# Episode 320: Legends of Valhalla by American Pinball

**Source:** Pinball Profile  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2021-10-23  
**Duration:** 56m 50s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.pinballprofile.com/episode-320-legends-of-valhalla-by-american-pinball/

---

## Analysis

Scott Gullix and Frank Gilotti discuss the development and production journey of Legends of Valhalla, American Pinball's new original-theme game. They trace the project's roots from Scott's digital pinball experimentation with Wrath of Olympus through seven hand-built prototypes to full mass production, emphasizing design philosophy, the collaborative development process, and key mechanical and code innovations.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Scott created Wrath of Olympus virtually and attempted to mass-produce it in 2014, securing 70 interested buyers but needing 100 to proceed; all buyers were refunded. — _Scott directly describes the failed mass-production campaign: 'when we didn't quite get there, it was a little disappointing...Everybody was refunded.'_
- [HIGH] Frank and Scott had never met in person when they first collaborated; they worked together remotely via Skype for two months (August-October 2013) to develop Wrath of Olympus code before meeting at Expo. — _Frank: 'Scott was just someone I met on the Internet, and I was just someone that he met on the Internet. We never met in person.' Jeff: 'you've never met each other at this point. But Expo's coming up.'_
- [HIGH] Scott intentionally avoided licensed IP for Legends of Valhalla to retain creative freedom and avoid the risk of completing a game design only to be unable to secure the license for production. — _Scott: 'The idea of getting a game fully designed and fully basically designed around a license and then not be able to get that license just did not sound like something that neither I or Frank wanted to do.'_
- [HIGH] Joe Balser at American Pinball initiated conversations with Scott after seeing videos of the game in September 2020; contract negotiations lasted until late December 2020. — _Scott: 'it was a early September of 2020...when these first conversations started and it took until late December for me to actually get a contract in place.'_
- [HIGH] The most significant mechanical change between the seven prototypes and production was replacing a pop-up post with a magnet around the orbit to hold the ball for the hammer mechanism. — _Scott: 'we swapped a post that pops up in the back for a magnet on the production game. So now we actually have something that physically will stop the ball, that magnet's going to hold it in place, and the hammer's going to come swing down and smack it.'_
- [HIGH] One of the seven prototype machines is on location at Pinball Garage in Hamilton, Ohio, and has been crucial for extended game testing over the past year. — _Scott: 'the one that's at the Pinball Garage in Hamilton, Ohio...my good friend Brad Baker was kind enough to help out with the project, and he put one on location for the last year.'_
- [HIGH] Frank spent approximately nine months in post-prototype development refining the game to American Pinball standards, focusing heavily on making the game self-explanatory through lights, animations, and on-screen messages. — _Frank: 'the last nine months of extra time...crafting it to the American pinball standards.' Scott: 'over the last nine months, that has been beat into my head constantly where the game has to tell you how to play it.'_
- [HIGH] The Legends of Valhalla soundtrack uses music by Two Steps from Hell, a professional film/trailer music composer. — _Frank: 'we are just blown away that we're able to use that music...Two Steps from Hell...are just such talented musicians.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I didn't really have any programmers helping me out. I'm kind of one of those people, I like to do as much as I can...But I got to the point where I had basically, you know, kind of built up a white wood and had it wired and was having it run just off of some real base generic code that was generously provided in Jerry Stellenberg's P3 forum."
> — **Scott Gullix**, early in development discussion
> _Shows Scott's engineering approach and reliance on community resources like the Multimorphic P3 platform_

> "I was just someone that he met on the Internet. We never met in person. We chatted a few times in the forums, and that was about it. And I just believed in his project. He seemed like a really nice person and very talented. So I wanted to be part of it. And I said, I'm just gonna go all in."
> — **Frank Gilotti**, mid-discussion about meeting Scott
> _Demonstrates the power of community-driven collaboration and trust-building in the pinball hobby_

> "If you're going to put 10,000 hours into this project, you want to be able to do whatever you want with it and not have any issues building it in production later."
> — **Scott Gullix**, licensing decision discussion
> _Articulates the strategic risk calculation behind choosing original IP over licensed themes_

> "You know, I'd show him what I made and then he'd add something and then he'd show me what he made and then I'd take that and we'd kind of work off each other and continue to develop the visual table."
> — **Frank Gilotti**, VPinball development phase
> _Describes the collaborative iterative design process between designer and programmer_

> "To me, the toys really don't matter that much...the basis of that game is almost all in the shots. But with that, Elwin did a phenomenal job of adding some really awesome toys in the premium and LE model."
> — **Scott Gullix**, design philosophy discussion
> _Shows Scott's prioritization of shot design over toys while acknowledging industry benchmarks like Keith Elwin's work_

> "The game really needs to speak to you. And over the last nine months, that has been beat into my head constantly where the game has to tell you how to play it. You can't tell somebody how to play the game—the game has to speak to you in the lights, in the animations, in the messages on screen, in the sound."
> — **Frank Gilotti**, post-prototype refinement discussion
> _Core principle for usability-focused code and game design in production_

> "For American Pinball to take the risk and give me this chance. I just can't think of enough. So it's been really exciting."
> — **Scott Gullix**, discussing American Pinball partnership
> _Acknowledges the business risk American Pinball took on an original IP vs. licensed game_

> "Theme is fine and that's great. That might be something that lures you to the machine, but if the game plays great, if it's got good code, it's a great game. It doesn't matter what the theme is."
> — **Jeff Teolis (host)**, late in discussion
> _Summarizes the philosophy that gameplay and code quality transcend theme selection_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Scott Gullix | person | Designer/mechanical engineer behind Legends of Valhalla and Wrath of Olympus; created the game digitally first, designed playfields, and designed artwork for the backglass |
| Frank Gilotti | person | Programmer/code designer for Legends of Valhalla and Wrath of Olympus; discovered Scott's work on VP forums and offered to program the physical version |
| American Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer that brought Legends of Valhalla to mass production after seeing prototypes and videos in 2020 |
| Legends of Valhalla | game | Original-theme pinball machine by American Pinball featuring Viking mythology, designed by Scott Gullix with programming by Frank Gilotti; evolved from homebrew prototypes |
| Wrath of Olympus | game | Scott and Frank's earlier original-theme game created digitally and as seven prototypes; attempted mass production in 2014 with 70 interested buyers but fell short of 100-unit threshold |
| Joe Balser | person | American Pinball staff member credited with discovering Legends of Valhalla videos and bringing the project to AP management for consideration in September 2020 |
| Jeff Teolis | person | Host of Pinball Profile podcast; conducting the interview with Scott and Frank |
| Brad Baker | person | Owner of Pinball Garage in Hamilton, Ohio; placed one Legends of Valhalla prototype on location for extended testing over the past year |
| Adam Gasek | person | Owner of one of the seven Legends of Valhalla prototypes; organized the Buffalo Pinball live stream that brought early attention to the game; hired Scott for Domino's Spooky contract build artwork |
| Ryan Waltrip | person | Local helper who assisted Scott with early code development on Legends of Valhalla prototype before Frank joined |
| Natasha | person | American Pinball team member who worked with Scott on magnet mounting and component integration for production version |
| Sophia | person | American Pinball team member who worked with Scott on playfield engineering for production version |
| Keith Elwin | person | Legendary pinball designer referenced by Scott as benchmark for toy design quality on games like Iron Maiden |
| Two Steps from Hell | company | Professional film/trailer music composer whose soundtrack was licensed for Legends of Valhalla |
| Jerry Stellenberg | person | Creator/maintainer of Multimorphic P3 platform and forum; provided base generic code that Scott used for early development |
| Pinball Garage | location | Arcade/location in Hamilton, Ohio where one Legends of Valhalla prototype is on location for extended testing |
| Buffalo Pinball | group/streaming | Podcast/streaming group that livestreamed early gameplay of Legends of Valhalla prototype, generating community interest |
| Pinball Profile | organization | Long-running podcast series hosted by Jeff Teolis featuring this episode |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Game design philosophy, Original vs. licensed IP strategy, Homebrew to mass production journey, Collaborative design process between designer and programmer, Playfield mechanics and toys (hammer, ship lock, magnets), Code development and game feel refinement
- **Secondary:** American Pinball's manufacturing standards and cabinet design, Virtual Pinball as design prototyping tool, Community feedback and playtesting

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.88) — Scott and Frank are enthusiastic and proud of their achievement; Jeff is genuinely excited for them. The interview celebrates the journey from homebrew to production with mutual respect and gratitude. No criticism or negativity detected; even the failed 2014 mass-production attempt is framed as a learning experience and relationship-builder rather than a failure.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** American Pinball took strategic risk on original unlicensed IP, betting on gameplay quality over theme appeal; contrasts with industry trend toward licensed games (confidence: high) — Scott: 'For American Pinball to take the risk and give me this chance...A lot of people...understand how risky original licenses are' and discussion of choosing unlicensed to maintain creative control
- **[community_signal]** Community engagement and playtesting critical to game development; Pinball Garage location operator (Brad Baker) and prototype owner (Adam Gasek) both instrumental in exposing game to wider audience via streaming (confidence: high) — Scott crediting Brad Baker for location placement and Adam Gasek for Buffalo Pinball stream that 'caught a lot of eyes and maybe even American Pinballs, too'
- **[design_philosophy]** Preference for preserving original design intent over incremental improvements during mass production; minimal playfield changes from prototype to production to avoid downstream consequences (confidence: high) — Scott: 'we didn't want to put a lot of time into making a lot of changes...any little change that you make downstream can have big consequences' and 'it was nice that American Pinball was able to give me that kind of freedom'
- **[design_philosophy]** Strong emphasis on shot design quality and playability over toy novelty; design-by-code approach where mechanical features are integrated late in development after rule set is proven (confidence: high) — Scott: 'the toys really don't matter that much...the basis of that game is almost all in the shots' and discussion of adding toys (hammer, ship) only after shot layout was locked
- **[market_signal]** 2014 Wrath of Olympus crowdfunding attempt fell short (70 vs 100 required) but established trust with community through full refunds; this trust-building was cited as foundation for later success with American Pinball (confidence: high) — Scott: 'Everybody got their money back. And I think that's really the reason today that Frank and I are where we're at is, you know, we established a good level of trust with the pinball community'
- **[personnel_signal]** Remote collaboration between designer (Scott) and programmer (Frank) established through online forums and Skype; no in-person meeting until after production code was substantially complete (confidence: high) — Frank and Scott met on VP forums, worked remotely August-October 2013 via Skype, met in person at Expo after rule set was largely programmed
- **[announcement]** Legends of Valhalla officially released to market by American Pinball after development journey from 2017 prototypes through 2020 acquisition negotiations (confidence: high) — Episode title 'Episode 320: Legends of Valhalla by American Pinball' and discussion of game being in production; Scott mentions delivering to American Pinball standards over 9 months
- **[product_concern]** Post-prototype refinement required extensive nine-month period to bring game to production standards, suggesting initial prototype lacked some polish in code messaging and usability (confidence: medium) — Frank: 'the last nine months of extra time...crafting it to the American pinball standards' and Scott's emphasis on learning that 'the game has to tell you how to play it'
- **[technology_signal]** Mechanical innovation: replacement of pop-up post with magnet solution for ball stopping mechanism, indicating ongoing hardware evolution in modern pinball design (confidence: high) — Scott: 'we swapped a post that pops up in the back for a magnet...magnet's going to hold it in place, and the hammer's going to come swing down and smack it' with input from American Pinball team
- **[technology_signal]** Scott's use of Virtual Pinball as primary prototyping tool before physical build demonstrates increasing industry adoption of digital simulation for pre-production game design (confidence: high) — Scott: 'I recognized that the visual pinball development tool is actually a pretty solid tool...free and so easy to use' and 'any homebrew people out there that are thinking about getting going, I highly recommend that they explore that'

---

## Transcript

 it's time for a special pinball profile i'm your host jeff teolis you can find everything on pinballprofile.com all your past episodes subscriptions and more we're on twitter and instagram at pinball profile we have a facebook group as well and you can email us pinball profile at gmail.com. New Pinball Machine Day. Very exciting for so many people involved, especially new designers, new programmers. Well, they've been doing it for a while, but this time in the masses. The game is Legends of Valhalla from American Pinball, created by Scott Gullix with programming from Frank Gilotti, and they join us right now. Hi, Scott. Hi, Frank. Hey, Jeff. How are you doing? It's great to be on the show. Hey, Jeff. Thanks for having us. I'm so excited for you guys, and I think a lot of the pinball community is as well, because we've followed the history of not only this game, Legends of Valhalla, but before that, the Wrath of Olympus, what you've done with the virtual pins, and just this homebrew, which essentially is what it was, has grown into a mass production game now with American pinball, and it's been just quite a journey. And we're going to go back a little bit, because when you first started this, Scott, you were fascinated by maybe the virtual pinball idea, and that's when you created Wrath of Olympus and were really big on the forums. Yeah, that's kind of the genesis of all this. I think back in the day I was living in Woodbury, and I had a little bit of limited space in my basement, and I started getting into building digital pinball machines just because I loved the idea that you could have like 300 different pinball machines all in one cabinet. I really enjoyed that part of it, and it just kind of took off from there where I got to the point where I was thinking, you know, it'd be really cool just to design my own pinball machine. I've always had a strong affinity for mechanical design and just love the way pinball works. And I decided it'd be kind of cool to put together my own. So the digital platform is really where my real passion for actually doing pinball design came from. So like many people that are creating some sort of homebrew, you can track the progress on a lot of forums. And I think that's how, Frank, you were attracted to this because you saw what Scott was doing and you reached out to him. Yeah, that's right. I had quite a habit of checking the forums each day, the VP forums, checking out new tables and sharing some of my own tables that I was creating at the time. And then a couple of times I saw this guy, Scott, on there showing some of his artwork. And I remember when he created a cabinet and he did this awesome artwork on the side. And then he came out with this dynamite game called Wrath of Olympus. And I couldn't believe it. It was like the best original game I ever saw by one of the VP authors. And, you know, I downloaded it and played it. It was just a lot of fun and I couldn't believe it. So I said to him, if you ever make this game for real, I would certainly like to program it for you. And we kind of left it at that. And Scott, it took you a while to kind of take on Frank and bring him into the fold, if you will. Yeah, yeah. I think it was a few months into the build. You know, I didn't really have any programmers helping me out. I'm kind of one of those people, I like to do as much as I can. And I really didn't want to bring anybody in until I was sure I was really moving it somewhere positive. You know, I really don't like wasting people's time. But I got to the point where I had basically, you know, kind of built up a white wood and had it wired and was having it run just off of some real base generic code that was generously provided in Gerry Stellenberg's P3 forum. And I quickly got to the point where I was finding the game was flipping really fun. You know, it was just fun to shoot and the actual physical geometry was great. And there was another local guy that had reached out to me. And because he was local, it was kind of nice because he could come over and he was helping me with advancing some of the code a little bit to get the game a little bit deeper. And I had an objective in my mind that was the summer of 2013. And I kind of had a deadline coming because my son was born in August of 2013. And what I really wanted to do was have a game ready for Expo that year. And in order to do that, I really needed to kind of accelerate the code development part of it. So when I did get the game to a point where I was happy with the layout and I was confident that my electronics were pretty solid and my wiring was good, I started looking at, okay, who can really help me get this to the next level? And again, I had a really great resource helping me locally. His name was Ryan Waltrip. I just want to say his name again. He was just awesome because, again, he was willing to come over and actually help me in my garage get this stuff going. But we needed a little more help. and that's when I'd remembered Frank had extended his offer to me. I think it was around August or maybe it was July, somewhere around there though, when I reached back out to Frank and I said, basically, here's where we're at in the game. I got it all built from a physical perspective. We just really need a lot of help getting the rule set much farther along. He was super excited about it, just over the top, like, yeah, I want to help you. And it just made me feel so great that there was somebody out there that was so excited about doing it. And then as we got into it, I really found that not only this guy passionate about it, but Frank is just amazing at code. And his proficiency, his desire, and his ability to really get great code out fast just shocked me. So that month of August and into September, we had my prototype, which was just flipping. That was it in early August and had basically the entire rule set program by the time we got to Expo in October. So it was, again, it was just Frank was a lifesaver. I got all that work done. We were doing it back and forth via Skype. So a timeline was from August to October, get some sort of code in there. You bring Frank on. Now, you talked about Ryan being there, a good neighbor and a good friend that gave you some advice. You bring on Frank. What we haven't mentioned is you two don't live in the same city. the same state. And in fact, you've never met each other at this point. But Expo's coming up, and that's where you finally got together. And the game was certainly a lot more developed than it was before Frank came on in August. Yeah, it was kind of exciting. You know, I mean, Scott was just someone I met on the Internet, and I was just someone that he met on the Internet. We never met in person. We chatted a few times in the forums, and that was about it. And I just believed in his project. And he seemed like a really nice person and very talented. So I wanted to be part of it. And I said, I'm just gonna, you know, go all in. And that's what I did. So for the two months or three months that I worked on the code, I wanted to get it to a point where this game that he made, I can make a shine basically at Expo and let everyone else have a good time with it too. The reason we're talking about this original game is because obviously you two are very proud. And by the following expo, you were thinking, okay, maybe we can get some takers on Wrath of Olympus. And I think the goal Scott was a hundred, maybe to buy one or put some sort of down payment on. That was how your business plan worked. And it was just a little short. I think you had 70 people that were interested. So the mass production just was kind of scrapped at that point. I wonder at that time, this is 2014, this is for Wrath of Olympus, were you discouraged at all or did you think, okay, well, that's it or let's go back to the drawing board and do something else? That's a great question. The easy answer is absolutely not. I was not discouraged at all. In fact, I was a little bit flabbergasted that I had 70 people that were so willing to put their trust in me. Obviously, I think a lot of people that have knowledge of history of pinball know what happened in 2014 with a bunch of other startups. And that obviously caused some issues for me as well. But yeah, I was proud about the whole thing. I had a business plan in place. I think a lot of people that I see starting home brews and even some of the people starting these pinball companies, I don't have a lot of business background, but I have enough knowledge to be able to put together a basic business plan. And I knew for me to be successful personally, doing the math and understanding all the overhead and the other risks and the other financial burdens that come in, I knew I needed to have at least 100 people committed to this. And when we didn't quite get there, it was a little disappointing that we couldn't get there. But I was still pretty proud of the fact that I got as far as I did. I had a production-level looking machine. And, you know, I had almost 70% of the people willing to go ahead with it. And I still hang my head pretty high. Everybody was refunded. Everybody got their money back. And I think that's really the reason today that Frank and I are where we're at is, you know, we established a good level of trust with the pinball community. And I can walk around Expo and, again, hold my head up high. And we got to a point now where we have a production game out, and I just can't be happier. And I also see life as there's always a silver lining in everything that happens. And I think that's one of the things I love about Frank, too, is we're always learning. We're always trying to get something out of every experience we have, and it only makes us stronger, and it only makes the next product we build better. I think it's an incredible turnaround from creating this digital pinball machine to making a physical machine with code to actually having people interested in it. And that's very, very quickly about a two-year timeline. Well, now we're moving on to Legends of Valhalla. And you have this idea, you have this passion for this theme. Did you come to Frank originally with this and say, this is what I want to do? This might be the mass production game? What was the original idea when you came up with Legends of Valhalla? I think it was kind of funny because both Frank and I reached out to each other about the same time saying, you know, we've had a good break now from Wrath of Olympus. That creative bug was itching in both of us. And I swear, it was almost the same day when we emailed each other just to say, hey, are you interested in doing your project? And when we both said yes, yeah, then it was, okay, well, let's try to pick a theme and then start developing around that. And we spent quite a bit of time thinking about license themes and talking through the pros and cons of that. And we both kind of came to the agreement that we didn't want to have any restrictions to doing any of the creative work that we had in front of us. Frank and I have been through this before with Rathalimpus. We know how much time is going to go into it. And we just decided that, you know, if we're going to put 10,000 hours into this project, we want to be able to do whatever we want with it and not have any issues building it in production later. You know, the idea of getting a game fully designed and fully basically designed around a license and then not be able to get that license just did not sound like something that neither I or Frank wanted to do. So we got through that whole aspect of, okay, well, we don't want to do license. Let's do an unlicensed theme. And then we started spitballing on different ideas around the license theme. I'm of Scandinavian descent, so the Viking mythology has always been something that's really intrigued me. I've taken a few college courses on it and just loved the idea of it, the background, all of the content that it brings. Like I said, we did talk about a few other options, and Frank provided his input. Well, we started talking about some of our favorite topics, our favorite themes. and then you mentioned the Vikings and so many colorful characters, so many gods and legends. It's a big, bold theme. It's a lot of action. It's mythology similar to Wrath of Olympus that we did before. I was willing to take a chance with it. You were very passionate about it and You swayed me too. So I fell all in again, and I thought, this is going to be a great game. There's so many characters to pull from, and let's see what we can do with it. So again, much like Woolly or Wrath of Olympus, you created it digitally first. When we started the development on Legends of Valhalla, again, I learned so much from the digital version of Wrath of Olympus that I recognized that the visual pinball development tool is actually a pretty solid tool. And it still blows me away that that is free and so easy to use and it's really intuitive. So any homebrew people out there that are thinking about getting going, I highly recommend that they explore that and just try it out and see if it helps them before they start spending money and time actually physically building something. But I put together a very generic table at first just to have an idea if my shots are going to work out very well. And then I handed that over to Frank, and then Frank really, he just took it to the next level. He put a ton of time in, really polished it up from a visual perspective, and then started adding the code. So if you recall, you created a back glass first, and then you had some characters on it. By the way, Scott, your artwork is unbelievable. Thank you very much. I read some of the stuff online, and there's always some trolls out there, but I'm an engineer by trade. My profession is a mechanical engineer. I really love to do art, and it makes me feel good that I've been able to do a few things that a few people have loved. And I do recognize I'm not a professional by any means, but I think I did a good job, and I put a lot of time and a lot of energy. And you'd ask my wife about how many hours I spent up late at night doing that artwork. But I think it does have a good cohesive package and came across well, and I think it has that good bloody Viking mass to it that I was really hoping to portray. So that's what you saw, Frank. And then where'd you go from there? Yeah, so Scott gave me this beautiful back glass with these colorful characters in it. And then he gave me a base table to start with. And then I asked for some more artwork that he gave me. And then I put together the table in my visual pinball cabinet. It's way easier to program something that you could actually play than to just play on a keyboard with a monitor So I standing up in front of my visual pinball cabinet with this rudimentary table with a back glass that he created looking at shots thinking how the code going to work and then started fleshing out the rules, getting the lights to work, getting the switches to work, the coils to work. And it was exciting, you know. It was creating something new, and, you know, we were working off each other. You know, I'd show him what I made and then he'd add something and then he'd show me what he made and then I'd take that and we'd kind of work off each other and continue to develop the visual table. And then once it was fully functioning, then we started thinking about some things to add to the play field that would add some interest magnets and the ship and the hammer and some other things. Yeah, I think it was at that time where we had the general shots laid out, and we liked the flow, we liked the way things were moving. And the one thing I always hear is, you know, pinball machines got to have a great toy. You got to have that one thing that kind of draws people in, and they have an objective. So I've always been just a big fan of a pinball machine needs to have good shots. To me, the toys really don't matter that much. You know, case in point, I've got an Iron Maiden right now, and I would argue that the basis of that game is almost all in the shots. But with that, Elwin did a phenomenal job of adding some really awesome toys in the premium and LE model. We took that same approach in Legends of Valhalla, where we really focused on making sure the shots were right, the shots felt good, that it was just a fun shooting game. And then to comment on what Franken said, and we started looking at, okay, how can we add a few more elements to really draw on the Viking theme and make this a more immersive pinball? And that's when we started looking at, you know, instead of the way we had the right ramp initially, I think we just had it flowing into a whirlpool type thing. We changed that to have it actually go into a big Viking ship where we're having physical ball lock. And I know for a lot of people, physically locking a ball on the playfield while you're playing is very rewarding and fun. So we made sure to have that in the game. And then I was looking at the back panel and on so many other games, there's just not a lot that's done with the vertical panel that's on the very far end of the playfield. I thought it'd be really cool if I could mount a flipper mech on that. So, you know, most playfields now, they got like a half inch plywood piece that is on there. It's definitely rigid enough to be able to mount a flipper coil. So I put that on there and 3D designed a hammer and glued that on the end of a short flipper bat. And the next thing you know, you got this cool Thor's hammer that comes down and pretends to smack the ball like it's blasting it into the play field. So we were able to incorporate a couple of really cool, unique toys that are all tied directly into the gameplay and really, I think, helped draw that player into, you are a Viking warrior playing, you just hit this shot. And coincidentally, one of the big differences between the seven prototypes I built and the production game is we swapped a post that pops up in the back for a magnet on the production game. So now we actually have something that physically will stop the ball, that magnet's going to hold it in place, and the hammer's going to come swing down and smack it. It really has a cool element to it. I remember seeing one of those seven prototype games. Buffalo Pinball was streaming it, and I was excited because I knew, you know, my small part in it, and just to see this game that, again, was a homebrew, and I couldn't believe, watching that stream, how amazing the game was, The way it looked, the way it shot, the animations, every aspect. And I know there were some bugs, as there always are. But when that was first streamed on Buffalo Pinball, it caught a lot of eyes. And maybe even American Pinballs, too. What do you remember about that stream? I remember being scared to death, honestly. Yeah, that would have been Adam Gasek's machine. And I guess now Adam, because he actually hired me to do the artwork for the play field the back glass and the alternative back glass for Domino's pinball machine, that spooky contract build. So it was kind of cool that he was actually on board with being one of the original seven prototype owners as well. I remember I shipped him the game and he said, I think it was even while the game was shipping, how excited he was about it. And he was already setting up the Buffalo pinball guys to come do a live stream of it. It's just one of those. All right. You know, This is big time here. I got a game that I hand-built in my garage, put it on a pallet, and shipped it out to Michigan. Within a few days, he's going to be doing a live stream. The fact that it made it there in one piece, and again, for something that I put a lot of time into the engineering, so I don't want to diminish that, but I've bought a handful of brand-new in-box games over the years, and those things take a beating when they get shipped. I had no idea what was going to happen. And for him to have that game, pull it right out of the box, set it up, and have it work so well on that live stream, and to see the beauty of Frank's code was just awesome. And I was tickled pink when it basically made it through the whole thing with just a couple of, I think it was some switch issues or something like that in the ship. Which, coincidentally, we have fail-safes in place for that. But I just felt amazed that it worked so well. And I could tell Adam was really proud that he had the game and was so excited to show it off. Yeah, it was really great because all I was watching the stream as it was happening, I'm just yelling at the computer, you know, hit the ship, hit the ship, lock the balls, you know, start the battle, get the hammer, get the Valkyrie. And my wife is thinking, what is the matter with you? You are crazy, you know. And I said, look, they're playing the game. Look, look, they're, you know, they're doing this. It was it was quite, quite entertaining. And I remember talking to them afterwards. I wasn't available to post when they were doing the stream. But afterwards, you know, then I did talk to them and I said, you know, next time, next time you play, you could do this. Here's some hints, you know. And then that was a very, very good lesson for me because it's one thing if you tell somebody how to play your game, but it's another thing if you're not there. The game really needs to speak to you. And over the last nine months, that has been beat into my head constantly where the game has to tell you how to play it. You can't tell somebody how to play the game. the game has to speak to you in the lights, in the animations, in the messages on screen, in the sound. And hopefully the changes that we put in there will be a lot more understandable for the new person just standing up to the game for the first time. You tried to mass produce Wrath of Olympus. Pretty impressive that 70 people were willing to take this chance on this homebrew. Now you've produced seven actual physical machines of Legends of Valhalla, one on location. And I I think that one on location in Hamilton, Ohio at the Pinball Garage really caught the eye of American Pinball and some others there. What was it like when you had those conversations about, why don't you bring your talents here to American Pinball? So I do want to thank especially Joe Balcer because I think he was the genesis for all of this starting with American Pinball. It was back in about September, I think, that he had seen some videos. I'm not sure if he actually got into the Pinball Garage to actually play my game. But a number of podcasters and other pinball guys had been in, playing the game, streaming it. And again, it was doing well, and I think we were getting a lot of excitement. But Joe was really the guy that I think saw potential in our product. And Joe was the guy that brought the idea in front of the management team at American Pinball. And it was primarily Joe that I was talking with in September on, you know, how do we actually try to get this done? What are the steps? and it's kind of remarkable how long that whole dance kind of lasts because again it was a early September of 2020 I think when these first conversations started and it took until late December for me to actually get a contract in place with American Pinball but it was really great that he was able to get that going and I was able to get the game in and get it in front of the AP management and again all of their experts to take a look at it and see if it was really worthwhile. And while I'm talking about this, I do really want to give a big thank you to American Pinball in general. A lot of people, I think, out there in the pinball world understand how risky original licenses are. You can have a grade A license theme and the pinball could probably play like crap and you could probably still sell a few hundred, if not a thousand of them. But when you bring an original license in, you really have a niche market there. And for American Pinball to take the risk and give me this chance. I just can't think of enough. So it's been really exciting. Scott, I have always said, always, theme is fine and that's great. It might be something that lures you to the machine, but if the game plays great, if it's got good code, it's a great game. It doesn't matter what the theme is. I have many games that I could care less about the theme because they're great playing games. I've been interested in games where it was theme-based and maybe there's a little bit of disappointment. So really, at the end of the day, it comes down to is if it's a good game or not. So I think people just need to play it for themselves and make their own decisions. Yeah, absolutely. And again, I can't thank Frank enough either because I think he's really taken Legends of Valhalla to the next level as far as code and the software and light shows. And for being an original theme, I think we have just an amazing gameplay experience. So I think people will be able to get over the idea that it is an original theme. and I think we really do have an outstanding product here. So, Frank, you had to be excited when you found out, okay, this is going to American Pinball. I'm stepping up to the big leagues. Yeah, that was a great day when Scott gave me a call and said they were interested and I was ready to get started. It's been a long time coming, you know, four years working on Wrath of Olympus and then another three years working on Legends of Valhalla and then the last nine months of extra time, you know, crafting it to the American pinball standards. And I think it's a dynamite game right now. It's a fun game to play. Everybody that plays it really, you know, finds something new each time they play it. I think the music really forms the environment as you're playing. You're in these battles. You're hearing these great sound effects, these great call-outs. And then you have this amazing Two Steps from Hell soundtrack. They are just such talented musicians. and we are just blown away that we're able to use that music and really enjoy that. It really brings that theme forward. Well, I want to talk about some of the differences between the original game you made. This has the typical American Pinball beautiful LCD screen. So you had to change the back glass. You've got to obviously change some of the animations. But let's talk about the production. You still have that Thor hammer on there. You still have the ship. What were some of the big differences and improvements once you did this mass production with American Pinball? The most noticeable change is, again, that we added a magnet around that orbit. Previously, there was a post, which worked great for stopping the ball and allowing it to go into those upper rollovers, where we had that tied into a specific code feature. I believe it was a 2X scoring. Working with the American Pinball team, especially Natasha and Sophia, was great, because we were able to figure out how to get a magnet mounted in there where it didn't interfere with all the other components I had and just really brought us to the next level. So that was probably the biggest physical change that I saw. Otherwise, I was really, really happy that we were able to move ahead with basically the exact same layout that the previous seven prototypes have had, the one that's at the Pinball Garage in Hamilton, Ohio, that my good friend Brad Baker was kind enough to help out with the project, and he put one on location for the last year. which has just been awesome for game testing. But part of this project and working with American Pinball was we wanted to get it done as quick as we could, and we didn't want to put a lot of time into making a lot of changes. And as an engineer, I know firsthand that any little change that you make downstream can have big consequences later on. So it was nice that American Pinball was able to give me that kind of freedom and flexibility to maintain my original design intent and keep all the features that I really wanted in place. Otherwise, yeah, from the prototype games to the production, we added 3D plastics on the slingshot, the scoop flasher on the left. We had a huge improvement with the new game has this really awesome pile of skulls that lights up and glows in your face when the scoop's going to eject. We added those extra 3D plastic sculpts, the Odin character and the Valhalla gates to just bring it to that next level. But otherwise, yeah, the rest of the play field is pretty much the same. We did change the backbox. I didn't want to have to go in and totally redesign and create a brand new cabinet from scratch. So it made a lot of sense to leverage what American Pinball had. And I personally wanted to make this an American Pinball machine and not a Riot Pinball machine because I see a long-term relationship with them. So it was good to be able to get it in their cabinet and make it look like an American Pinball machine. But with that, we did need to change the trans light. You know, before we did have an HD LCD display in the original seven prototypes, but that display was in a standard type speaker panel like what Stern and Spooky Pinball have today. So there was a considerable amount of work that went into adjusting and modifying the Translight art to now have this giant display smack dab in the middle of it, as well as reworking some of the side art and the backbox head art to make that work with an American Pinball cabinet. But again, most of the game was all pretty representative of my original vision and the original seven prototypes. Frank, what did you change in the programming once you got to American Pinball? So American Pinball uses a different framework. We both use a skeleton game framework, but they've had many advances to the skeleton game framework that they've used and their models going forward from Houdini to Oktoberfest to Hot Wheels. I was able to learn those changes and use some of those changes to make the game even better I increased the resolution of the scoreboard and the display Scott produced all new artwork for all of the characters and part of the display. And then I created a bunch of animations that we didn't have before, simply because there were new tools that were available then. And then we decided to scrap the call-outs that I made for the seven prototypes. And, you know, American Pinball was gracious enough to have sound engineer and about nine different voice actors to provide some voices for our legends. And then, of course, we had our announcer right here reprise his role as Odin, which is our favorite character in the whole game. It was fun to do that. I got to work with Matt Kern, who was wonderful. and really gave precise direction on the vision that Frank and Scott had. And it was a lot of fun for my part. So thank you, Scott and Frank. I know I was on the original prototype and never knew where we'd be today. But anyway, it was a lot of fun, but it's all Matt Kern in your direction. So let's talk about the team at American Pinball, because you two had been working by yourselves, just the two of you. Everything that went into it was just the two of you. But now you've got a wonderful team, and especially when you look at somebody like the senior mechanical engineer in Zofia Ryan, who has done so much in years past with Williams and now with American Pinball. What was it like to work with a team and Zofia specifically? I tell you, it was tremendous. The core team members for Legends of Valhalla from American Pinball are just highly skilled, very talented, and so easy to work with. And for me personally, working with Zofia was just a lifesaver. When I brought my game in, my personal game into American Pinball in December, I had no idea where the project was going to go. They wanted to get the game in and play it for a few days themselves, have their experts come in, review it, look at it. They really wanted to do their due diligence to make sure that this homebrew game was something that they could actually see being a production game. And we got through that phase. And then Sophia was hired, I believe, in late January, early February. And I just love her to death. She works really hard. She's very talented. She really has a keen grasp of picking up concepts, and she and I had no problems at all working together. So our method was, I had a full 3D CAD database of my game that was basically required in order for me to make the seven identical prototypes. But when we look at making seven identical prototypes where I'm in my garage getting flat cut, laser cut, stainless steel metal ball guides in place and I'm hand bending each and every single one and finessing them and tweaking them and carefully, painstakingly putting them on $1,000 playfields, I can do that personally. I'm vested in it. I care and I've got the skill set to do it. But to take a game where I'm hand building stuff to make it production ready, where you've got random employees coming and going and they got to be able to follow an assembly guide and just shove stuff in place and make sure it works really takes a considerable amount of time. So for us to do that, I had to go in and completely re-engineer every 3D component I had. I had to work with Sophia and Mitesh and David Jeff Brenner of American Pinball and find out what stock parts they had, because a lot of what I was using was just what Pinball Life provided. And again, I'm going to give a plug out to Terry from Pinball Life. He is a homebrew dream as far as what he can provide to people to actually make their one-off games. But again, to get it to production, we had to look at, you know, what parts does American Pinball readily have? What parts can we get? And, you know, where do we need to finesse stuff to get into place? So once I went through and kind of re-engineered everything and got all my ball guides perfectly designed where we could have spotting holes in place on the playfields and everything was as robust as I could with spade bolts in place to make sure that the entrances and exits of the orbits were all straight exactly where they needed to be. I was able to send all of that database over to Zofia, and then she did the painstaking, and I can't thank her enough for doing this, the work where she'd take, for instance, a 3D ball guide, and she would figure out what that looks like flat, send that off, make full 2D engineering prints so that American Pinball has something for measurement and inspection to make sure that new parts that are coming in meet the spec, and then take all of that and create a documentation package so that their assembly line can actually build this thing. It was just an incredible amount of work that she did. And again, working with her, we never had any issues. It was just worked really well. We pushed things off of each other. What do you think about this? What do you think about this? And it's kind of funny. I think there's a running joke right now at AP. I was able to visit probably half a dozen times over the course of this project. And it was almost every time I'd get in there, They'd ask me a question, and I'd give the answer, and Sophia would be there, and it would be the exact answer that she told them. So the running joke was and is that Sophia is always right. She was just really great to work with, and I also do want to give a shout-out to Mitesh as well. He is like a bulldog in that organization as far as getting stuff done, getting things to work, troubleshooting. He was our feet on the street, so to speak, for actually putting things together, building them, getting the wiring harnesses, getting electronics working, and working with me on making sure that the final product was meeting my vision and just addressing all the little things that pop up. And you know, with a game with 10,000 parts or whatever's in there, there's a lot of little things that pop up. So it was really refreshing to have TESH work so well. And again, just our chemistry has just really, really worked well together with the team. Frank, what was it like from your standpoint? Because you still have the original, one of those seven prototypes, And code is very important, so you couldn't afford to lose your machine. So what were the differences for you with the mass-manufactured American Pinball machine and what you had at home? Right. So when I started the project in January, I had the code base in my game, then switched it over to the American Pinball framework and had to recode a whole bunch of stuff to make it work on the display. And then the only way I could test it was to put it back into my game. So basically, I continued for the entire nine months to make two versions of the code that ran on both platforms. So it could run on my game or it could run on the American Pinball game. So keeping that straight was sometimes a little bit of a hassle, but it was really worthwhile because every single time I made a change, I was able to test it on my game. And it wasn't until later on that I ended up getting a Whitewood so that I could test the code base in both games in the same room. And Josh Kugler was my Sophia Ryan at American Pinball. I worked very closely with Josh, and we worked through a whole bunch of different scenarios where the framework had to be adjusted slightly so that it would work with both platforms. And Josh was just super to work with on that. What were the difficult changes from the machines you made, the seven machines of Legends of Valhalla, to mass production at American Pinball? Just a whole lot of code changes for the display, and then just totally revamping all of the message system, all of the callouts, and a lot of the timing and the lighting. So the frameworks were slightly different. They were improved, but again, it had to work in both games. so I had to find ways around both frameworks so I think probably the display work was the most difficult. I probably put about 1500 hours in originally for the seven games and then probably another 500 or 400 hours to do all the conversions and the rest of the code work to make the production game. The most difficult thing for me personally was trying to figure out how to make all the ramps production ready out of the metal. For the prototypes, again, I just got them all cut flat. They're all 2D laser cut metal and I hand bent and hand tweaked and I was able to finesse them personally because I understood how the shots were going to come in and understood how they needed to all work together. But to take that and if you kind of look at the right ramp on Legends of Valhalla, it goes up, twists, turns, goes flat, and then enters into our Viking ship. And to try to create a final print of that final bent metal shape in the exact configuration that is required, it took me just so much time to try to actually not only visualize how it's going to be in CAD, but then actually make the CAD tool do what I needed to do. And I finally got all that done and then there's all the other accent parts that have to go with it so you've got the flat part of that metal ramp that i had to figure out all the twists and turns and create a single thickness sheet type material out of and then to create the left and right bounding sides of that ramp and then send that off to zofia where then she basically took that all that information and broke it down back into what it should be from a 2d perspective just took a lot of time so it was really the metal ramps. But as a pinball collector, I have a lot of value when I see a game in metal ramps because I know those things are going to last forever. And it was one thing that I really wanted to make sure we had in Legends of Valhalla that there's hardly anything on this play field that isn't able to be replaced with a basic plastic part. I didn't want to have a game in my own collection where 10, 15 years down the road, there's going to be unobtainium ramp parts. So I'm pretty happy about the fact that we do have metal ramps for all three of the ramps. We've got the wire form habit trails now. That was a big upgrade from our original prototypes. Yeah, that was probably the biggest hurdle that I had. And again, Zofia was a big help in actually taking my databases and getting them into production. But the other thing that was a lot of work was just trying to manage this project remotely. And again, this was a big thank you to American Pinball. I live on the western edges of Wisconsin. I'm a good six hours from American Pinball headquarters. and to try to scale up a game where I can't be there every day or every week to see what's happening and make sure that vision is coming to life the way I see it was challenging and took a lot of work. Luckily, I was able to get out there, like I said, a handful of times over the course of this project. And I had just fantastic staff at American Pinball that I was working with that were really diligent about making sure that my vision was seen in their production game. You know what's coincidental is over the last almost two years, everybody has had to learn how to work remotely, whereas you and Frank have been doing this for eight years. So you guys have had tons of practice with this Zoom and messaging, and that must have helped a little bit. You know, Frank is honestly one of my best friends for this whole project. And it's amazing how much personal stuff that we shoot back and forth with each other about things outside of pinball. And he's just been a great resource. But our ability to communicate has just been top notch. And it's all been digital. And back when we were working on Wooly, I still remember having my iPad out, hanging it over the play field and physically showing him what was working, what wasn't working. And he had to do all this a thousand miles away. And for him to have those talents and those skills is just unbelievable. And one of the things that really I find memorable about our Legends of Valhalla project is when we started doing this project. Now we're dealing with computers, with internet access. And one thing that just blew my mind was when I got the first Whitewood up and running and flipping, I was able to put the tablet up and show Frank the play field. And he was remote into the computer that was physically in my basement of that Whitewood. And with the software he had, he could use his keystrokes to physically flip my Whitewood. So before we're in Rathalimpus, he didn't get to see three months worth of his code until he physically showed up at Expo. With Legends of Valhalla, I remember him flipping the game in my basement while he was a thousand miles away in Pennsylvania. And I just thought that was the coolest thing ever. Do you remember that, Frank? Yeah, I do remember that. That was great. I always had a hard time getting the iPad in the right position and we're trying to put it in the perspective of a player so that he could kind of see what was going on. But I just remember it was funny as I'd be right in front of that play field and all of a sudden the flippers are going left and right. I'm like, is it a bug? And he's like, no, I'm just hitting buttons. That's me. Okay. Frank, did you tap into his home security system too? Were you turning on the stereo? Were you running the shower? No, just the pinball. My bank account went dry for some reason. I just can't understand. Maybe that was the seven prototypes. Speaking of digital and being able to do things online and how you guys got connected on forums, I'm sure you saw, as many of us have, some of the things being said on Pinside and other forums. So there was a lot of speculation that this was coming from American Pinball, and of course you guys have to be tight-lipped. What were some of the things that really maybe made you laugh when you were reading things on Pinside, Frank? Hmm, let's see. I think it's funny when people guess what the next title is. I think it's also funny that people have such different opinions. One person might say, I played this game and I absolutely love it. Another person might say, I played this game, it's absolute trash. There's just so much passion on that forum. But I think anytime I saw guesses that were getting close to what we were working on, Legends of Valhalla, it was so tempting to say, no, it's not that, or yes, it is that, but of course you can say anything So the secrecy part is important but it is hard to contain yourself sometimes Yeah So I have two specific things that really pop out of my mind but to echo what Frank said, it was really hard, you know, to not share anything with our friends. You know, through this whole process, there was a few months there where we didn't have any agreements in place with American Pinball and a lot of speculation was going here and there. And, you know, for me, I got my own Riot Pinball business and anybody that's paying attention was probably noting that I kind of quit posting on there and I didn't update the forum very much. So if you kind of put two and two together, you could have at least anticipated and guessed that there was something happening. Kind of like when Elwin's Archer videos disappeared. Yeah, it's funny how that works. But there are two specific things that I did read and they both made me chuckle. One of them, there was a guy talking about how the fact that he loved Legends of Valhalla, love the shots, but that it was missing a pop bumper, and the pop bumper is what was really needed to draw the Viking theme in. I thought that was kind of humorous. I have no idea what pop bumpers have to do with Viking mythology, but apparently there must be something out there. And then there was another post, too, that I just found kind of funny, that somebody was saying that the Legends of Valhalla play field was exactly the same as Wrath of Olympus, and they went back and edited it and said, oh, actually, you know, it's a lot different, but they still have the same pop bumper and something else. And I just thought that was really funny because Legends of Valhalla doesn't even have a pop bumper. So it just shows you got people out there that are making posts, and a lot of times they really don't know what they're talking about. You just kind of got to grin and bear it and just say, hey, you know, it's exciting that they're talking about it in the first place. Well, no pop bumper. I've read and you and I have talked before, Scott, that you love games with flow. Is that one of the reasons why there was a decision, no pop bumper, or just there wasn't a place for it? Yeah, you know, to me, I think there's a lot of different schools of thought on how pinball design should happen. And a lot of people like randomness. I do like every time Frank and I get together at Expo, we don't really play any new games. We spend a few hours just going around picking old games that are just completely random and trying to kick each other's asses at them. So I really do enjoy that. But for modern pinball, when you've got the ability to have these really deep rule sets, I want to be able to provide a game that you can play and it's more skill based than random based. So when I started looking at Legends of Valhalla, I really focused on the shot paths and I wanted to have a lot of fun shot paths with cool connecting combos. And by the time I had everything laid out there, there just wasn't room to put any pop bumpers in. and talking to a bunch of friend of mine who are big avid pinball collectors and asking their opinions on you know what do you think about pop bumpers you know most of them don't even have an opinion on them other than a few people like them because they're a good place to put pinballs when you're in multiball etc to give you a few more seconds to try to make other shots but you know for me it's kind of one of those legacy pinball mechs that don't really serve a whole lot of purpose and i didn't really feel they were needed in legends of alhalla now with that said you know if I have another design where I can implement a pop bumper or a trio of pop bumpers and they fit and they tie into the theme and the rule set and there's a reason for them, I think they do work really well. Again, I think Elwin's done a fantastic job with his incorporation of pop bumpers in his games, which I think have incredible flow. But I think it's all something that has to be tied in appropriately with the right theme, the right layout and used accordingly. But again, My focus is on if you're a skilled player, you should be able to make shots. Your game shouldn't be 100% controlled by random acts of pinball. Frank, describe what's on the play field. There's little steel ramps, no pop-upers. What else do we have? We have some God of Thunder rollovers at the top for your skill shots and for your bonus X. We have a 3D ship that we lock balls in for multiball. There are several modes that are assigned to the ship. Then we have a smart target for the berserker, which is a single drop target in the right side that pops up and down, depending on what mode you're in or whenever I want it to pop up or pop down. You know, that's used in the mystery awards, and it's also used other times during the game. And then we have 16 battles that are called from one of three areas, either behind the middle flipper in a subway shot or directly into the scoop on the left side or in the right shooter lane. So you can start one of the battles that way. There are 16 of them. And to help you along, there are some helper keys in the game. There is Thor's Hammer, which will decimate your enemy if you get a Thor's Hammer. or there's a Valkyrie, which will take away the next shot if you use it during a battle. I tried to incorporate the characters with the playfield objects as much as I could so that every single playfield object was used in at least three different ways, so that way it gives it that uniqueness, and then also it really adds to the fun. We have some lock targets and another target for Blood Rage. We have a magnet that's basically the Kraken's tail. So with the magnet, we can sometimes knock the ball out of the way or sometimes hold the ball. It adds a lot of randomness or it adds some control. There's also one mode that I find a lot of fun called Escape the Kraken, where you try to hit under the ship to escape the Kraken, and the Kraken tail is whipping your ball each time you get closer to the ship. So that's a lot of fun. And then the lighting, I tried to enhance all the different battles and the non-battles with the lighting so that it really sets the mood. I can bring it down or I can bring it up, change the colors or give sweeping patterns. So just a lot of fun on the play field. I'd like to follow up real quick on the Kraken magnet, Frank. It's one of those things that we added after we got through the first Whitewood. We were looking again for kind of ways to make the game more unique. and I had kind of just lectured a little bit about how I like skill shots to be able to control everything but I did want to have some randomness in the game so we looked at all right how do we possibly add a magnet to this and we were able to find the perfect spot where I have a high power magnet under the play field where the ball exiting either the left or right side of the inner loop that's underneath the ship that magnet will grab the ball and it does just these crazy effects and the first time we played with it, it was just like jaw-dropping on how much fun it was based on what that magnet can do. And to this day, I've seen it do some of the craziest things. Like if you hit the ship and locks aren't lit, the ball will release from the ship and then the magnet can grab it. And I've seen it throw it around that inside loop, grab it again, throw it again. I've seen on my personal game, it make that inside loop just on the magnet three times. I've seen the magnet grab the ball, throw it off the center ramp. I've seen it throw it through the spinner orbit. I've even seen it grab the ball and throw it back up the right ramp and lock a ball in the ship. And of course, we've also seen it grab it and throw it right down in between the flippers. So you just never know when that Kraken is going to reach up out of the playfield, grab your ball and either reward you or just screw you. So it really is kind of fun. People are going to be able to see this game today. American Pinball is putting a bunch of these games on location in different major cities across North America. And of course, we're going to see them at Expo. There should be six at Expo. I think of the process of this from going to virtual, from going to an actual physical game to coming up with the second game, now Legends of Ahaloth. Now you're with American Pinball and now you're going to have people actually throwing their money down to buy this game, seeing it on location, the big Thursday seminar. I can't imagine what's going through both of your minds right now, Frank. Well, I'm just super excited because it's been quite a journey, and it was always about the journey. We really enjoyed the journey, and now we get to see other people enjoy it. So it's really been a dream for both of us. I can't wait to see them experience the game, you know, watch people play it and watch them develop their own strategies, find the things that they like, see them laugh. I think it's going to be great. Yeah, you know, I hate to be corny, but this feels like the range of emotions very similar to when my first child was born. It is a new baby. It is, 100%. You know, there's just this profound amount of excitement, and there's also this just relief that you're there. You know, when my son was born, he was happy, healthy. You just thank God that, you know, it worked out, and you just feel so relieved. And then there's also that little bit of nervousness that, you know, you've got this new thing out in the world. You've got to take care of it. You've got people coming in, talking about it, et cetera. And when I started looking at pinball, you know, we have our baby out there. And there's all the critics and there's all the people that support it. And just getting through all of that I think is going to be fun and challenging at the same time. So I can tell you I think a huge part of it is mostly excitement, though. So Frank and I have been through this for eight years, and it just feels so rewarding to finally get to a point where we can say, yeah, we have a production game. Take it for what it is that we got there. And more than anything, I can't be more proud that I think we did it the right way. And I'm just on cloud nine that I have one of my best friends in the world is a part of it. So that's where I'm at. You should be proud. You should be excited. You should be blessed that the two of you found each other and maintained this friendship for the last eight years and many more to come. It's going to be exciting. You can read Pinball Journal, great magazine, by the way. There's a 28-page spread about a lot of the details, great pictures as well. And, of course, at Expo this coming week, seeing it in person, it's going to be spectacular. And I want to ask one more question before we say goodbye. Earlier in this podcast, you talked about it being a hobby, you know, putting this together in a passion. and you also talked about working with American Pinball and hopefully a great relationship to come. Is that the goal? Is it still a hobby? Is it still fun? Is it more of a job? How do you both feel? I kind of sometimes feel like I'm the luckiest man in the world because I have a job that I've been working now for over 20 years and I get up every day and I am excited about going to work and I kind of almost feel smug about that because I see a lot of people that get up and they hate their jobs or it's just a job and they're just getting through the day. And right now I've got just fantastic management and I'm just in a great spot. And I don't want to speak for Frank, but I think he's in a similar position. So, you know, from a career standpoint, I just I love my current job and that's where I'm going to stay for the rest of my life, if at all possible. But with that, you know, this pinball is a passion of mine. And I think that's why Frank and I connect so well is because he is absolutely passionate about it as well. And I don't see that passion dying anytime soon. And so I really hope that there's a chance that we can continue to work on additional games, you know, in this perspective that it is kind of a side job or a hobby. And to be able to, you know, maintain that level of fun. You know, I don't have to do this to pay the bills. I don't have to do this to pay my mortgage and feed my kids. Like, it's something that I can do. I can put the time in. I can put the passion in. But I can do it at my time or whatever works with whatever contract I have in place. And to me, that's where my future in pinball really resides. And I think the good news is that I think there's a place there for American pinball. And they've seen how Frank and I have worked. They've seen us meet our schedules, meet our deadlines, and put out quality work. And I believe that we'll be hopefully doing some more games with them in the future. Yeah, I mean, pinball has always been a hobby of mine. And I just absolutely love it to death. But I also have my career. So I guess you can have it all. You can have your hobby, and you can have your career, and you can have your family. You just have to make time for all three. It is the American dream, so to speak, and it's done at American Pinball with your new machine, Legends of Valhalla. I'm excited to see this. I know I'm not alone. Scott, Frank, congratulations, and thanks very much for joining us today. Yeah, thank you, Jeff. And, again, thank you so much for – I still remember our first podcast together, And I remember hearing your voice and going, man, this guy would make a great Odin. And when I reached out to you and you stepped up and you helped out with those prototype games, it just made my day. And the fact that you guys were able to work with American Pumball and get your voice in the production game, I'm on cloud nine for that. So I really appreciate that you've been able to put the time in. And I'm just really excited that you're on the production game as well, Jeff. See, I thought it was not my voice. I thought it was because I was wearing an eye patch that day. I had no idea. Thank you, Scott. The pleasure is all mine. And Frank, congratulations once again. Thank you very much, Jeff. Really enjoy your podcast, and I really enjoy you as Odin in our game and for all the help that you gave us with the prototype games. I'll let you in on a secret. It was all Matt Kern. It's like bad musical artists that use autotune. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. I'll take that out. Hey, thanks very much, guys. Yeah, absolutely, Jeff. Anytime you want us, just give us a holler. We love chatting with you. Thank you. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything at pinballprofile.com. We're on Facebook. We're on Instagram and Twitter at pinballprofile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. Congratulations to Scott and Frank on Legends of Alhalla from American Pinball. I'm Odin. I mean, I'm Jeff Teals. you

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: c4dde34e-4ae5-46e2-a8d6-fd138284fa5d*