TOPCast 56: Ward Pemberton

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Welcome to another episode of Topcast, the pinball internet radio show.

And tonight we have a designer that started work at Balli in 1981, and then later moved to

Williams Balli, and then finally to Dadeys Slessega as a game designer.

I like to welcome Ward Pemberton to Topcast Night. We're designed some really great games,

including Balli Batham in 1981, BMX, Hardbody, Dungeons & Dragons, and then when Williams bought Balli

in the late 80s, did some designs for the Williams team, including Mouse in Around, Riverboat

Gambleer, Gilligan's Island, and then worked for Sega, Slash Data East, designing Golden Eye.

Alright, so let's give Ward Pemberton a call right now on the phone and talk to him about his

game designing career.

Hey, Ward.

How are you doing?

Okay, how are you doing?

I'm good. I'm good. So, you ready?

I guess so.

Alright, so tell me like how you your first memory is a pinball or how you got into pinball.

I mean, you became a pinball designer. That's what a lot of people that are into pinball really

want to be. How did you get there and where did you come from and how did it start?

Okay, let me tell you, my dad worked for belly manufacturing for I think over 26 years.

And out of high school or in high school, I ended up taking a drafting class.

And out of high school, my dad was able to get me a job working for Norm Clark.

Who was in charge of all the game designers over there at belly.

And what happened was I was working with the other game designers as a lab tech building their designs.

Put in their play field together. And then after a couple years, Norm Clark gave me a shot at

designing a pinball machine and Fabin was my first game.

So what year did you start working at belly?

I believe it was right out of high school, which would be about 78,

78, 79. So you were only two years worth of under underpinning work and then you're already

giving you designer duties? Well, what I was doing is designing on my own time. If the game

designers had something for me to do, I'd be working for them. And then I was able to do stuff when

they were at some downtime. So was Fabin one of those ones you kind of designed on your owner

or did they say do a game? Yeah, Fabin was actually what it does. Back in them times,

you would almost design a play field and then you would put a theme to it.

Okay, you'd work on your shots and your different target areas and you know, position your bumpers,

your footers, all that stuff. And then at the game played well, you would then put the rules

and regulations and your game theme together. And actually, Fabin, I designed a play field,

but actually Fabin, I believe Greg Sparris came up with the Fabin theme.

Right, he was your artist for that game, right?

The artist, and I believe he came up with the theme. So he came up with the cartoon,

Grocer and everything. Did you not really care what the theme was?

You know what? No, not necessarily. He ran a past me and I said, well, that's kind of cool,

you know? But that's one of the things you got to sell marketing department. And Greg was

very instrumental with a lot of those game ideas. He was a pretty sharp guy and a great artist,

you know? Now, did you have your choice of other artists like could have you had Dave,

Christensen or Paul Ferris or any of those guys? You know what? At the time,

if I had mistaken, I think Paul Ferris was in charge of the art department.

And Greg was working for him at the time Fabin was done. And no, I really didn't have a choice.

Actually, at that time, I was still considered an associate designer, like a junior designer.

So now, how did you get, I mean, Fathoms, you know, it's got multiple, it's got speech, it's got,

you know, the great graphics, it's like a total pinball package. I mean, how did you pull that

off for your first game? You know what? Talking with the other game designers, which was Gary Gaton

and Jim Patler, who else was over there. I think George Christian, Greg Cimic were over there at the time.

And if I had mistaken, I don't know if Claude was over there yet, Claude Fernandez or not.

But actually Gary Gaton and Jim Patler were always very instrumental to me and taught me how to

design play fields. Were when you're actually designing a play field, your ball always, you're kind of,

you know, anticipate the reflection of the targets. And if you're hitting a,

are you there? Yeah, no, I'm listening. Yeah, if you're hitting a shot into a scoop,

you want to try to always pick up a radius, you know, you don't want any flat spots because then

you're going to get that big clank. What do you mean by flat spots? What's that? What do you mean by

flat spots? Well, you always want to try, since the ball's got a nice round curvature to it, of

course, you always want to try to hit a radius, you know, and that'll make that smooth flow

transaction with the balls. So, and if you're hitting a target, you always know that if you got your

target angle, then a certain, you know, angle that how it's going to deflect off of those targets.

So you're saying that you don't want to like aim at our position of target so that it's directly

parallel to the player? Right, because it's just going to come right back at you too quick too, you know.

Yeah, definitely. And even if you noticed the, the return lanes on Fathom, how you got it,

where it scoops in and you get a nice flow back to the flipper. Right. You know, some of the old games,

you'd have it where it goes straight down, stop, and then kind of rolled at a flipper. I always like

to have it where you could almost have like cough, coughed and flow, you know. And it was that something

that like the, you know, the old timers like Norm Clark and that, or is this just something that you

picked up on your own? Well, you know what, yeah, just from experience of playing it and liking the

way, I always love the way certain play fields flowed. And a lot of people, I don't know, when

all the games I've done, they said, yeah, it looks like one of your games work because, you know,

the play field flows nice. It's got nice, I don't know, good flow. Yeah, good kinetics. Good kinetics.

That's right. Well, now, when, how far back were you involved with Pinball? I mean,

did you remember playing Pinball when you were a kid? Yeah, my dad years ago, like I said, he worked

for Valley for over 26 years. I don't know exactly how many years, but we got lucky once in a

while he was able to bring home a prototype game and we'd have it in the basement and we could flip

around on it. Actually, one of my favorite games that he was able to bring home was, I think,

was 4 million BC. Well, game, one of my favorites. Yeah, with the zipper flipers. It was a great game.

So, did you ever go out to the arcade or anything, or is this always like dad brought home a game

and you got to play it? Right. I never went to the arcade. I got lucky when I was a kid if my dad

took me in on a Saturday over to Valley and I could go into the arcade that had a place where

they'd show their new games and we could flip around while he was upstairs working.

Now, did your dad retire from Valley? Yes, he did. He retired. I want to say back in 80,

I want to say 86 maybe. Was he mostly involved with Pinball or everything? My mind was

Beth Leo with cancer and he ended up leaving early so we could spend some time with her.

I'm sorry about that. Yeah, it's hard to live. We had a good life.

Now, was he mostly involved with Pinball or just everything? My dad was at one time he was in charge

of the mechanical engineering department. Now, what did he think of the transition from like

electric mechanical to solid state and what did you think about that? Well, I thought it was great

because everything seemed to be more lights and whistles and the flipers were stronger and

the displays were easier to look at. You didn't hear that clunk of clunk of clunk of clunk of

I don't know, I guess because everything was easier to wire and you could actually start

putting more money into the machine and it'd be more appealing to everybody. I mean,

you know, I came on pretty much after the electrical mechanical stage.

So, I thought it was a great transition.

Now, was there any feature that you wanted in fathom that you couldn't justify for cost

reasons that got costed out? You know what? I had to remember back in the days, but you see,

I don't think so. I think that was pretty much, you know what I always tried to do?

I always tried to get that zipper flip or feature and but I don't think I tried to get it in the

fathom. I just I always thought that was a pretty cool feature. Yeah, yeah, very cool.

Now, who, I mean the voice, the voice in that for the game, you know, was there any stories behind

that? You know how that was developed or who did it or anything like that? You know what, I can,

there was a female voice in there, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Let's see, you know what, I don't even remember all these people who did the sound. I think,

if I'm not mistaken, I think Neil Falconer was the programmer at the time for fathom.

Neil was the programmer and I think somebody named Chris something was the

sound guy and I can't even remember his last name. But, so you didn't have to have a bunch of

interaction with them? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. There was interaction. Every pinball

game that I did, okay, was based on me as the game designer, the artist, the mechanical engineer,

the programmer and the sound guy. Was that five different guys that really had a lot of input in

the games. You know, you talked a lot of other game designers and they like to take the credit for

everything, but it really isn't that way. Right. You need a lot of help from a lot of different people.

And then you need your sales and your marketing people to make it sell a lot, you know.

Were they pretty happy and were you pretty happy with the sales on fathom? You know what?

Again, at that time, like, you know, I want to think that it was about 3500.

Right. Yep. Yep. Okay. At that time, that was a good sale, you know. There wasn't many games

too much more at that time. We got, you got, I don't know, I want to say, it's pimped a little bit

with the next game that I did, but it's all timing, you know. That pinball industry's got its

ups and its downs. But yeah, I got great reviews from Fathom. My Roger Sharp, you know, gave me a great

review and I don't know, was it Play Meager? Is that the magazine? Right. Yeah. So it was a exciting

time in my life, you know. Now, you know, recently they've reproduced the Fathom Playfield in the

back glass and the, in the flat plastic for the Playfield. Did they, did they contact you at all

or did you even know about this? And I mean, do you have any feelings? Now, who would have reproduced it?

Well, they, there's, Bali obviously still owns the rights to all that stuff and they licensed it out.

And there was a, I think some guys in Canada, classic Playfield reproductions, I believe were the

people that did that Playfield and they probably did the plastics in the back glass too.

No. I mean, did you, did you keep a Fathom? Long ago they do that, you know.

Maybe a two years ago. Wow, it'd be nice if you wanted those games.

So you didn't, you didn't get to keep a Fathom after you designed one?

No, at that time, it wasn't. See, I didn't have a contract at that time, I did Fathom.

And after the contracts came into play and that was part of pretty much,

and the game designers' contract, they'd always want at least one game for their home, you know.

No, never got one.

So, I mean, was that, would it have been a big deal to get one?

You know what, at that time, the industry was at a low. So I guess every game that they made,

they really wanted to try to sell, you know. I mean, it would have been a big thing for them to give

it to me, I guess, because they didn't. Now, didn't you, so your dad was working there,

you were working there, and I heard that you had like a sister that worked at Balley too.

You know what, I did. I had a sister, I had a brother. My sister did work there before me,

and I don't know what she actually did. I think she might have worked, let me think.

I don't know who she worked for, but she was more in the office area, you know.

Right. Right. So was that kind of weird having the whole family there?

No, it was pretty nice. It was pretty nice, we met my wife at Balley.

I mean, I married somebody from Balley too, then, you know.

It's a good time for you, then.

Oh yeah, not a good memory. Balley was a very good company to work for.

Okay, so now, after Fathom, the next game you designed was what, BMX? Tell me about that one.

BMX, I was really excited about, you know. And again, this was a play field that I

designed, and then I put the new outlines in them. They were a unique style where you have the extra

flipper button on the side with a piece of spring steel that when you press the button, it would close

and the ball would return right to the flipper. So there was only one lane on each side,

and it was either, and it was always an outline, unless you pressed this button that would bring it

right back to the flipper. So theoretically, if you were very good with your fingers,

the only way to lose the ball would be down the middle between the flippers.

Right. Right. Now, were you a BMX fan?

No, and actually, that was another great Ferris idea. The artist again, great Ferris.

Did you have the exact same team as Fathom or work on BMX?

You know what? I don't remember. I don't remember. I know great to the artwork I believe.

Yep, great did it. Yep.

I don't know who else did any of the other activities.

Yeah. It could be very likely that it could have been the same guy that did the programming,

but I don't know for sure. Now, at this time, were you considered an official designer?

No, no, but I was still a, still was an under contract. So I was still a junior or associate designer.

Were you happy with how BMX came out?

Yes, I was very happy with it.

But it didn't sell all that well.

Two level, you know, two level play field.

Right. Right. So that was my first two level play field. I thought it looked great.

Well, but it just didn't sell for some reason.

It's again, that was the time. I think we only did 350 at home.

Yeah, I got 400, but yeah, right in there.

Yeah, but that was it. And actually, at the time, right when I got laid off before

even went to production with that, it was just a very, very down time at Valley.

And I wasn't under contract, so we weren't losing anything getting rid of me.

And like I said, they didn't make too many games.

But I had a couple guys here that felt really bad that I was laid off,

Jim Pettler, one of them. So what, what year was that? Let's see.

In the 82.

Yeah, BMX was in 82. So I got laid off shortly after that.

And what did I do? You know what I did?

I worked out for a while and I got to try it with the White Sucks in 83.

What? You played for the White Sucks?

It was a White Sucks.

You played for the White Sucks?

Well, they signed me up and I went down to spring training, Sarah Soder there.

And got released, never officially made the roster.

I think it was going down there for about three weeks.

But it was another exciting time of my life.

You know, I hit a shot. I hit a shot at the White Sucks.

Now, how did you slide into that?

Well, you know what? I played baseball pretty much all my life.

And then right out of high school, I kind of quit baseball.

So I quit for, it must have been almost four years.

And then I was pretty big. I had six with four, two on ten pounds.

And I was always a pitcher, so I had some pretty good velocity.

I was being clocked about 90 miles an hour back at that time.

And at the after being off the baseball for three and a half four years.

So my dad actually wrote letters to all the baseball organizations.

And we got a response from pretty much actually quite a few of them.

But the White Sucks actually set up a personal trial for me down at the the amphitheater

that year and went down there and I ended up throwing with Dennis Lamp and Steve Trout.

And the scout, you know, he told me he says,

well, he says, you're, you're our strength is great.

Your mechanics need some work. He says,

if you want to come out, you know, the next couple weeks.

And let me work with you. He says, I'll make a decision if we can sign you

and send you down to spring training. So that's what I did.

So we worked with him for a couple of weeks and after that, he signed me and sent me down to spring training.

That's all that I hired out.

Well, now you got back into Bali a few years later. How did that happen?

I sure did. Jim Pellick gave me a call back in 86, I think. And now he says,

word, he says, I'm a charge of the designers, the game designers. He says, what do you think about

coming back and working for me? You know, he says, I really like the way BMX turned out.

We didn't make too many of them. I like you to come back and, you know, see what you could do for me.

And when I came back, he says, he wanted me to redo BMX, change a little bit.

That's what I did. And that's when I actually, I think it was our marketing department and

Greg Ferris again, okay. And I think Greg Ferris was in charge of the art department at that time.

No. And came up with hard body with, since Bali was in their health and fitness now.

And Rachel McGlyce signed with the fitness department that they wanted to do a pinball machine for that.

And sure enough, that's what we did. We changed our body a little bit and made, I mean, we changed to

BMX a little bit and made it our body. And now that's all pretty decent about 2000 units.

You know what I think that's what it did do. I think that's what it did do. It was okay for a

Bali run. No. No, was this Bali midway, right? This is, well, yes, Bali midway, correct?

But not Williams. No, this was still Bali. Williams didn't buy it yet.

Okay, was there anything on hard body that, you know, you'd got costed out of that, you know,

any kind of features or anything that you wanted in?

Man, it's hard to remember, because it was, that was you right. They were always looking at the cost

to see what they could do, because how many they had to sell in order to make the profit.

I don't think so. I don't think so. I know they're always worried about the inline drop target

cost and so much money.

And drop target. You know what? Yeah, that is true. I mean, if you look at hard body, you'll see

all the stand-up targets. I know the four bank was probably a drop target unit.

See, I always love drop targets. I thought drop targets were better than just stand-up targets.

Oh, yeah. That did visual effect. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, now that you mentioned it, I'm sure that there was

some drop target units taken out of there. Now, was there, was the design principles or concepts

or way that you did things any different when you came back in, you know, 86, 87 compared to when

you were doing it in 91, 92? No, not really. Not really. It was, like I said, with hard body, it was

kind of easy because we were kind of redoing BMX. Let's see, the game after that,

you want to talk about that one or you want to stand on hard body? No, let's go to that. That's

the Dungeons and Dragons, right? The Dungeons and Dragons, correct. Okay. Now, you know the guy that

invented that game, he just died. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He already just passed away on the

news. That was surprised to hear that, you know? No, did you have to get a license for that or

did you guys just use the name? No, that was Valley. Valley did get a license for that. There was

some kind of contractual agreement between the, the owner of the Dungeons and Dragons rights.

And did you ever have to talk to the guy or anything? Not me personally, I'm sure that was our

marketing department or, we'll listen to it with the contracts there. Okay. Yeah, tell me some

more about that game. That's another one that you still have more drop targets, but had to be taken

out cost effectiveness. Well, let's see. I think the, I think there was a bell tower in that

thing. And I think we still drop targets up on the ramp that had to come out.

You know what? I don't even remember most of the rules for that. There's no that there was a big

flame in the center and that was how you were generating bonus by building up the flame.

So how long did it take you to design, Dungeons and Dragons? You know, just about every game takes

about a year, it took about a year for me. And were they okay with management okay with that?

Oh yeah, that's what he had all these different game designers. That's what he had always given.

And even in the contract, it was pretty much state that you had one year to do a game.

I mean, sometimes you were able to, you know, push it quicker, sometimes it take longer.

But, uh, a year is a pretty reasonable bum on a time.

Now, instead of a great fairest for your art, it looks like you had Pat and Pac-McMcNanerson or McMcPain?

You know what? Now that you mentioned it, yeah, you're right. I mean, you're refreshing my memory

on a lot of things there. So how was it like working with him? Oh, Pat's a good guy. All these guys,

I tell you what, everybody I worked with at Valley was good to work with.

It really was. So you didn't have any particular favorites?

Um, not really, not really. I mean, you know what, when you're working with somebody,

you grow closer with them because you know that, uh, for a successful project, you really

got to work well together, you know? You want them to do their best for you and you're going to

do the best for them, you know? And, uh, when they would give you suggestions, you'd actually

listen to them and sometimes you'd use them, you know? Right, right. Smart thing to do.

Now, who was, do you remember who the programmer was? Dungeons and Dragons.

I'm not sure. I want to say, I want to say Neil. I want to say Neil Falconer, but

I'm not sure. Now, do you keep in touch with any of these people anymore? No.

Nope. No. No. I mean, if I see somebody, we'll say hello and everybody, but yeah, no, we're not real.

Everybody's seen to go on their own separate way when they left Pinball. Right. Right.

Now, about this time, Valley was getting acquired by Williams. I mean, tell me about that

transition because you slid over to the Valley Williams teams. Yeah, I slid over, but they didn't take me

on right away as a game designer. They took me on as a tech. They took me on as a technician to

help the game designers again, do all the prototypes. And so now, how did you transition from that to a

designer? Yeah, if there was over there, I met with Ken Fidesma and told her I wasn't very happy,

because I really wanted an opportunity to continue to design games. And it's when he let me go

ahead and do mouse and around. And how did that go? I mean, now you've got a different environment

with, I imagine, different team, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was definitely a, I don't know,

I don't want to say difficult, but it was a transaction that wasn't looking forward to, you know,

because it's like starting a new company and you already feel like you're imposing on a lot of

these designers territory that have already been established over there. You know, they don't

want you to be successful, but they really don't. You know, you're going over there. So you could

feel a little bit of tension between the different designers from Williams and Valley. And you know,

what? I think there always was even when we weren't working underneath the same roof.

We never wanted to see each other do well. I'm sure, you know, there was our competition.

We didn't want Valley to, our Williams to be successful when we were Valley. And I'm sure Williams

didn't want Valley to be successful, you know. So looking back on it, do you think it was a bad

decision for Williams to take all the Valley guys over? Not at all, because I think what they were

doing is I think, in my opinion, I think William was technically buying the Valley name,

figured they could get a bigger, uh, distribute, you know, patient out there. Right. They could

distribute more games and quantity. And they probably accomplished it for a while, but then people

realized that guess what? The Valley game is the same as Williams game now. So let's just buy

the best one, because they were always releasing games against each other, you know, even though they

own both, because I think when I did mouse and around, what was I up against on the Williams side?

Oh, Elvira and the party monsters or something? Okay, if that's the date, well, that was a

Dennis Nordmogame. He was a Valley designer, but that's what they were trying to do now. They were

trying to mix up the name saying, well, this is going to be a Williams game. This is going to be a

Valley game. So I don't know what they're thinking was behind that. Let's see. So they were doing like,

you know, almost like you guys were almost like each team was in competition with the other team

at the same company. Yes, you're right. If we're, if our games were released at the same time,

which they were, you know, like within a month or two of each other, I think, uh, what was it? I

did over there. I think I did River Bull Campbell, or I think it went up against the Richie's

Terminator or what did he do over there? It might have been his Terminator. And everybody was pretty

excited about, you know, the River Bull Campbell thing. But then with Steve Richie's name and

reputation, you got everybody out there, you know, trying to buy that, you don't want to buy

them both at the same time, you know, with his reputation and his good great games that are out

there. I think River Bull suffered a little bit just because of that.

Hmm. So what I mean did say, were they actually like, you know, I interviewed another designer

and he was saying that it was like almost like, it was almost like street gangs that the teams were

like, you know, really, really that much in competition against each other.

Well, we did compete. There's no thought about it. I mean, there was some favorite, uh,

um, what do you say it? Some favorite mechanical guys that you'd rather have working on your game,

or, um, you know, certain artists like you said would do, you think sometimes would do a better

package. But, uh, I tell you what, everybody that worked for me did a good job.

They're not in bad to say about them. Yeah, it looks like you were up against bad cats, was behind

and whirlwind was in front of you right around, mouse and around. Okay.

The world one was a great game, but that lawyer, um, that, uh, what was the cat? You said,

bad cats. What do you mean you didn't care too much for bad cats, but, uh, yeah, it was, uh,

you know who designed it. Um, Mark Richie, right? Well, it was also, um, yeah, python.

Python, right? Python. Yeah.

What did you think of Python? So you're right. He had some good stuff, but he was a little eccentric.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. A little eccentric. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He sure was. I mean,

uh, did you ever have to work with him? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Did you actually did the yetwork for one of my,

uh, redemption pieces when I went to a game star? He did the yetwork for goofy hoops.

And was he good to work with? He was all right. He had to listen to him, you know. He was, um, he was out there,

but what are you gonna do? Yeah. Him and Mark Richie were tight. Right. Right. Yeah. Him and Mark Richie were tight.

Okay. We're gonna take a little break of talking with Ward Pemberton, and we'll be back right after

this message. That's right folks. It's Doc Pinball. Just reminding you about the Rochester Game

Room show April 11th through the 13th, 2008. We're gonna have Illinois Pinball. That's right.

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gonna be coming there. The new makers of that brand new King of Diamonds. We also have Marko's

specialties of leader and parts since applies since 1985. We have tons of vendors and tons of

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April 11th through the 13th, 2008. Deep in the forest of eastern Canada, you will find something

well ground breaking and something that's very, very pinball, but something that's really,

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We've got the passion. We've got the gear and we've got the quality. Doing our very best to remake

classic and more modern Pinball replacement parts. Classic play field reproduction. Play fields,

back glasses, plastic sets. On the web at classicplayfields.com. All right. We're back with Ward

Pemberton game designer. So now when you were doing a river bowl gambler, you had fun house behind

and what bugs bunny's birthday ball in front of you. Were those competing with you?

I don't think so. The bugs bunny one. I don't think that was a threaded out. What was the one behind me?

Fun house. Fun house. Fun house was a good game. Fun house did well for Williams, right?

Oh yeah. That was pet luller, right? Yeah, but your river bowl gambler sold

over like 3200 units. Fun house sold like 10,000, but I mean 3200 is still a pretty good strong sales.

No, you know what at that time was probably an average run. Most of all my games were average runs.

I think the biggest run I had was probably maybe Gilgons Island. Was that 4,000? Yeah, exactly.

Okay, that was probably my biggest run. And I don't know. Let me know when you want to talk about Gilgons.

Well, wait, before we get to Gilgons, let's talk about the river bowl. Now who came up with the river bowl gambler theme?

I want to say great first, but nah, I don't know. It might have been Greg. Yeah, I don't have the

honest witch. I can't remember. I can't remember. And was that dictated to you or did you get to pick?

Did you get to pick that theme? We did it as a group. The rules, the rules, the right and the place with this

play field. It was great. I want to think, you know what? I think Pat did the artwork, but I think Greg

Ferris came up with a nice thing with it again. And then we just made the rules fit.

Now that I know I came up with the buttons on the bottom arch there or on the molding.

Right. And through that wheel, we took from one of the Williams games because that was a feature,

but we put the through that color on it and played with it.

Shoot. I don't know. I want to say, I want to say Greg Ferris again, but

but wasn't Linda deal the artist this time? You know what? Linda deal does ring a bell.

But for some reason, Pat McMan, you know what? She might have did the play field.

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, could be. Oh, I know, I know Pat McMan.

I want to say Pat McMan did the back glass.

Hmm. Was that okay to have two artists do it like that?

I think it worked out pretty good. I think it was a real nice look and package.

Yeah, it was. You know what? I'm not sure if Linda deal did the play field.

I really am. I'm not sure. I don't have her names from Miller.

Now what about, did you work with Dan Fordon, Pat?

Dan who?

Fordon.

Dan Fordon. Doesn't ring a bell. There was Dan Langloy,

but he was another game designer. Okay.

Dan Fordon. He was like a mechanical engineer or something.

You know what? The name rings a bell. I can't play some. I'm getting old.

I'm getting old.

Alright, so then you got the big theme. You got the Gilligan Island theme. Tell me about that one.

Alright, well let me tell you this. When I was with Williams, they bought a play field from a guy named Dan Langloy.

Okay. Dan Langloy sold them a design of a play field. And at that time, you know that island that rotates.

Right. Okay. He had it as a brain. It was supposed to look like a brain.

And I think the name of the game that he was going to call it was the brain.

So, at the time, Williams was looking for somebody to take over this design that they bought from

Langloy because I guess he was a bad way. He was sick. And I volunteered to step up and take the

play field and do something with it. And we came up with, again, I keep mentioning this guy's name Greg Ferris.

He came up with the theme of Gilligan's Island. He says, what if we do the old TV series Gilligan's Island?

And I said, alright, well what we can do with it. We threw some rules to the pinball machine and

we changed a couple of shots and put the volcano in there and a couple other things there.

And we put the package together as Gilligan's Island. With that nice story behind it with the

lava seltzer and the ingredients and the professor's formula line, Gilligan's jet pack to take the

the lava up to the volcano before he ruptured. Now, how did you get the license for that? Was that easy?

You know what? All these licenses are done usually by the marketing department. I think maybe at that time Roger Sharp was in there with the marketing.

And they would go up there and wheel and deal for the rights and how much they get them per game, stuff like that. I don't know how much so.

And I think it would have been a Warner Brothers. Is that too?

No, no.

Yeah, I don't know if it was a Warner Brothers. We were on the right to Gilligan's Island.

They had two they had in the go-shade with and then they called Bob Denver and talk with him.

Because he actually came out and shot the brochure for us with us.

Did he do the voice for you too?

You know what? He did do some voiceovers. He did. Yes, he did.

Did any of the other people get involved?

Um, the other people meaning?

You know, like the, you know, Marianne and whatever her name was.

No. Um, they didn't act. I guess not that I'm aware of. I think actually they were trying to...

Ginger, that's her name. Ginger.

Yeah, Ginger, they didn't cheat. Didn't want none to do what I was told.

She wanted to forget all about Gilligan's Island at the time. But

you know, people have different thoughts in their head.

And I think she finally got to realize it was a good thing for her after all.

You know, right?

Right, so I mean you didn't get the only voice you got was Bob Denver as little buddy and

basically everybody else you just did, you know, got from like old TV shows or something?

I think so. I'm pretty sure that's what they did.

But don't quote me at all this because when them were in what it used to be.

Now the artist that looks like for Gilligan was Johnny Aussie, is that right?

Yeah, Aussie, right.

Now how was he to work with?

Actually, I like, he's got a good style. I like this style a lot.

You know, it was pretty much Greg Ferris on the art department and pretty much coordinating a lot

of the stuff with him. So yeah, it was, you know, I didn't have too much

too much input with it. But I know that with the back glass, when they had Mary Ann on a little

Mary Ann on her little exercise bicycle or whatever she was on, they had to do a couple of different

versions of it because Mary Ann's her chest was too big and one of the pictures had to reduce it

a little bit. Really? Yeah. Usually you think it'd be the other way around. Yeah, well, I don't know if

he took offense to it or he just didn't want it, I guess, so they had to reduce him a little bit.

I think it was her call. I don't think it was the marketing department. But yeah, you're right.

A lot of things are usually enhanced. Right. Right. Right. No.

When we did the River Boca, I'm going back to that one. When actually I think that back glass was

done by Pat McMan. And he had one of the girls in the back with her silhouette. We almost see

two redress. Actually, I think it shows pretty good on the brochure. But I think with the

the back glass, they had to tone it down a little bit. And who dictated that kind of stuff?

Who did what? Who dictated that kind of stuff where you had to tone it down? Overall marketing

department sales department that said, oh, we got a tone of down a little bit.

Now, what on Killock and Zyland, were you pretty happy with how that game sold and how it was received?

Yes, I really was. I thought it was a very nice package again. It's probably the best package I've

done up till that point. So my goal was always to my next game to do better than the previous one.

Most of the time that's what happened. Were you happy with the sales?

Yeah, I think that was right off 4,000. At that time, it was good. You're always hoping to do more.

In 18,000, 20,000 run. Never happened for me. Some were time I always seemed to be a slow time of the year.

And a lot of times it's in my games head. So.

Now, did you, did you stay with Valley Williams? Well, you know what happened? Let's see, back in,

let's see, I think Killock and was my last game there. And then in 91, I got called for the Chicago

Fire Department. For a test, I took back in 85 and came to Chicago Firemen.

And I went up to Ken Fidesz and I want to tell him I said I wanted to do both because of the

great schedule of Chicago Fire Department. As you work one day and you're off too. So theoretically,

you're just working two days a week as a fireman. And I was actually at that time, I was working on a

new pinball game, which was pretty unique as far as I was concerned. I wanted to see with the

white bodies out there at that time. Off and on. I never liked the way the white bodies play. It was

just too much side to side motion too far. So my ferry was, I was going to do a horse race game

with a pretty much a standard sized play field in a white body cabinet with a horse race track

going around the outside, which made it a white body. It was being hit in the different features

on a pinball machine to advance your horse. Great idea, how come I didn't get made?

Well, there was a couple of reasons. One was because of the fact that actually Williams told me that

they weren't going to let me do both. I had to make a decision either design pinball machines

or become a fireman. And they had a very good reason. Their reason was the job of the game designer

is to get this game ready so they could keep the production lines running downstairs. They

keep the factory open. And it's something happened where I did get hurt at a fire. I wasn't able to

work. It would be a time where they might have to shut down the factory. That made sense. I never

thought about it that way. Being a fireman can be a pretty dangerous job at times.

What they let me do is go through the academy at the fire department,

and they would still keep me on. I had a team of people that I was working with, my mechanical

engineer, my artist, my sound guy programmer. What happened is they said that they would actually

come in in the evenings with me at work at night while I was still going through the academy.

And so I thought that was really nice that I'm guys, you know, to do that. But they did that so

Williams kept me on as long as I was in the academy. But once I graduated from the academy,

they said that they weren't going to do that any longer, which was understandable.

Well, were you working on the horse race game at that time?

Yes, I was. I had a great task that is my mechanical engineer. He was working pretty good with the

racetrack. But at that time again, the industry was a little weak. It looked like this game was

going to be too expensive to produce with the racetrack and horse race mechanism. So it pretty much

got cobbased. And it really, I didn't get far enough along with it to convince them to keep going

with it. Did it get anywhere where it was playable? You know what, the race track was in a

molding stage where it was like a handmade track. And it worked somewhat, but you know,

we weren't really thrilled with it yet. We weren't thrilled with it. So yes, we were able to shoot

it around a little bit, but nothing where you could have wanted the production with it.

And who was helping you with the software? Let me think.

Trying to think who the programmer was for over there. Dwight Sullivan was a programmer.

Maybe Boone? Boone. Yeah, Boone was at that time. He was pretty much Steve Richie's only

guy. John Hay was John Hay there? John Hay was there. Was he a sound guy or was he programmer?

I don't know. I think he was sound. I think he was a sound guy. Because I think he did some

of the sounds I'm mouse in for me. I think he was my sound guy I'm mouse in. Then there was another guy

I think that was Jim's proposer. You know what? I can't read none. There's nothing.

I guess we are looking at 17 years ago.

So now you stayed with the fire department and did you ever come back to do any more pinball?

Well you know what? I'm still with the fire department and back in 93. I got a call from

I think his name was Mark Coldabella and he was working for a company in GameStar now.

And he was asking me if I was interested in designing again. And I said sure. I said as long

as you realize I'm a fireman too. You know, I'm not going to get up in a Chicago fireman to just

design games. This is all no. We got no problem with that. So worked out great for a while. So from

I want to say 93 to 93, 94, a couple years, I was over at GameStar and I designed a redemption

piece called Goofy Hoops and we did a redemption piece. It was actually my, they hired me as a

pinball game design. I didn't want to do pinball but since this company was still trying to get

its foot in the door, they took my back box feature. It was going to be a back box feature

in a pinball game. We decided around with it just as a redemption piece. What do you mean back box

feature? Well, this was a, a Pachinko style back box with a picture like a ball the size of a

foosball plastic ball. And it would launch a ball up on the top and it would go down these little

Pachinko tile pins and you'd have a basketball net that slid side to side in the back box and you

try to catch that basketball that came down. So we ended up going with that as a redemption piece

so we could make some money for the company. Did it work out okay? Yeah, actually it was very

exciting at the show and everybody really liked this game. My objective for that game was though

since we decided to go with a redemption piece, I kind of wanted it to go as a, a fire piece

so you could put this in all the local bar establishments and then you got your guys you know

and her girls at the bar and you could go up to the machine and pretty much say okay come on let's

go let's play. Next loser buys the next round you know but they didn't put them in the bars

they ended up putting them just in these little you know ticket redemption places the trucky

cheeses and stuff like that or little prizes and toys. They did fairly well. I think the company

made some good money. I don't know how many games it made dealt probably just probably just a

little over a thousand maybe twelve hundred fifteen hundred games. Was that good for redemption?

That's kind of yeah because it was a lot more inexpensive to make.

Now how long did you stay with Game Star? Let's see that was what Game Star told I want to say

two years or almost two years in 93 to 94 and in 94.

And now why did you why did you get out of Game Star? You know what I actually got I got fired

over there. I get fired at Game Star or let go whichever way whatever sounds better. Yeah well

why why what happened? Well I had to run in with Python Angel O. Python Angel and Mark Ritchie was

actually in charge of the how do you say you was probably in charge of the game designing area.

Well because Game Star became Capcom pinball. Right right and actually the goofy hoops was sold

underneath the ramp star name because that was their distributor I guess. Right yeah right but yeah I

mean Python had a run in and and then Mark Ritchie and Python like I said they were like a team

so I got let go. Now what was the issue with Python? Well Python was one of these guys that always

wanted to take credit for everything even though credit wasn't due to him and if you didn't think

along his lines we were thinking the long way so we kind of could banged heads. One of those things.

Now were you sorry that that happened or was it no big deal because you had the fire department

game. I read it that I got let go from there because I wanted to really do another pinball

machine there and I was actually in their cat track there and you know I just it was one of those

things where you you've had high hoops and I've seen nothing but dollars signs of potential over there

so yeah I was very sad to be like go over there. Well at the time were they were they working on

the start of the pinball company. Yeah yeah and that's what Ritchie and Python were basically doing

right. Yeah well we were all doing I mean at that time that I was let go I was working on a pinball

machine also. Oh yeah. Now what was the game you were working on? You know what we were trying to

get different licenses we were trying to get actually I think at the time we were trying to get

the mission of possible license. Did you get very far with that? Yeah.

To me it isn't far unless you got an up-and-workin model you know and so I'd have to say no

I didn't get too far with that a lot of stuff on drawings but we didn't get much farther.

Python doesn't really think Python wanted to keep changing the things so

we wanted to do some kind of circus things. He began circus things and I just wasn't

they'd want to go around that line. Well yeah he did that circus game you know at Williams that

they spent you know millions of dollars to develop and you know right when he was leaving Williams

and coming over to Capcom you know they spent at pinball circus they spent a ton of money on him

and it never really got going. Yeah and you know what there's a lot of tension between this company

and the Williams all of a sudden they were afraid to do things because Mark Richie had a clause

in his contract and he couldn't do any pinball for a certain amount of time once he left and

it was just a little hectic over there when it came to you know getting some of the Williams

guys over by us got a little nerve wrecking. So after you got out of you know Game Star,

Ramstar Capcom whatever you want to call it that you haven't been involved in pinball since then.

Oh no after I left I should say after after I got fired from over there shortly later

a few months later I got a call from Joe Kamikaw over at Sagapinball at the time.

Oh and he was all excited and he wanted to hire me as a game designer for them

so I went over there. And how did that work out? It worked out great for a short period of time.

Again it was that pinball industry you know they spent a lot of money and I didn't have a

contract over there and after I think it after I did hold the knife. Yeah.

Yeah and after that game it was time for more layoffs at that company and I was one of the

guys who got laid off. No I like Golden Eye I thought that was a pretty well done game.

Yeah I like it too thanks. Yeah you know that one shot where you hit that satellite dish and

you know it kind of seems goofy but the way it catches it and then feeds the ball but I just

thought it was really neat. Thanks. Yeah was that your idea? You know what I don't know trying

to think here actually you know what we did we designed a play field again and we had to try to do

these certain features. I know Kamikaw hit something put on the game of course.

Yeah what was it like working for him? Joe's a good guy very smart man very smart man he's the one

that brought a lot of licenses in the pinball you know. Right yeah Hollywood Joe he that I think

that was the party like the most. There you go. There you go. Yeah. Now did you get to meet any of the 007 people?

No I did not. I know he went to a special showing somewhere Joe and he met all of them and

he actually brought me back I think a scorecard signed by Pierce and they were really good to

me over there. He even hit a special pinball machine made for me and you've got a little metal plaque

you know that for the game stand this Golden I 007 Sega pinball machine made especially for award

Poverty. I know. I said he was it was very very good guy. It took good care of me. It's

kind of like kind of a classy guy to work for. Yeah he was he was. Now were you ever going to

you know try and get back into the industry after that? You know what there's not that industry window

was very very small right now. Yeah it's very very small. I mean who's just making a

noise just start right? Right yeah. Yeah so the thing that it doesn't seem too feasible right now.

Now was there anything at Golden I that you know you tried to put in that got costed out of that game?

Oh yeah it was I'm just trying to figure out what it was.

And that was Paul Ferris on the artwork there. Paul Ferris did the artwork right that was one of those

new type of play fields. Was it like a photo or something? Yeah you mean like the the four color

process? Yeah. Yeah Paul was kind of like pushing that pushing that technology. Yeah well he was