John Norris is a prolific pinball designer from the 1990s known for his work on System Three platform games. He designed multiple titles including Shaq Attack (1995), Shack Attack (1995), Surf and Safari, Cactus Jacks, and Car Hop, establishing himself as a notable contributor to early-to-mid 1990s pinball design. His work on Deadly Weapon influenced other designers like Keith Elwin, and he is credited with developing the in-lane return mechanic that was later adapted in Jaws. Norris was recognized for pushing design limits on the System Three platform, though some of his designs featured controversial elements like weak flipper gameplay.
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John Norris specifically noted in the Pinball Compendium that flippers must be in good repair or the game cannot be played, as weak flippers prevent basket scoring
John Norris quit Stern Pinball because the company allowed smoking in offices and refused to change the policy
John Norris' design approach would resonate with modern pinball players if realized commercially
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John Norris designed CarHop and was known for progressive award mechanics
John Norris was hired at Gottlieb as a junior designer within a year of attending the first Pinball Expo, worked there for ten years, and later worked at Sega Pinball/Turn Pinball
John Norris released a street-level pinball layout called Champs Elise with complete design documentation
John Norris offered design services to Balarama
John Norris, the original Gottlieb System 3 flipper designer, endorsed switching restorations to Williams/Bally flippers if space permits under the playfield.
System 3 memory and driver architecture was night-and-day improvement over System 80
John Norris conceived a modular playfield emulator concept in the 1970s
John Norris proposed a modular playfield emulator machine concept in the 1980s, 14 years before Williams Pinball 2000 and 30 years before Multimorphic
John Norris became a pinball designer through self-taught hobbyist path (home collection, hybrid EM/solid-state experiments) rather than formal employment pipeline
John Norris stated that 90s Gottlieb games were designed exclusively for casual players
Games should appeal to all skill levels from casual seven-year-old players to tournament professionals
John Norris designed two street-level games that were never built: Tic Tac Lotto and a prototype that became Q-Ball Wizard