Stern Pinball: Making of Aerosmith Pinball

Stern Pinball·video·5m 7s·analyzed·May 13, 2017

Analysis

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TL;DR

Stern's Aerosmith pinball: Design process, lip-sync animation, music-driven gameplay innovation.

Summary

This is a behind-the-scenes documentary from Stern Pinball about the development of the Aerosmith pinball machine. John Borg (designer), Lonnie Robb (software engineer), Charles Ernst (CG art director), and other team members discuss the creative process, including 30 minutes of lip-synced Steven Tyler animations, playfield toys inspired by 'Toys in the Attic' and 'Love in an Elevator,' and the use of advanced LCD display technology. The game received positive early feedback and was listed in the top five best products at a show.

Key Claims

John Borg has designed approximately 25-30 games over his career
high confidence · John Borg, game designer at Stern Pinball, speaking directly about his own experience
The Aerosmith machine features 30 minutes of lip-synced animation of Steven Tyler singing each song
high confidence · Opening statement by John Borg describing the project scope
The toy box and elevator toys were the primary playfield inspiration elements from Aerosmith albums
high confidence · John Borg explaining his design process and song inspiration
The LCD display used in Aerosmith has roots in previous Stern displays (previously 128x32 resolution)
high confidence · Lonnie Robb, software engineer, describing display technology evolution
Aerosmith was listed in the top five best products at a recent show
high confidence · Charles Ernst stating feedback from a recent show demonstration

Notable Quotes

“I've probably done about 25 or 30 games over the years. Back in the 90s I did Guns N' Roses and I've recently done Metallica and Kiss and now Aerosmith.”
John Borg@ 0:35 — Establishes John Borg's pedigree as a legendary designer with major rock band licensing experience
“I told him I wanted to do a toy box with a Jester character busting through the lid and he sent me an ink drawing of what the Toybox and the character would look like and I just about fell over because it gorgeous”
John Borg@ 1:10 — Illustrates the collaborative creative process and emotional investment in mechanical toy design
“Music's influenced all of us. When you first heard Toys in the Attic, you never thought of a toy box and a Jackie, and he's talking to you, and that's what we do.”
Lonnie Robb@ 1:57 — Emphasizes how music licensing and song storytelling drive game design and emotional connection
“if I can make one shot that will do three rules at once my score's going to be like times three or something, add all three of those things together”
Lonnie Robb@ 2:44 — Reveals design philosophy of layered rule complexity and scoring multipliers in modern pinball
“So all of your 70s bands like back in the day 60s and 70s the bands had cartoon versions The Monkees even had a cartoon version of themselves, the Beatles.”
Charles Ernst@ 3:42 — Provides historical design context for the cartoon/animated approach to band-themed entertainment

Entities

John BorgpersonLonnie RobbpersonCharles ErnstpersonDirty Donnieperson GregpersonSteven TylerpersonAerosmithgameStern Pinballcompany

Signals

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design_innovation: 30 minutes of lip-synced animation of Steven Tyler using advanced LCD display technology that exceeds previous Stern display capabilities
high · John Borg and Lonnie Robb describe extensive lip-sync work and LCD display advancement from 128x32 to new higher-resolution display
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design_philosophy: Designers systematically identified Aerosmith songs and album art as inspiration for specific playfield toys (toy box from 'Toys in the Attic', elevator from 'Love in an Elevator')
high · John Borg: 'I looked at some of the things that were on the Aerosmith albums and things that were in the songs and the two things that stood out the most'
?
design_philosophy: Rules designed to layer multiple simultaneous rule states on single shots, creating multiplied scoring effects ('three rules at once... score times three')
high · Lonnie Robb explaining multi-rule simultaneous activation mechanics and their scoring impact
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gameplay_signal: Music is central to gameplay experience and player emotional engagement; visual and mechanical elements tied directly to song recognition and album art
high · Lonnie Robb: 'Music's influenced all of us. When you first heard Toys in the Attic, you never thought of a toy box and a Jackie, and he's talking to you, and that's what we do'
?
design_innovation: Used cartoon aesthetic for band animation drawing on 1960s-70s precedent (Beatles, Monkees cartoons), applied to modern LCD display technology
high · Charles Ernst: 'So all of your 70s bands like back in the day 60s and 70s the bands had cartoon versions The Monkees even had a cartoon version of themselves, the Beatles'

Topics

Design Process and InspirationprimaryAnimation and Display TechnologyprimaryRock Band Licensing in PinballprimaryPlayfield Toy MechanicsprimaryRule Design and Scoring ComplexitysecondaryTeam Collaboration in Game DevelopmentsecondaryPinball History and Band Cartoonsmentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Team members express enthusiasm and pride in their work. Feedback from public showing was positive (top five products). Tone is celebratory without being hyperbolic. Some light self-deprecating humor from Charles Ernst.

Transcript

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Aerosmith is just an iconic band that we just had to make a pinball machine for. We did 30 minutes of lip syncing. You know, like animation, real lip syncing of Steven Tyler singing each song. You hit the start button and you hear the music start playing. You're like, whoa, that's pretty cool. I remember that music when I first heard it. My name is John Borg and I'm a game designer at Stern Pinball Inc. I've probably done about 25 or 30 games over the years. Back in the 90s I did Guns N' Roses and I've recently done Metallica and Kiss and now Aerosmith. I started working on the project about a year ago and I looked at some of the things that were on the Aerosmith albums and things that were in the songs. and the two things that stood out the most that I went after was the toy box from Toys in the Attic and the elevator from Love in an Elevator. I had Dirty Donnie, who was the artist on Aerosmith, take a look at the toy box. I told him I wanted to do a toy box with a Jester character busting through the lid and he sent me an ink drawing of what the Toybox and the character would look like and I just about fell over because it gorgeous Together with the programmer, I lay out the game, I put up inserts for initial game rules, and some things look better on paper than they do in reality. We go back, we make a lot of changes where, you know, it's like we're trying to hit a moving target, you know, the whole time we're working on the game. My name is Lonnie Ropp, and I am a software engineer here at Stern Pivot. The best part about working on the Aerosmith Pivot Project, it's always with music-themed games, it's the music. Music's influenced all of us. When you first heard Toys in the Attic, you never thought of a toy box and a Jackie, and he's talking to you, and that's what we do. The LCD display has roots in our previous display. Our last display was a 128 by 32 display. I can do cooler things with this display relative to the game. You make the shot. I see a semi pull up, honk, honk. Make another shot. See a limo pull up Fans are cheering So while all that happening the ball goes into the pop bumpers Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop on top of all of that The reason why that important cool and pinball is if I can make one shot that will do three rules at once my score's going to be like times three or something, add all three of those things together. When you do get there, and you finally do set up the sequence where you have three or four or five or six things all going at the same time, you're like, ah, this is just like harmony. It is a finely tuned instrument. Ah. My name is Charles Ernst. I am the CG art director. I help facilitate all of our fancy new technology that's gone into the LCD monitors. So usually the designer, John, and Greg kind of flesh out stuff in advance. then by the time Lonnie is brought in on programming and then me we kind of already have like an established look that we're going to try to make work. With Aerosmith they play a lot of small venues and large venues but they don't have like a theme that kind of goes with Aerosmith. You know they're just a rock band's rock band. I mean Steven Tyler does some crazy stuff but for the most part those guys are just up there playing and rocking and doing their thing So all of your 70s bands like back in the day 60s and 70s the bands had cartoon versions The Monkees even had a cartoon version of themselves, the Beatles. And so far it's been getting pretty good feedback from everybody. They were like, oh, that's great, it's funny. They're playing in a honky-tonk, and now they're playing, like, why are they on the roof of a bus? That's hilarious. For me, those are enjoyable things. Those are like, hey, I made this happen. And most of the time you show it to somebody and they're like, it sings. What do you want? Congratulations? I don't know. So it's kind of funny that you did something that nobody's done before with software that wasn't meant to do those things. We went to see a show at the game a few weeks ago, and it was listed in the top five best products of the show. So we were pretty happy about that. There's a lot of thought they put into it, and it was a lot of thought by people that were pinball nuts. When you see a magic trick, then you go, do it again. If we've done our job, they play the game, and it's over, and they go, I'll play it again.