't care what the license is they don't cover the theme is they don't have to see the game they will be sold out because your Your name is on it. Would you believe me? Well, I mean, to be fair, pretty much everything's selling out these days. But but I mean, even 10 years ago, like, could you have predicted this? Um, you know, I always wanted to be a game designer, but, you know, I never, you know. Never like actively pursued it. I never, you know, chased down anyone in the industry. It's like, hey, I want to do this. I always thought I'd do it just for fun. It's like, hey, I'll design a game someday. I actually did make a South Park game in the early 90s. and that was it was kind of an old pop by that we converted a friend of mine and uh and then when the p-rock stuff came out i was like oh i should you know revisit this and but not you know not you know south park to me was dead at the time but archer was new in my life i was like oh yeah i should revisit this but uh make it archer and uh try to get my brother on board first he didn't want to but then uh after a while he's like yeah all right something to do so uh that's where that started um just years and years of playing and what i like what i don't like and i thought he's like yeah it'd be fun to design a game that i want to play and that ended up being you know archer slash iron maiden did you tell him if he could make it number one in the world he could design whatever he wanted who your brother uh he's he's a coder but you know he's retired this feels like work i don't want to do this anymore i couldn't i'm sure it's very tedious that's fair how much of what you have played in the past because i mean you've been exposed to probably more games than i don't know bill correct me if i'm wrong 80 of our pinball community you figure it at this point in time you've played most of them very rarely do i go to a show and and see a game i've never played it's extremely rare i was gonna say let's start with a list of games he has not seen or played it'll probably be much shorter yeah so so how much of that like where you have played a game and you're like this shot would have been much cooler if or i would have put it here like how much of that goes into your design oh yeah i do that all the time i was like hey this almost works or there'll be a mode just like this is almost cool but um you know now but it's missing something yeah yeah yeah and when when you're designing games so like do you have like a a notebook and i'm using that metaphorically because i don't i don't necessarily know how your brain works and everybody is different some of us are very old school and we still use things like skype and paper and pens um yahoo yeah aol aol yeah hotmail.com hey my wife still has an aol I told you. What? Nothing. Nothing. Anyways. Yes, we are computer illiterate in this house. Yes, it is a small miracle I can do Skype and all that other stuff. When we first started this, literally, my wife would have to come down, load the episode to Dropbox, send it. Of course, you wouldn't get it. And then it was this big hassle for the next two days of trying to get it to you just to complete an utter shit show. It took longer to get you the file than it did to record the two-hour episode when we were doing these. It did. It did. It's fine. I told you. No, Keith actually messaged me earlier, and he's like, who still uses Skype? And I'm like, I'm pretty sure Bill still has an AOL email address. He would use the disk if he could find out where to put it in his computer. No, because that's one thing I always wonder, too, like with designers, because I think you guys' job is so cool that you get to create this world under glass. And I kind of idolize that because my job is not creative and it sucks really bad compared to what you do. So I often fantasize about like if I were making a game, what would I do? Like what would I put in there? What would actually work? Because I can put ideas are great. Application is a whole different story. When you're presented with a license or a theme and Zach and George and whoever else is in the room says, all right, Keith, we have X, Y and Z for you to do. Do you kind of have an idea of layout that you would apply to that theme, or do you figure out the theme and then determine what you want to apply to it? Does that make sense? What I'll do is I'll figure out, does this theme lend itself to toys? Okay. In the case of Avengers, it didn't really. So I went about making, hey, I want to make a fast, flowy, combo, fun shooting game. when it came to Godzilla, I was like, oh yeah, this has got to have toys, it's got to have stuff that breaks apart, stuff that collapses, a big boss that you fight. And so I kind of just did kind of a general layout and then left all these spots to put these big mechs in and then just kind of filled in the rest. And so it depends solely on how much a toy would lend itself to the theme. your style yeah it does it no it does and and your style is for the licenses that you've had your style is kind of like the campy old school version so obviously avengers like you can't go very old school with that but with the restrictions on it you had to go more comic book than anything else no big deal but like jurassic park i have listened to previous podcasts where you've said I was given an option of choosing a license or a movie, essentially, on that. And I could use whatever in that. Godzilla is not based on the Marvel. I was given a choice of this world or park. And you picked the right one. Yes, yes, because that was the only one I'd seen. And now that I've watched the entire series, I've made the right choice, yes. Yeah. That one's so iconic, though. You know. Roar at the end. Yeah. I mean, it would have been cool to have that rotating sphere that they use in the new movies, but I think I made the right call there. It's okay. It's all right. What did you think of Jack Danger's home-pinned version of Jurassic Park? Oh, he nailed it. I remember when he was first working on that thing, and I'm like, oh, it's Jurassic Park. And Wason was like, I'm going through all these call-outs you didn't use. and there were like thousands of call outs in Jurassic Park. We only used probably a couple hundred of them. I was like, man, it's going to take you hours. I remember just the dialogue recording for that game took so long that I was absent for most of it. And so Wason's like, yeah, so we're going to do this and use all these call outs. And I was like, oh, that's awesome. And then Jack showed me what he was working on with his little jump ramp. And I was like, man, this looks pretty expensive for a home pin. He's like, yeah, the hammer hasn't come down yet. And so every time I see progress, it's like, wow, this stuff is still all in here. That's amazing. Jack's like, yeah. And then it all made it to the end. And I think he should be very proud of that. Oh, yeah, definitely. I love that you guys are using so many more personalities and competitive players versus mech guys or engineers that design games. Do you think that's how pinball is going to kind of trend? uh i won't tell borg you said that um borg knows what's up all right yeah i think he's one of the few mechanical engineers turned game designer that's that they're still out there yeah but uh his passion for the game is is amazing and he literally designs his own mechs cut some yeah put some together uh so so like i do with rules i design my games i write the rule set too so I do double duty where a lot of board he'll do double duty as well and that's with the engineering because we don't get an engineer until you know the game's already been in development for a few months and he has a tremendous advantage where he can just like yeah I'm just gonna make this thing out of metal and he actually gave me this uh this mechanism that grabs the ball and he's like hey I thought you might want to play with this you know you know so you're gonna have a boleating dinosaur you can play with this little prototype I made and I was like oh it's very cool of him and he showed me how he made it. It's like I was just blown away that he can just like envision this stuff, go in the lab and cut it, cut out a metal, put it all together and make it work. Yeah, it's crazy. You've worked with a lot of experience levels between people like Borg you worked with Steve Ritchie You now have people like Ray Day and Jack Danger Has that dynamic influenced you at all or are you like a sponge just absorbing everything they can teach you I am just glad Jack is now the FNG, the new guy. So I am no longer the new guy. After five years? Yeah, I'm no longer the one getting hazed. Now he's getting hazed, so it's perfect. well he's got to bring donuts till you guys hire another uh designer right every day every day we get first divs is stealing his ideas it's great god bless covid home is suddenly a good thing to be fair every time i go in he's there so i don't think he's working from home too much he's got a very small human at home i can relate to the um impact that has it suck they need things like food and changed and yeah stuff like that i don't love should bring them to work bill has brought a baby to a pinball thing before and apparently it works great for sleep all right so my son was i'm going to clarify this story i think my son was uh i want to say six weeks old and he wasn't sleeping at night so literally the one night And, well, let me back this up a little more. So literally my wife and I slept in shifts. My wife would sleep from 6 o'clock at night until about midnight, and then I slept from midnight until 5 in the morning. So, you know, life just generally sucked at that point in time. So literally I had missed, like, a bunch of pinball nights and getting together with everybody. And I was like, you know what, screw it. So I'm like, you know, he might fall asleep in the car. So I threw him in the car. He fell asleep. You know, I'm like, I'm going to go say hi to all my buddies real quick. They can see my son. we'll be there 10 minutes he'll start crying and we'll leave so for the next i don't know hour and a half he literally just slept through pinball night you got a Banzai Run going off uh you know a row of machines everybody's you know talking and drinking after about 20 minutes because they're like wow this kid's not waking up one of the best decisions i made bringing him out that night you know instead of dealing with him uh you know being fussy and crying he just you know slept the whole time it was awesome so and then you say hey you've been to a pinball event oh yeah yeah and literally he went to a pinball he was born october of 2019 he went to a pinball event before corona so he knows what pinball night is like before coronavirus it's good stuff it's hard to remember right you know what it seems like you know when i think about him and his age it seems like a an eternity ago but then i think about like oh i was doing this you know two years ago you know it's just a different point of reference but you know all good things i sleep better knowing i played well too you didn't dude he was still he was like six weeks old he was he was teeny tiny oh yeah yeah he was now i'm curious hold on i gotta look this up he was he was that big he's still potato oh yeah yeah yeah he was still potato you mentioned you still pull a lot of a double duty on you do a lot of your own rules along with your design and i'm really curious now you've worked with rick on three games now god's a list of four okay so you guys have like this dream team thing going on now because you keep making these really good games i check pin side you have more games than the top 20 than some manufacturers have just you as a designer that's kind of cool yeah that's my goal to think about it and it's not like Haggis is the designer I'm referring to it's bigger designers than that or manufacturers than that so does he have more input and is he gaining more confidence as he kind of moves through the process with you for roles or is he still just like yes boss whatever you say well I've never heard him talk like that I pretty broods a lot and you guys are very quiet. That's what Jeremy told us. You guys are both very brooding and very quiet and very cool. Rick and I are very similar personality types. Yeah, we're both very, very quiet. We'll just listen. The meetings will mostly just listen. And but I think that's one of the things that allows us to work together so well is, you know, I'll write a rule. He'll read it and it's like, cool. And he'll implement it or he'll say, can you expand on what you mean by this? And then there's obviously gaps. There's always gaps in my rules that, you know, things I forget. And he'll just fill he'll just fill it in with what he thinks I want. And unless it's really egregious, I'll say, no, I don't like this or what. this is really stupid come up with something else um but uh yeah i think with iron maiden he was basically checking checking with me for almost everything like you know what sound do you want here what you know what there and then uh by the time drastic part rolled around he had gained he was like okay yeah i know i know i looked through our sound library i found something that works pretty good here and um and you know that's that's how it's been he's he's uh he modifies the ui the way he sees fit and and i i generally just let him do it and i don't you know and now he's just like it's just as new to you than it is to him with godzilla and then i'm sure yeah with that he's a it's a blast to work with he's a very good technical programmer so i i'll it's like hey like for uh avengers i wanted to do the flip based mode and i was like this has never been done in a game before it was like so here's the idea and he's like wait so you want the mode to run and as long is there just flips available and he was just like huh yeah i think i can do that and so uh he whipped something up tried it and we're like oh this is awesome so yeah is there anything that you have ever done on a game either physically or technically where you're just like this doesn't work yet but i know if it does it's going to blow people's minds yeah so the magnetic newton ball was originally on vendors um but we could not we in testing we can do some really cool things but where i had it on the play field it wasn't doing the cool things i wanted it to do and we didn't have time to redesign the play field so i was like i'm pulling this mech out and it's gonna be the first thing i that goes on my next game no matter what it is and then when i found out it was godzilla i was like cool i'm designing this entire game around this one because i really think it's cool and i really wanted it really wanted to get it out there and i was so pissed that um we had too many technical problems with it on avengers so um but it worked out it did when you were designing godzilla did you ever get like the warm and fuzzies where you knew like this is gonna be awesome like this is a really good game for everybody well when i first found out i was working on godzilla i was like uh so i was talking to jody i'm like so do we get assets or anything with this and he's like hell yeah buddy you know he listed off like eight movies and i was like wow because this you know this is the first for me i've never gotten assets to work with besides iron maiden music so um i was really excited you know the project just you know even though i hadn't watched the movies in quite a while when i found out we got assets i went through and watched all of them like oh yeah i'm using this and this and this and this and you know took all these geeky notes you know i went through like three notepads worth of uh you know time stamps and yeah and uh yeah no i was really excited and i think the theme was perfect for pinball because you're just big bad monster destroying stuff but you're also saving stuff just like the movies the movies couldn't make up their mind what they wanted to be so you know that's how i incorporated into pinball it's like why is godzilla saving people but destroying buildings he's like man because he's godzilla i don't know that's what he does yeah whose idea was it to have the japanese as well that was actually the licensure toho that is fantastic yeah they were uh i i actually came up the idea hey we should have some japanese call outs and i ran it by them and they're like um you know what how about we you know have selectable japanese and i was like if it's good with you guys it's perfectly fine with me so yeah that's where that was born that's cool that game is fantastic oh my gosh so in a lot of your games not just with godzilla but i think it's kind of emphasized just for me because i've played that one so much more than anything else your games are very heavy on on these really i don't want to call them easy to hit but really achievable far right and far left shot but you also still have like so many combos and just the ball is magic. It just does magic things. It goes in these really, really beautifully coordinated and choreographed patterns. It's magical. I freaking love it. Is that intentional? Is that just your style that you like having the ability to hit combos? Or is that something that you're trying to appeal to people like me who suck at pinball and people like you who are, you know, number one in the world occasionally playing pinball? I mean, I'm always attracted to a flow design, but it can't be all flow, flow, flow, flow, flow. There needs to be some some mech or some shot that sends the ball out of control. And for me, I it's I try to do it on the sides because I think for so many years, there's just haven't been anything interesting on the sides to shoot at. So you never shoot at it. So suddenly I'm putting these designs out where, hey, guess what? If you want your ball save on Jurassic Park, you got to shoot this shot way off to the side. It's not very comfortable to shoot. It's kind of a pain in the ass. Yeah. But once you hit it, it's satisfying. It's satisfying because you're rewarded. So that's what I try to do is like I'm going to make these obscure shots that take you out of your comfort zone, but I'm going to force you to shoot it because it's going to be a great reward. You don't have to shoot it, but if you want the ball save or whatever perk comes with it, then you're going to shoot it. And I think that's important. If you're going to design a shot that's hard, it needs to be rewarding somehow. And even on Godzilla. So like you can hit that Godzilla, the Mechagodzilla ramp. You can backhand that. You can hit it pretty easily from the left flipper. It's not a big deal. You can hit the spinner on the left hand side with a little bit of skill or luck. You can hit that kind of inner loop area behind the building. You can hit the building very easily. that right ramp is fantastic to shoot and you can shoot it repeatedly that left ramp though it's a little bit hard yeah it is but oh but it's so good oh my philosophy behind that was all right even if you rattle the shot and don't make it up the ramp well it's coming back up to your upper flippers so um i didn't mind making that shot hard and you still have the chance with the magnet and the destruction jackpot or the magnet graph or the magnet save i mean or i Just knocking down the bridge. It's pretty cool. But I think one of the biggest complaints right now isn't really the game. I think the biggest complaint from everybody is we can't get the game. I know I won't have mine until, I think, September, roughly. You should come to Florida. I would love to have one. Yeah, that's the sad part. I'm beating on this year-old Whitewood, and I was like, God, I really wish I had an arctic game to have at my house. I know a guy. Get set up and everything else, or would you keep it in the box for a while? I would definitely set up a Godzilla. Okay. I had my Jurassic Park in a box for like a year before I unboxed it finally. Nice. Are you a keep in the box or a play it type of guy? I'm a play it type of guy, but I didn't have any place to put the Jurassic, so it just sat in my office for a year. And then finally my girlfriend was like, hey, I got space for a game. I was like, hey, I got a game in a box. Let's bring it out. Makes sense. it makes sense so there was there was big talk when godzilla came out we all saw you know the the sizzler and the teasers and everything and there was a scoop and keith helman doesn't put scoops in games are we gonna see more scoops um i'm sure okay scoops are necessary when they're needed to divert to another scoop yes absolutely i want to have like the old school games i had the four saucers in the middle of the playfield that's kicked to each other I want to do that with scoops. That would be a bestseller because your name is attached to it only. That sounds awful. I hate that. No, I implore you to do it. I don't have any room for any more games. Go ahead and do it now. So when I clear out games, I have room for whatever comes after the scoops. Do two scoops from one side of the other, kind of like Hyperball, where it just sits there and cycles through them and you have to get through the shot. that actually might be kind of cool. Kind of combine the, the Bram Stoker Dracula mist ball with just a ball that shoots from one scoop to another and you got to knock it out of there. Yeah. Interesting. And you're big on magnets. Like you use a lot of magnets in your designs. You just mentioned that mist ball on Dracula. Did Alistair inspire you or impact your design at all? Cause he was big on magnets. No, not really. um that is a very cool mech um in fact it's so cool i really don't want to do anything like it you know um it's like my favorite upper play field is that the the power field on twilight zone and it's just perfect like i don't want to so good it's like wow i'd love to have that one of my games but i can't just rip that off it's it's it's perfect anything i do would be less than what that was and it would be undeserving yeah yeah and i feel the same way about the the magneton dracula it's just like that is such a cool unique feature that i would never just copy it one-to-one i would have to add something to it that's so much you know to make it so much better but i can't think what that would be so yeah yeah and that's fair and and i completely respect that i was just curious because you do use magnet so much in in your games are you a video gamer i am like okay So I got COVID right when Elden Ring came out, and that's all I've been doing. That's upsetting. Ironic in timing and very upsetting. It was perfect timing. It's like, man, if you're going to get COVID, do it in a Chicago winter when Elden Ring comes out. I had COVID and jumped my time forward in my Animal Crossing to July to catch sharks. Animal Crossing. Oh, yeah. That was the original. Freaking love Animal Crossing. The original COVID time suck. We got it two weeks before Ozark Season 4 came out, and I'm like, you know. Granted, I would have watched it in an afternoon, but still. And I was actually told, so for our listeners who are not aware of this, last week we alluded to the big faux pas that I made, which was essentially the same as asking Carol Shelby what a clutch is. I was in the menu looking at the audits for Godzilla, because, Bill, you had asked me how many games that I played on Godzilla. it, is this just the honeymoon phase? And that is something that's been kind of a hot topic of do I love it because it's new or do I just love it? And I'm very finicky on my games. Because some people do get caught in the honeymoon phase. A lot of people do. Hey, listen, I just got a circus a month and a half ago. You're so freaking good. But you know what? Thank you. Did you both have Willy Wonka's? Yeah. Yeah. And Woz. Nice. And Terminator is far over there. You don't have a TNA though, right? No, I got Medieval You've got your Twilight Zone there, Keith Yeah My Twilight Zone Twilight Zone's a great game Yeah You know, it's different Here, how do I want to say this? It's one of those games I really enjoy I'm not in love with it but I also won't sell it because I know I'd never be able to afford to buy it back I was a huge Twilight Zone show as a kid. So when the game came out, I don't think it shoots very well, but theme integration in that game is top-notch. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. The rules are good. It's great. Yeah, I think you nailed it with the mini playfield, the gumball, and what was the other one? The wire form that the ball drops out on. My daughter loves a lot of that kind of 90s stuff, Like she gets a kick out of Adam's family with a hand grabbing the ball. Um, I recently just picked up this medieval, medieval madness and my daughter's sick. So it's not like she's getting too far in the code. Um, but she realizes, Hey, if I hit the gate with the ball, you know, the castle explodes and she loves that. You know what I mean? Um, nice. It's a pinball magic moment for sure. Yeah. Are you a moment chaser or a point chaser? Um, It depends on the theme. Godzilla was more moment. Avengers is more point chasing. Maiden is point chasing. Jurassic is more moment. Interesting. Very interesting. I like it. I am very much a point chaser most of the time because I again, I'm bad at it. Like I don't do it. I love the light shows. I love part of my love for was was the light show. oh my god that black game sucks to shoot but it does it does it's a clunky it's not as smooth as it could be that's a better way of saying it game shoots like shit okay well you know that's that unvarnished opinion right there I also don't like Ghostbusters I mean what do you want from me no but it has moments you know the light show when you get lights out Oh, it's magical. It's magical. Wonka, when you get Wonka's office, like half the freaking lights go out on the board. See, what I don't understand about you is the lights on Ghostbusters when it gets ready to start multiball and that is just kick ass. It is. I love Dwight. I love Dwight's moments. I love Dwight. Dwight's light shows are phenomenal. I love your huh you like winter is coming I I like being blinded by Dwight that's why we call him white shows he is one of my favorite human beings in the entire world anyways because of his energy I just I absolutely love Dwight he's such a fun person and he is so passionate about this and just he he's one of the three people that really got me to love pinball versus just oh god my husband wants a pinball machine and i don't know what it is because i love jeremy's art too like we this is actually my office that you're looking at and for listeners who who can't hear us uh or can't see us obviously um i record my office where i have tna wonka and was sitting behind me but we have an actual pinball room that has Mando, Godzilla, Star Trek, and Deadpool. And then we also have banners for TMNT, Godzilla, and Deadpool in there. And we have a Munsters Translate that's autographed by Dwight and Borgie. I love me some Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti). Yeti is phenomenal. Obviously, you know this, Keith. You've done a game or two with him. Yes. He's okay. We'll keep him. Dad jokes keep flowing when you work with him. It's great. I had a dream about you guys and dad jokes right after Expo. It was so bad. Yeah, he's the king of the dad jokes. It's like you never know when he's being serious, especially if you're in a meeting with him. He was like, well, you know, the inspiration for that was, and you'll just start rambling on his story. No, I'm just kidding. Right after Expo, I had this dream that you were collaborating with other pinball manufacturers to create this, like, mega pinball machine. And the Italian mafia of all people got wind of it and they kidnapped you. And the pinball community being what we are, we stand firm. So on Penn's side of all reliable sources, we put together a fundraiser to get Keith Elwin back. We're going to get you back. And we decided that Jeremy was going to be the emcee of the night. And all he did instead of trying to raise money to get you back on your ransom was tell bad dad joke. And we never got you back. Yeah. Yeah. The fundraiser was a failure. That's a good theme for a pinball, I think. Yeah. That title may be taking that license. Self-portrait of Jeremy with a mic on stage telling his dad jokes and empty audience. It wasn't an empty audience to start with. They all showed up to begin with. It was a free entry pay once you feel inspired to. That's where we screwed up. Do you like cannoli? Yes. Do you like cannoli? Mr. Elwyn, you are stranded on a desert island. there is electricity on the island but you can only run one pinball machine ever again for the rest of the time you there and the rum is gone it not going to be an insider connected game i sorry there no internet here you can only run one pinball machine ever again what game is it oh man um i'm going to double down on this and say a pigeon will drop off usb updates you just can't get on the internet so you're thinking of a newer game oh you can do an old game too no is that maybe i'll do one of I'm good with whatever. The Bagatelle games. They do all kinds of amazing mechanical things without electricity. Or I could say Godzilla. Very self-gratuitous. I'll have plenty of time to finish writing the code since I'm stranded and bored. And there's no Elden Ring. And there's no Elden. Oh, God, that's depressing. And you're going to have to eat coconuts instead of pizza. Oh, I love coconut. I can do that. But I love pizza, too. I would definitely miss it. It's fair. So you got to play in, I'm going to get this wrong. You got to play in District 82 a couple weeks ago, where you licked the flipper buttons, caught COVID, and let Zach Sharp win because he's your boss. Was that inaccurate in any way? Oh, yeah, there was two tournaments. Yeah, Zach won and Jason Lertrick won the other. Yeah, I finished just under the tax cutoff, so I was the true winner. you didn't deny licking the flipper buttons and any of that so we'll go with that well i i wasn't sick then so no but you got sick like right after that wasn't it you messaged me two days after i know yeah all right bill i don't know about you but i know there's certain shots that when i have to make them i can't make them bill do you have any of those shots like there's a mode there's a skill shot there's something you have to shoot to hit some sort of mega reward Do you have any of those? No, I don't play enough for any of those to really piss me off. You're not doing it right. The last time I played Jurassic Park, I got the smart missile, which was like, hell yeah. Because that one's the troubling one for me from time to time. The last couple of times I've played it, I got it more than once. I was like, hell yeah. See, that makes it satisfying because it's so damn hard. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But when you get it, you're like, hell, you know, I've just accomplished something. I did. You know, let the ball shine and go get a beer. You know, shake it up. you know it's all about rewarding the impossibly hard absolutely so keith when you play is there a kryptonite shot where you're just like i can make this shot all day long but now i need to make the shot and i would rather put dynamite in this game and just blow it up that's funny because i can shoot the uh the pop bumper and godzilla like all day long but then if a shot's timing out on it and i'll just whiff it and i was like what yeah we're gonna talk about that like offline yeah it's evil right i don't know who i'm more mad about with pop bumpers you were scott tenaci i'm glad your favorite game should be a no fear yeah it should it should but i don't have room for one tournament you play in tournaments still you're semi-retired from tournament playing yeah um occasionally you dabble i dabble yeah with pinbird gone And, you know, I really have nothing to look forward to. Your life sounds very sad when you say it that way. You're like, I don't have anything to look forward to. The only thing that saved me through COVID was the Elden Ring. Like, I'm kind of worried about your mental health right now. Yeah. Well, I mean, now that, you know, I work in industry, going to tournaments isn't as high of a priority as it used to be. Do you feel, I know, and I'm not sure how much you've heard of this, Zach Minney has made a big deal about if Stern is giving away a game at the end of a tournament, there should be more of a showing of those games in the finals for tournaments. I saw who the top 10 runners were for District 82, and I am by no means a tournament expert. I don't play in a league. I don't play in a tournament. But it was like you, Zach, and Ray Day were prominent names that showed up. Having games that are available for sale, is that fair in tournament play? Or do you kind of like the way it's set up right now? I like playing weird random games. That way I don't feel like I'm just going to work, you know? So Mystery Castle was a breath of fresh air for you. I mean, that game is so bad, it's entertaining. I think we all kind of had fun playing it. It's just like, what? This is the dumbest, weirdest game I've ever played. But somehow, when you put a bunch of high-level players together, all trying to figure out this game nobody knows, it actually becomes kind of fun. One of my terrible community bicycle pinball machines will always be Cactus Jacks. I don't know if you've ever had a chance to play one of those. I have, yeah. It's so bad. but it's got this cool dancing cactus in the back it's the only game with like a topper at the back of the play field yeah and it was interactive too wasn't it it was well done uh the little dancing toy and yeah the game is kind of ho-hum but yeah you know that that's that's one that's so bad it's good you know kind of thing are we gonna see Keith Elwin design topper soon for your games too i i need to know so i can let my financial planner know design top for what Godzilla? Anything. I don't care. I just need to know so I can start saving for him. I know that there's a rumor that there's a really cool topper coming up for Mando. Black Knight Sword of Rage had one of the best toppers ever. Any topper that will tell me I suck in life. The Mando topper, I will say, is very cool. That sounds expensive. I'm going to be disappointed. Sounds so expensive. Okay, you realize the hobby that you're in right now, right? Everything that you're saying is almost moot. I mean, I'm looking at in the back of the screen here you know it doesn't look like you've got you know a beat-up 1986 pin bot followed by a you know a bailey uh lady luck um you know with a dolly parton in the mix you know i tried to throw a bride of pin bot in there but i was told no bill has no sympathy for me i i'm spoiled i love pinball and i mean yeah yeah don't cry for me argentina i get it it's cool story so so i know how much pinball costs right now um and i know how much pinball is worth right now which are two ironically very different things i'm gary stern i just came back from the french riviera it was a great trip and keith your game is up next and i'm going to tell you you know what pick your license every cost is covered i don't care what the license is how much is my game going to cost me a limitless bomb limitless bomb careful what you ask for i mean i have two kidneys and i only need one oh okay i think the bomb is what keeps us in check by how much though because i know like you're big on you want wire form ramps which thank you because those are so much better than plastic ones but you've done so much with either very limited assets like we saw in jurassic park where you didn't have a lot to work with like you you basically pulled a miracle out of someplace that we will never see and then with godzilla there were what feels to the consumer like a lot of assets and there's a lot of toys and mechs with that bridge and the building and the belly grab and the newton ball like there's so much packed into that game that i'm really curious if you just if the budget's thrown out what can you do oh man kind of an ideal world right just uh i mean people are selling all the wall scopes uh yeah well you know what i'm gonna interject in this one have you guys ever heard of like luller pat luller talking about like twilight zone you know where it was so success he was coming off the success of adam's family and they were you know let's see what you can do with this license so then they made it a wide body and he just started throwing everything in the kitchen sinking figuring half the stuff was going to get ripped out you know never thought you know gumball would make it and all these other you know things that probably should not have made it that made it in the game, and they let it ride. So, I mean, I think, you know, you make a good point when you say careful what you wish for because, you know, suddenly you've got, you know, a 30-year-old pinball machine that, you know, the eddy sensors don't work and some crazy stuff, you know. I would hope my stern warranty. A good chunk of our market prefer the Pro. So, you know, they don't want maintenance hassles. They just want a fun game to shoot. So, yeah, like I said, be careful what you wish for. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Sorry, kid. You're not going to college. Mommy and Daddy are buying the next sewing game. Yep. It happens. We're going to college is out because we bought the topper. How do you feel about trade school with a scholarship? No. And you mentioned, Bill, you just mentioned two, like, white bodies. Keith, would you ever do a white body? Hell no. Interesting. Can't stand them. Can I ask why? I just don't like them. Okay. I think the standard size is perfect. All right. So I'm going to ask you this question. So Twilight Zone. Is it just me or because there's so much stuff on the left, it almost feels like a standard? Well, I mean, it is a standard body with the shooter lane added. Same with Indiana Jones. If you ever take one of those apart, you'll see that there's a stripe of art down the middle of the playfield and like an inch of unpainted playfield on either side where they brought in these side rails. So they basically just, you know, the bottom is just a standard body. And where they used the extra space was pushing the ramps out towards the side. Interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. I think it wasn't until Judge Dredd that it was actually designed from the ground up as a widebody. See, we learn something new every year. Yeah, the next time you see Indiana Jones, look at the outlands and you'll see all this wasted space where they brought in the sides. It would have been nice if they would have made those games as a standard body because then they wouldn't have been heavy as hell to get down some stairs. Truth. Listen, pull a pirate CE down the stairs without breaking up those barnacles, then we'll talk. So we have your grail theme up for grabs. This is the theme that you can remember back to little Keith playing in the arcades going, I would love this to be a pinball machine or even as an adult, like I would love to be this as a pinball machine. Are you going to re-theme something to make it your grail theme? Are you coming up with a design from scratch and rules from scratch? I always go from scratch. So you don't play a game and you're thinking, man, this would be perfect if. No. I mean, I do think rule-wise something, but I would never say, oh, this thing would work great as that. I'm not a fan of re-theming games. I didn't even want to do it with Iron Maiden. Why did you do it with Iron Maiden then? Can I let you ask that? Sure. Because that's the design I got hired to do. Okay. Nice. It worked out and half your homework was already done, right? True story. Yeah. Yeah. It's just the fact that I had been working on that Archer layout for, you know, three years or so. And it's just like, Oh, now I get to work on it some more. Yay. I get to rewrite the notes that I already wrote. Yeah. Yeah. So I was really excited when Jurassic Park came around. I was like, yes, I finally get to do a new layout. And that has to be exhilarating too. And they're like, all right, you're up. We got something for you. Here's your choices. I don't sit in a design room, obviously. So I don't know how it goes. They could just be like, All right. So you're going to do My Little Pony and this is your bomb. Make sure both. Yeah. OK, that's fair. Do you kind of get a say in what you get to pick or what you don't? As far as when you're presented with a theme and when you know that it's kind of your turn in the cycle to produce the game? We usually know what we're working on years in advance. Like I already know my next two games. OK. There's not much mystery. Usually it'll be floated, you know, floated by me like three years prior. And then, oh, yeah, you know, keep me in mind for this. And then I'll find out maybe a year and a half before it happens. They know. Yeah. OK, we got this. So so it's so and I'm going to kind of dumb this down because we do have a lot of listeners who are on the same level as me. They're very new into the hobby and they're very new into this process. So I'm going to come to you and say, OK, I have themes A, B and C three years in advance. and you're going to kind of say, oh, well, B looks good. You know, that'd be cool. And then a year and a half later, after you've already kind of started putting some thought into this and a thought into the rules, they're going to say, okay, we've secured this and these are your assets. Is that kind of what you're saying? Yeah, pretty much. Okay. We're getting My Little Pony. I can't wait. Oh, so good. Hell no, dude. We need a National Treasure pinball machine. We need a Fraggle Rock. Here, your mind. Probably. You had just enough of that poisonous venom not to kill you but make you hallucinate a little bit. I get what you're saying. Magic mushrooms. It's all good. Yeah. Just don't forget the zigzag. Yes. Yeah. No, but I mean like there's so many goofy themes, especially now because this generation of I'm going to say like 35 to 55. We grew up in an age where we had the best movies. We had the best of the cartoons. We had the best of a lot of it. so and now we're all in a financial position where we can potentially purchase toys bill don't joke because how many bikes have you bought from when you were a kid and you want a pay phone like we have that ability so they sell yeah here i think as we get older we we taste on our childhood and things that we really liked when we were younger and the pay phone just makes sense because dude in another 20 years you won't be able to find one you can't find one now yeah Yeah. So that's why I have one in my garage. He does. I've seen it. It's bad. He also uses AOL. That's how I get on AOL. Yeah. You stick the receiver in. Yeah. If his wife tries to make a collect call, you know, those MCI nights and weekends right now, this is totally going to disconnect and we're screwed. It is. But I think it's really cool too, that the people who grew up in this age where we had such as fantastic content are also the ones that are now designing it. And we do still have a lot of, I'm going to call them living legends who are involved. We have the Pat Lawlers and we have the Steve Richies. And we have these people who have been doing this for a really long time and remember when Pinball was its prime. But now we have the Keith Owens and the Jack Dangers. And we have the Joe Cat, or not Joe Katz, I'm sorry. We have the Eric Meniers. And we have all these great designers that grew up when we did. And they saw G.I. Joe and Knowing is Half the Battle. And they saw Thundercats. And like they know the 80s references and they can tell you exactly what a pin or a trapper keeper should smell like. I think Eric's pretty young. He's younger than I am. I don't want to talk about it. Yeah. So I don't remember as much from the 80s. I'm not that young. But Eric is trying to think of how much he's only a year to. I think he's two years younger than me. So he lived through some of the Reagan years and might remember him. i'm sure he remembers him well oh that's awesome he remembers x-men we've talked to x-men before you know saturday morning cartoons aren't what they used to be and then we have this brand new generation of spoiled entitled kids who want like a bluey pinball machine i know what that is oh you don't don't even go there no no listen you wasted your quarantine by playing l ring instead of watching bluey because it would have taught you life lessons about australia parenting and apparently like the dad on bluey has perfected dadding because he let his kids play mountain on his back while taking a nap i respect that as a mom yeah i really messed up what is your opinion on virtual pinball because i know there's a zen pinball machine archer game some of us downloaded i'll play it once in a while um i mean they are what they are they're you know five dollar pinball games they're entertainment yeah i mean i'm not gonna crap on them because they don't i mean obviously the physics aren't the same but i mean i think the more exposure to quote-unquote pinball it's it's all good for the actual industry too so um yeah i mean actually i play a vr mandalorian pinball on oculus and that's actually pretty fun uh you just got to shut your brain off with the flipper lag and just it's they can do some cool stuff i'm worried about that we we've looked into oculus and talked about it and i'm very scared to try it because of lag and motion sickness and we've done like vr simulators at disney before and they're really cool we did a um a star wars one and it was it was so cool but i'm scared to try it with pinball because you're so interactive with it and the lag just seems like it would it would cause some motion sickness and stuff you guys kind of started playing with that with stranger things you guys had the projector which i thought was super cool because then you have essentially two screens i i love stranger things and i i'm a huge fan of the uv light kit that goes with it and creating that secondary world on a again a stagnant play field but now you're in the upside down is that something you would ever consider using in your design especially now with like a spec expression lighting that we see on rush or something like that then the projector is very cool i thought um yeah if i if i uh if i ever needed a reason to use it i would definitely look into that i remember like all the the projectors they had on tests and when our back room and they had just they were projecting i don't remember what it was they're projecting something all over this wall with all these different projectors. I like walking back there. It's like, this is pretty cool. Movie day at work. Grab the popcorn. All right, my last question. I was watching a YouTube video recently and it said that there is a conspiracy theory out there that people of influence in various areas of our pop culture are part of the Illuminati. Keith, are you part of the Illuminati? I would say blink once, yes. Twice, no. But your camera's off. Yeah, my camera's a lay wall. So maybe that was part of it. I'm intrigued by that stuff. I just wonder, because you're kind of timeless in pinball, yet still so new. I had to ask. Yeah, I'm sure I'll be buried in a pinball machine. You sure you don't like white bodies? Complete the cycle of life. Yep. Nice. Would it be a white one? I was thinking because you were tall, because everybody is taller than me. Ah, sorry. So we're going to go with that. Carry me in a Hercules. Nice. Yeah, you have room in that game. You can have company in that cabinet. Yeah, you can have a whole tomb. Yeah. A Hercules is that real wide, like 5'8 pinball. I know, I know. But I was just thinking like with tombs and cats and toilet paper is really expensive, so you can't wrap them in that. And just my mind went places. All right. So, Keith, you've been in this now five years, right? Talking with people for probably six or maybe a little sooner or a little older than that. When you first started talking pinball and getting into this as a career, most people were welcoming and opening and down to earth. Would you agree to that? Yes. You know, and I'm sure like, you know, there's a game that you played that you love and you finally met the designer and they were very welcoming and everything was great. And you were like, wow, you know, they're really cool. And then that happens again. I think most people in pinball, they can all relate because they love something. And it's easy for most people to relate to other people because they share that passion in common. I think pretty much everybody in the industry is a genuinely nice person and they like what they do. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to have that little that bond, that pinball bond, even as someone you don't know, just knowing they're into it, you know, it makes conversation flow so much easier than like meeting new people. It's nice to have that bond. You're not the odd man out anymore because you're a pinball nerd. And I say that like passionately and would love because I'm a pinball nerd. But like you're not the odd man out saying, oh, well, I like pinball. And people look at you. They look at you weird. Oh, that's still a thing. Key, thank you for entertaining us. You have been awesome. I am so sorry this was not up to the standards of what I'm sure you heard with Joel yesterday, but we appreciate you joining us. Thank you. I don't know what else to say, but thank you. Yeah, thank you for coming on. Thanks for speaking, fans, and having me on. All right. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. This is episode 13. Thank you, Keith. Thank you, Bill. And we will see you guys on the next episode. my cat is just absolutely attacking me stop it you you

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: a9505e56-78ae-4ff4-aab8-b54f6e1cc260*