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The Making of Pulp Fiction Pinball - Pinball Expo 2023 - Pinball News

Pinball News (Pinball Expo 2023)·video·45m 5s·analyzed·Oct 20, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.040

TL;DR

Pulp Fiction pinball dev team discusses 10-year journey, design philosophy, Tarantino approval process

Summary

A detailed Pinball Expo 2023 panel discussion on the development of Chicago Gaming Company's Pulp Fiction pinball machine, featuring the core creative team (George Petro, Mark Ritchie, Scott Pekulski, Josh Sharp) discussing a 10-year journey from initial Quentin Tarantino video game pitch through pivotal design decisions, COVID-era remote collaboration, and licensing challenges that culminated in delivering a playable prototype to Tarantino's house in October 2022.

Key Claims

  • George Petro and Mark Ritchie worked together on Road Kings approximately 40 years ago, reuniting for Pulp Fiction

    high confidence · George Petro opening statement: 'we see George Petro back again with Mark Ritchie having worked best part of 40 years ago together to bring us Road Kings back in the mid 80s'

  • The project was initially pitched to Play Mechanics as a video game in September 2013, pivoted to pinball in February 2014

    high confidence · George Petro: 'the project came about because we were approached by somebody, an entertainment, a licensing agent for Miramax that said that Quentin Tarantino wanted a video game... in February of 2014, the conversation turned to, no, Quentin wants a pinball machine'

  • Quentin Tarantino explicitly required the game to have a retro aesthetic, rejecting the contemporary design in August 2014

    high confidence · George Petro: 'In August of 2014. We showed that to Miramax, not to Quentin, and they shot back that it needs to have those retro feels'

  • The team initially decided to abandon the project in December 2014 due to Tarantino's retro requirement, but Eugene Jarvis revived it in January 2017

    high confidence · George Petro: 'in 2014 we got the news that the game had to be a retro game from Quentin himself and we said we are out... I got a phone call from Eugene and he said hey remember that Pulp Fiction game... he goes, well, I think we should do that'

  • Quentin Tarantino did not approve the original backglass design (based on movie poster) and requested his own artist create one

    high confidence · George Petro: 'February 2019, Quentin finally responds... he hated the back glass... He actually asked us, do you want one of my artists to do a back glass for you?'

  • COVID-19 pandemic was critical to the game's completion, enabling Tarantino engagement and complex rule implementation during production shutdowns

    high confidence · George Petro: 'March 2020, COVID... if COVID wouldn't have happened, I don't think Pulp Fiction would have happened... productions were shut down... QT finally engaged with us because he had nothing else to do'

Notable Quotes

  • “if COVID wouldn't have happened, I don't think Pulp Fiction would have happened. It literally went from just us batting a ball around and watching lights turn on to, oh, George has time to implement these complex rules that Josh has written.”

    George Petro@ 20:46 — Critical turning point in development; pandemic enabled concentrated effort on rule design and implementation

  • “He was in town. He wrote a book. He was in town promoting the book. He was at Jimmy Kimmel while we were at his house... the housekeeper started getting really agitated because we were actually playing the game... we walked down the driveway... right then there's this car waiting the left turn in the driveway... it was Quentin was in the passenger seat.”

    George Petro @ ~55:00 — Memorable anecdote of Tarantino's impromptu encounter with the game team at his residence; pivotal approval moment

  • “I don't want any ramps on the game. I don't want anything like that. It has to be this old-looking, you know, flat game.”

    Mark Ritchie (paraphrasing Quentin Tarantino)@ 23:22 — Tarantino's explicit design constraint that drove the 'hidden multi-level' architectural solution

  • “Anything new in that game, we would lose Doug for three to five weeks, minimum... I didn't think he was going to do it. but he got a hold of an artist outside to do the 3D models for the characters and then had them cast, and then we had them 3D printed, and then they were hand-painted.”

    Mark Ritchie (on Doug's topper development)@ 32:21 — Illustrates Chicago Gaming owner's deep investment in innovative hardware features beyond manufacturing

  • “I think that's the amazing part... the word that comes to mind for this project and even listening to Mark is restraint. And I think for me on the rules side... the magic of those Williams games where they were just like, well, we're not going to worry about 0 to 7 because that shit's boring. We're going to start at 7, and everything we're going to give you is 7 to 10.”

Entities

George PetropersonMark RitchiepersonScott PekulskipersonJosh SharppersonEugene JarvispersonDougpersonQuentin TarantinopersonPete PetrowskipersonDave Thiel

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Production cost escalation and financial risk: ~$2 million invested before final approval; license expiration (Dec 2022) created approval deadline crunch; team operated with minimal oversight during extended development cycle

    high · George Petro/Josh Sharp: 'We'd spent a couple million dollars... We had an expiring license... We had no approvals... I was losing a little bit of sleep over the summer'

  • ?

    business_signal: Play Mechanics/Raw Thrills corporate structure: Play Mechanics (founded 1995) acquired by Raw Thrills (founded 2003) in 2006; maintains separate offices and cultures; Raw Thrills provides manufacturing/distribution while Play Mechanics handles design

    high · George Petro: 'Play Mechanics is owned by Roth Rills... we work together. Roth Rills does all the manufacturing... but we maintain two different offices. We have two different cultures'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2023 panel featuring core development team; raffle prizes include development playfield; first public detailed discussion of 10-year production history

    high · Panel introduction: 'we're very fortunate to have some raffle prizes tonight... a play field that was actually used in the development of the game'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hidden multi-level playfield strategy circumventing director's flat-game requirement: Mark Ritchie implemented three levels (main field, subway, briefcase shot) deliberately concealed from Tarantino's visual inspection

    high · Mark Ritchie: 'It actually is a multi-level game... three levels... they're all hidden. And we never heard a word from Quentin about it... we read through that'

  • ?

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.135

0:00
and we're going to learn about what the process was leading up to the making of the machine. Before I get going with that, can I ask a couple of questions? Could you raise your hand if you've played the Pulp Fiction game downstairs today?
0:19
Okay, and can you keep your hand up, and anyone that's played the game elsewhere, could you raise your hand? So, looks like pretty much everyone's had the chance to play it, that's great. If you can see down the front, we're very fortunate to have some raffle prizes tonight, which will be drawn at the end, courtesy of Chicago Gaming. We've got a play field that was actually used in the development of the game. And then we've also got a translate from the game. So without further ado, let's talk about the team that brought us the game. we're going to talk about the relationship between play mechanics Chicago gaming and Royal Thrills but even before that what I would like to acknowledge is that we kind of got the band back together on this one in that we see George Petro back again with Mark Ritchie having worked best part of 40 years ago together to bring us Road Kings back in the mid 80's So, without further ado, I'm going to ask each member of the team to introduce themselves and tell us what their history has been in pinball and their contribution to this game. So, George, would you like to kick off? Sure.
1:42
Is this working? Yes. I am George Petro, and Gary pronounced it... Very good. And I am president of Play Mechanics, and I have been in the industry quite some time. I started at Williams Electronics in 1983 and started out at the bottom, which was great. But I got a chance to meet Mark Ritchie.

The team spent approximately $2 million developing Pulp Fiction before achieving Tarantino's approval

medium confidence · George Petro: 'We'd spent, how much, Josh? You're the CFO. We'd spent a couple million dollars so far'

  • Mark Ritchie's playfield design intentionally includes three hidden levels (main playfield, subway level, briefcase shot) despite Tarantino's stated preference for flat, retro designs

    high confidence · Mark Ritchie: 'It actually is a multi-level game. It has, in my opinion, three levels, main play field, a subway, and then that shot to the briefcase... they're all hidden'

  • Scott Pekulski was hired as first-time full art package designer for the game, handling playfield, cabinet, and backglass artwork

    high confidence · Mark Ritchie: 'I'm super proud of all these guys, especially Scott here for stepping up and doing a first-time complete art package'

  • Chicago Gaming owner Doug performed dual roles as manufacturing partner and design partner on mechanical engineering and innovative features like the motorized topper

    high confidence · George Petro: 'Doug loves to push boundaries... he was definitely one of the major design partners, more than just a manufacturing partner'

    • Josh Sharp@ 33:59 — Philosophy statement on rules design emphasizing simplicity and consistent engagement over complexity, invoking classic Williams design principles

  • “Mark gave me my first shot at actually programming a game, which was not wise on his part. But I'm super thankful that he did, and we're still together today.”

    George Petro@ 2:49 — Establishes decades-long professional relationship foundation between lead designer and programmer

  • “I had to hold back a lot because, you know, you look at modern games and there's detail on every single inch of the thing... But I kept holding it back because I would look at games and go, wow, there's really nothing on these, the vintage games, it's very simplistic.”

    Scott Pekulski@ 26:12 — Art direction challenge: balancing modern production standards with intentional retro aesthetic restraint

  • “You always say that stuff, though. You always do that. It's so cool, though. He doesn't like anything until he sees it work, and he's like, oh, that's awesome.”

    George Petro (on Mark Ritchie's design process)@ 22:50 — Character insight into Ritchie's iterative design methodology and self-doubt pattern

  • “We thought, so a year ago, we were on the precipice of bringing this game... We had an expiring license because it had taken so long to do all this. It expired in December of 22. We had no approvals... I was losing a little bit of sleep over the summer.”

    George Petro@ 28:20 — Reveals production crisis point: license expiration, missing approvals, $2M sunk cost at risk

  • “Chicago Gaming handles all sales and distribution of the game, pushing it out to all the different resellers. So you would go to Chicago Gaming to buy it.”

    George Petro@ 12:31 — Clarifies business structure: Chicago Gaming is the OEM/distributor despite Play Mechanics/Raw Thrills development

    • person
    Chris Granerperson
    Play Mechanicscompany
    Raw Thrillscompany
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Miramaxcompany
    Pulp Fictiongame
    Road Kingsgame
    Williams Electronicscompany
    Attack from Marsgame
    8-Ball Deluxegame
    Indiana Jonesgame
    Pinball Expo 2023event

    design_philosophy: Rules design restraint philosophy: Josh Sharp emphasizes learning from 1990s Williams games, prioritizing consistent 7-10 engagement curve over complex 0-10 narratives; minimal display utilization with emphasis on audio/choreography cues

    high · Josh Sharp: 'the magic of those Williams games... we're going to start at 7, and everything we're going to give you is 7 to 10... the sounds that David Thiel had done... that's the kind of stuff that I grew up with in Adams Family'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Intentional aesthetic restraint strategy: Pulp Fiction art direction deliberately minimalist despite modern production standards, inspired by vintage game simplicity; contrasts with contemporary pinball's maximum detail saturation

    high · Scott Pekulski: 'I had to hold back a lot... you look at modern games and there's detail on every single inch... But I kept holding it back because... vintage games, it's very simplistic'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: First-time art package designer Scott Pekulski submitted CV for Tarantino's artist review; indicates director's vetting standards for intellectual property aesthetic control

    high · George Petro: 'they made us send Scott's CV. Like, who is this guy? Like, is he any good? And I remember talking with Scott about it... what do I do with that? Well, first of all, make a CV'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Director-level IP control requiring iterative approvals: Quentin Tarantino maintained veto authority on backglass, required retro aesthetic, demanded no ramps; approval process extended 8+ months with minimal communication

    high · George Petro: 'February 2019, Quentin finally responds... eight months... he hated the back glass... it had to go to him' and 'I don't want any ramps... it has to be this old-looking flat game'

  • $

    market_signal: COVID-19 pandemic impact on production: Tarantino's availability increased due to production shutdowns; enabled team remote collaboration model (Zoom meetings, nightly sync calls) that accelerated rule implementation and complex feature development

    high · George Petro: 'March 2020, COVID... if COVID wouldn't have happened, I don't think Pulp Fiction would have happened... QT finally engaged with us because he had nothing else to do... my goal was one rule a day'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Mark Ritchie mentored George Petro in 1980s at Williams Electronics; 40-year collaborative relationship spanning multiple companies (Williams, Midway, Play Mechanics) demonstrates industry tenure and professional stability

    high · George Petro: 'Mark gave me my first shot at actually programming a game... I'm super thankful... we're still together today. So that says something'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Project revival after 2-year dormancy (Dec 2014-Jan 2017) due to design philosophy mismatch; license expiration crisis in Dec 2022 nearly derailed final approval

    high · George Petro: 'in 2014 we got the news... we said we are out... two years ago... Eugene goes, well, I think we should do that' and 'expiring license... It expired in December of 22. We had no approvals'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Motorized topper feature representing Chicago Gaming owner Doug's innovation focus; 3D-printed characters hand-painted; required custom motor sourcing and 3-5 week development cycles

    high · Mark Ritchie: 'Doug freaked out... I got the motors. I got it all... he got a hold of an artist... 3D models... cast, and then we had them 3D printed, and then they were hand-painted'

    • 2:18
    Sorry. Let's try this one Hopefully it doesn't shock me to death So yeah, I started back in 1983 at Williams Met Mark Ritchie Did some games there Turned into Bob Midway Turned into Midway, did some games there And started playing mechanics, did some more games So now I'm back to pinball So that's me. And just want to say, yes, Mark and I, Mark gave me my first shot at actually programming a game, which was not wise on his part. But I'm super thankful that he did, and we're still together today. So that says something. And I just want to give a quick shout-out to Chris Granner, who was also on the Road Kings team. And, yeah. And just so you all know, Road Kings was his very first game. So just saying. A lot started there. Legends.
    3:24
    Come on. Power. I'm Mark Ritchie, and you're not. Anyway, you guys know my history. I think I've been in the games industry since 1976. I worked at Atari for three years. Then came to Williams Electronics in 1979 and was a technician there for a year and a half, two years. Then I got a start as a game designer. Mike Stroll gave me the opportunity to design a game. The game was Thunderball. Came out barking, was a dog. It was a bad game. Anyway, everybody's entitled to at least one.
    4:06
    I think that was probably my worst game. But did lots of games there, most notably Taxi, Indiana Jones, Fishtails, Chris Granter again. I have to take my hat off to him. He worked on all three of those.
    4:23
    Diner, a lot, a ton of games over the years. And then, you know, after that, I kind of left Williams, went to Capcom, was there for about four years, had some success, built Kingpin, designed and built Kingpin.
    4:39
    Never got sold. Nine samples were made. People loved the game. Who knows what happens to it now. From there, I went to IT. It was at Incredible Technologies for seven years. Again, Chris Graner was there.
    4:58
    I did a video pinball. You may have seen it. Orange County Choppers. also a dog. So that's two dogs. Sorry.
    5:08
    Did not work out. You're not selling yourself. Well, I'm not going to sell myself on that pretense. It was horrible. Anyway, since then I got back with my buddy George over here. I was producer for Big Buck Hunter while IT was building that. So I was working between IT and play mechanics back and forth. It was a fun job, sort of. On the play mechanics side, it was fine. The other side, not so much fun. But anyway, I left there in 2005 and joined Roth Rills and was there for a year doing more Buckhunter stuff. Then I moved to play mechanics and was doing more Buckhunter stuff. And then this opportunity came about, I hate to say it, 10 years ago. George steps up and says, hey, what do you think about doing a pinball?
    6:03
    That's about how much time passed. And I went, yeah, I'm in. Let's do it. And that's where I'm at today. So I don't think I'll be that long.
    6:20
    So I'm Scott Pekulski. I'm the artist on Pulp Fiction. And I started in, I think it was 94, at Capcom. And I worked with Chris Granner.
    6:30
    Oh, my gosh. That again. And then from there I moved to Konami, did a few games that weren't very good, and then I went to Midway and did Carnival, and that was a big highlight there. And from there we did a little consumer stuff, and then I moved on to play mechanics in 2003,
    6:52
    and I've been working there ever since doing Redemption and video games and mostly into design and conceptual. and now I had an opportunity to do this, and it was just one of these once-in-a-lifetime things. So I was very excited because in art school I was an illustrator major, so I was finally getting a chance to use my skills. That's it.
    7:19
    I'm Josh Sharp. My dad worked with Chris Graner for quite a while. So I've been in the pinball world since I was a fetus, so I don't really remember ever not being in it. Real life, I am the chief financial officer for Roth Thrills. I joined them in 2006, and when I learned about this game from Eugene, they were, George and Mark were already well on their way, and I just started bugging Mark a lot.
    7:56
    I actually went back through and I sent, within the first 72 hours that I learned about the project, I sent Mark 17 emails with real suggestions and asking him for stuff.
    8:09
    And fortunately, Mark didn't tell me to go away. So I've kind of just been hanging around ever since. and it has been, for me personally, a dream come true to just get to hang out with these guys who, as a kid, you know, these guys are my idols. Chris Graner, also one of my idols.
    8:29
    But it's, yeah, I still feel like I deserve to be with these guys. I still look up to them so much, and shut up, George. I'm done.
    8:39
    Okay, thank you. George, can I turn to you now? Could you explain the relationship between the parties involved? We've got Raw Thrills, we've got Chicago Gaming, and we've got Play Mechanics. What's the connection between the three? Great question.
    9:00
    So Play Mechanics is actually, well, not older than Chicago Gaming, maybe technically by name, but Play Mechanics, I started in 1995 and struggled for many years to pay people and make games. and in 2003, my good buddy Eugene Jarvis started Raw Thrills and did not struggle to pay people and make games. And in 2006, we went to dinner one night and decided we should probably put the companies together because we had a lot of potential but no money. He had a lot of money and a lot of games and stuff but just needed more. So we did that in 2006. So Play Mechanics is owned by Roth Rills, and so we work together. Roth Rills does all the manufacturing for all of our games, for Roth Rills and Play Mechanics games, but we maintain two different offices. We have two different cultures, and we definitely would have never done pinball if the Play Mechanics office wasn't open, right, would you say? So that's us, Roth Rills and Play Mechanics, so we're a unit. and then Chicago Gaming, of course, everybody knows them as a manufacturer of arcade games and then Doug, who owns Chicago Gaming, started doing the remakes and I remember when he came out with Attack from Mars remake and seeing it at the show the first time and really kind of marveling at what he had done and always had a lot of respect for what he had put together and the quality that he put into those games. So when it came time to, you know, I don't want to get too forward in the story, but I went to Doug. Mark and I decided to go to Doug to buy parts for putting together what was going to become Pulp Fiction. And Doug would deliver them himself in his car, and he would say, what are you guys doing here? What are you guys doing around here? And he'd sniff around. He goes, don't get me wrong, I want no part of it. That's what he said. So I'll just leave that there. We'll pick that up later. So Chicago Gaming is the manufacturer of Pulp Fiction. But more than that they were a design partner in just there so many different decisions that went into the game and Doug loves to push boundaries on a lot of stuff and he was definitely one of the major design partners, more than just a manufacturing partner, but a design partner in the game. What's Eureka Design? Oh, sorry. You know what? I saw that out of the corner of my eye. I'm just going to say the other team members because they're on there. So Dave Thiel, of course, everybody knows Dave. Dave was our sound guy on the project, and it was awesome because I'd never worked with Dave before, but he's amazing.
    11:48
    And then Yuriko's design is Pete Petrowski, who used to work at Williams and Bally, and Pete did all the mechanical engineering for the game, and then, of course, Chicago Gaming. And the funny story about Pete was we invited him in to ask him if he would do our mechanical engineering, and I didn't tell him what we were working on. and when we said pinball, his face literally dropped, like, down. He goes, you're not serious, are you?
    12:15
    So he did a great job, too. So if someone is buying a Pulp Fiction game, who are they buying it from? Are they buying it from Play Mechanics? Are they buying it from War Thrills or Chicago Gaming? I love these questions.
    12:30
    Chicago Gaming. So Chicago Gaming handles all sales and distribution of the game, pushing it out to all the different resellers. So you would go to Chicago Gaming to buy it. So a question for the audience. Is there anyone in the audience that may have ordered a Pulp Fiction game?
    12:47
    One or two hands going up. So when are they going to get it? Talk to Doug. Shall we move on then to the... I don't know. I've got mine. I have mine. I got mine too. We're doing all right.
    13:08
    I have a game. You good? So, how did the project come about? How did the project come about? I don't want to dominate the whole conversation, but I'm going to go through these key dates real quick because I went back through my e-mails and I'm literally the only one that knows all these dates. So, the project came about because we were approached by somebody, an entertainment, a licensing agent for Miramax that said that Quentin Tarantino wanted a video game. And we make video games, so we're in. That was September of 2013.
    13:48
    So we had our first meeting with Miramax in October. In December, Scott and I got to work on a video game concept that we thought was really, really cool. and we presented that. And after we presented it, in February of 2014, the conversation turned to, no, Quentin wants a pinball machine.
    14:10
    So, okay. Now what? In May, I had to talk to Eugene about it to see if he wanted to do pinball. And he was into it, and he wrote me a nice Eugene email. I was going to read it tonight, but we'll run short on time. It's really funny, but in only Eugene speak. So we decided to do pinball, and then Mark jumped in in July of 2014 to start designing a pinball. And everybody knows what pinball looks like these days, so we went about designing a pinball that looks very much like a contemporary machine. You can see it there. It would be great. We could play movie clips. We could do all that kind of stuff. in August of 2014.
    14:58
    We showed that to Miramax, not to Quentin, and they shot back that it needs to have those retro feels.
    15:06
    That does not. So we kind of didn't know what to do at that point. In October, we were actually talking about this last night. We got word that another company was looking to license Pulp Fiction. Are we going to do anything? and then in 2014 we got the news that the game had to be a retro game from Quentin himself and we said we are out we're not doing this game so that was December 2014 I don't know what happened in between 2014 and January of 2017 but I got a phone call from Eugene and he said hey remember that Pulp Fiction game I said yeah and he goes what are we doing with that I said, oh, we decided not to do that like two years ago. He goes, well, I think we should do that. So May 2017, I picked up on working the license again. License was finally signed in July 2017.
    16:05
    October 2017, Josh comes on board and writes rule set number one. I don't think we even had a game yet.
    16:14
    January 2018, we had a new concept. Pete Petrowski came on board. February 2018, feedback from Quentin. More changes. We put the Pulp Fiction in the middle of the play field. We didn't have that. I don't know if you even have pictures of those. We didn't have that originally. But I would say by May of 2018, the design resembled what you see today. It had some small differences, but pretty close. So we submitted that. And by September 2018, we had no response from Quentin. But we decided we're just going to do this. we're not even going to, we're just going to go for it, right? Oh, yeah, that's the original play field right there. No pulp fiction in the middle, more character-based.
    16:58
    So we just started going forward. Oh, by the way, at that time, it was decided that I was going to program it. So I got a new job at Play Mechanics. I got to, yeah, me. I didn't want to bother our other engineers because they were busy with making video games, And I thought that this had the probably 50% chance of being viable, so I figured I would just do it. And, you know, Mark and I could at least get it to a point where we could prove whether it worked or not. And that was in 2018. February 2019, Quentin finally responds. So what is that, like eight months? That's really hard to work when people don't respond for eight months. and he said he hated the back glass. So that's what we got out of that. Do you have a back glass picture, Rich? Because that was, what Scott did was the original movie poster as the back glass and he hated that. He said he never wanted to see it again. And he actually asked us, do you want one of my artists to do a back glass for you? And they made us send Scott's CV. Like, who is this guy? Like, is he any good? And I remember talking with Scott about it. He's like, what do I do with that? And it's like, well, first of all, make a CV. So you can, yeah, next question, resume.
    18:27
    So anyway, Scott did what he does best. He conceptualized what became a great back glass. But moving on, March. Can we just say a straw after that back glass? Oh, I think Bush has it.
    18:44
    Sorry, Butch's presentation is in order and I'm just destroying it. Oh, that's awesome. Actually, it's important to see that because that's what we talked about, was having that big centerpiece.
    19:00
    Yeah. I made the poster in the middle and more photographic heads around it. And that's what he did not want. Yeah. So you wanted it more like a vintage vibe, so I went back to look at old vintage games and kind of emulate that feeling, and that's where that came from. Nailed it.
    19:26
    Okay, so March 2019, rule set 2.0 is created. Rule set 2.0. I had to throw out rule set 1.0. That's just the beginning of it, yeah, right? Literally the rules document is like 75 pages. that's what Josh brings it's awesome April 2019 new back glass concept sent May 2019 Chicago Gaming jumps on board August 2019 QT approves the back glass when you say QT were you talking to him or no to his assistant Always. QT does not carry a cell phone. Oh, so he was making the decisions. It's not like our license is where there's a team that. Yeah, yeah. It had to go to him. And then I'll cut this all short. March 2020, COVID.
    20:26
    And then QT finally engaged with us because he had nothing else to do. Literally productions were shut down.
    20:33
    You know, I know. Yeah, there you go, COVID. That's my basement, actually. we can all have our feeling about COVID, but if COVID wouldn't have happened, I don't think Pulp Fiction would have happened. It literally went from just us batting a ball around and watching lights turn on to, oh, George has time to implement these complex rules that Josh has written. And we worked remotely, but every night we would meet. Like my goal was one rule a day. One rule a day. and we would meet at night on like whatever, Zoom or whatever. We would meet. Sometimes we would get together with our masks on, but every night we would meet on FaceTime or something and Josh would go, aim the camera at that. What are you doing there? What's that? Why is that light turning on? And we literally fashioned the game during that time. And then in July of 2020, Dave Thiel got on board and I'm going to leave it there because then we made the game. And talking of the gun, can I bring you in, Mark? Could you tell us about your experiences of evolving the play field? Sure.
    21:44
    Initially, I was kind of bummed out. I, you know, was not. I've had this great, like, wide-body design and cool ramp shots and a screen and everything that I thought was going to be, you know, now. And shot down. No. All gone. Redesigned the play field from scratch. Bottom up. narrow body.
    22:07
    But we started to get it right when we figured out the whole theme. That made it a lot easier for me somehow when I knew that we were doing this retro thing. I thought, you know, I'll just check out a bunch of older games. You know, the inline targets kind of came off of 8-Ball Deluxe. That inspired me there.
    22:26
    The top center hole a lot of that was out of again old daily machines that I had seen seen you know and one thing I did have from the beginning on both versions was the briefcase That was the first feature for the game, and it stuck with it all the way through. And I thought I was going to totally suck. I remember that. I go, this is never going to work. Right, you always say that stuff, though.
    22:50
    You always do that. It's so cool, though. He doesn't like anything until he sees it work, and he's like, oh, that's awesome.
    22:57
    So, yeah. Anyway, yeah, this was our first. Originally I had it on the other version up in the middle of the play field on the right-hand side, kind of where the idle was on Indiana Jones. But after getting with Pete, we decided it would be much better in the back right corner. And then we were able to do the lock mechanism and everything behind the back panel, which was really slick because Quentin had laid down. I don't want any ramps on the game. I don't want anything like that. It has to be this old-looking, you know, flat game. So it actually is a multi-level game. It has, in my opinion, three levels, main play field, a subway, and then that shot to the briefcase. That makes three. And they're all hidden. And we never heard a word from Quentin about it. He was cool with it. So we kind of read through that. Hey, man, we're going to have cool stuff on this game regardless. You may not see it, but it's there. So from that, it was pretty easy for me. I mean, we just got into the rules and, you know, some cool things happened. That's why I'm using the force to get the wiring finished.
    24:06
    It was close, but that was a mess. It was horrible. That was the first, I don't know, George, you remember better than I do, dates. I don't know when that was, but way back. That's Whitewood. And I became a programmer. Whitewood number one. Programmers always had the right. Programmers always have to write the matrices for like switches and lamps. So I had to, Mark goes, I need lamp assignments. I'm like, oh, I guess I'm programming. I'll make lamp assignments for you. And then he did that.
    24:38
    Oh, you would have missed. I think the coolest thing for me this time around was getting back into pinball after a 27-year hiatus. I was pretty nervous about it at first, you know, But once I started doing it, it all kind of came back and started to be fun. And we were all equally excited about it once we got into the theme. And all the stuff that comes out of that movie was just like, oh, my God, this is going to be kick-ass.
    25:06
    And I think we did that. And I'm super proud of all these guys, especially Scott here for stepping up and doing a first-time complete art package, which I think is amazing. So I had a lot of help. these guys were real passionate about it, and as passionate as I was. And that makes for any good team environment, you know. And I think, for sure, that's the thing that kind of hurled me through it, you know, after being away from it for so long.
    25:36
    Okay, thanks for that. So we've looked at the play field and the design of the play field. Scott, can I ask you to tell us about arting the play field and perhaps the cabinet and anything else that you think would be interesting?
    25:50
    Well, the biggest thing was the retro style. I had to hold back a lot because, you know, you look at modern games and there's detail on every single inch of the thing and everywhere.
    26:04
    And, like, on a play field there's just a lot of blue. And I keep looking at the blue and going, should I leave this much blue? Or should I put a cityscape here or something? But I kept holding it back because I would look at games and go, wow, there's really nothing on these, the vintage games, it's very simplistic. So I tried to, as much as I can, put detail where your eye would go, but not have just detail everywhere. And I think, but what I really like the most is the side art for some reason. I really think that's powerful. I wanted it to be a stencil, you know, really bad, and Doug said no. but I was really hoping for a stencil. I thought that would have been really cool.
    26:51
    But, you know, I had a ton of fun doing it, and that's pretty much it. Were you providing with a style guide like other people? Very minimal, very minimal. So it was more in the exchange of comments, was it, rather than any?
    27:08
    I just did more on my own. and, like, they were not, it wasn't a, there was no conversations, you know. It was kind of like I dug down and I, you know, I looked at stuff.
    27:21
    Like, I looked a lot at the Captain Fantastic black glass and all the little interesting things that were going on, and I tried to put a touch of that in there. Like, well, the people, everybody in the background's in the movie, and there's all a bunch of little details. Like, every bottle has something on it that says something. and little secrets here and there. They're all hidden all over the place. And I thought that was cool in vintage games when you do stuff like that.
    27:48
    Okay, so we've covered off all the major elements that go into making a game. All you've got to do now is build it. When did you get to the point where you had something ready to deliver to Quentin Tarantino?
    28:05
    October 22. We thought, so a year ago, we were on the precipice of bringing this game. We literally had games ready to come to Pin Expo. But we had, number one, an expiring license because it had taken so long to do all this. It expired in December of 22.
    28:30
    We had an expiring license. We had no approvals. So, you know, I was losing a little bit of sleep over the summer, just like, you know, this could go really bad. We spent about, we'd spent, how much, Josh? You're the CFO. We'd spent a couple million dollars so far. So, you know, we had no approvals and nothing. And so a little bit running by the seat of our pants, but we tend to do that sometimes.
    28:54
    And I had worked with Quentin's, I appealed to Quentin's assistant. I'm like, look, I'm in a bad place. We need to get something moving. And we literally got people to move for us, but Quentin needed to see the game.
    29:08
    We couldn't show it until he saw it. And he was going to be in L.A. at the end of October. I'm going, well, that timing doesn't really work for us. It didn't really matter. So we changed our plan, didn't bring it out at Pin Expo, but we took a game to L.A. and delivered it at his house.
    29:28
    Scott was with me, and my son Nick was with me. That's me carrying the topper because it was so fragile it couldn't ship with the game. That's through LAX. And then that's me in Quentin's basement, actually, making sure the game is actually working. So there it is set up. You can see all his little tchotchke in the back there.
    29:48
    And, you know, it's just an interesting story. He was in town. He wrote a book. He was in town promoting the book. He was at Jimmy Kimmel while we were at his house, and it was specifically set up that he wouldn't be there while we were there. And I remember the housekeeper started getting really agitated because we were actually playing the game. We were, like, having a good time. And the housekeeper started getting really agitated. It's like, oh, you must go now. You must go. We're like, oh, I guess we're leaving. I hope the game works. And really she was, like, shooing us out of the house. And we were in the driveway kind of just milling around a little bit, talking. And we decided we'd walk down the driveway because it was kind of up on a hill. And we walked down the driveway, and we don't have this picture, But I go, Scott, get in front of his gate. We've got to take a picture of this. And literally Scott kind of gets in front of the gate like, I'm at Quentin's house. He's like, yeah. And right then there's this car waiting the left turn in the driveway. And Scott gets out of the way and the car comes in, and it was Quentin was in the passenger seat. He's like, who is this? He's like, who is this guy? And I guess he played the game, and he absolutely loved it. And right at that point, it was like everything was good. As soon as he loved it, we got a license extension. We got all the approvals for all the other talent. Everything just fell into place. So then we could actually move forward, so we had to reset our clock. So this is the first time we've actually seen the topper or referred to it during this seminar. Who's the best person to talk to us about the development of the topper? Doug. Okay. I think Mark can talk about it because it was really Mark and Scott's brainchild but Doug went over the top no pun intended yeah I basically gave Doug like a 2D sketch of what we were looking for kind of a thumbnail two characters here here's the cars Scott you got involved in that George you too you helped on that star field in the back it was George's idea so this was very much you know everybody was all in and we gave it to Doug and Doug freaked out he was like oh, I can make that.
    31:58
    I can do that for you guys. I know what to do. I got the motors. I got it all. We talked about how it was. We call it diving into the rabbit hole. And this is what Doug did on a regular basis. Anything new in that game, we would lose Doug for three to five weeks, minimum. So this was no different. But, man, I didn't think he was going to do it. but he got a hold of an artist outside to do the 3D models for the characters and then had them cast, and then we had them 3D printed, and then they were hand-painted and all this crazy stuff. Before we knew it, we had it working. It was just amazing. I remember going, oh, my God, this is going to be so cool.
    32:45
    I was like, oh, my God, another thing to program. It is. Every effect I did had to be rewritten. Yeah, Doug, George was alluding to that earlier. Doug was a huge help with a lot of design elements on that game. And, you know, again, pure passion. The guy loved what he was doing. And it just worked out great. I mean, just everything fit together. You know, it doesn't happen on every game. This one, I thought, went together really well from all sides. So kind of a surreal experience, you know. but yeah Doug is an amazing turns out accountant engineer right we have an accountant pinball player rules guy and an accountant engineer so find your accountant if you want to make a pinball has a decision been made on whether people will be able to buy the topper as a stand alone upgrade talk to Doug ok any final comments on the design before we throw it open to the audience for questions Talk to Joshua about the rules a little bit Okay. I think that's the amazing part. Yeah, I think what Scott brought up when he was doing the artwork, like the word that comes to mind for this project and even listening to Mark is restraint. And I think for me on the rules side, it was the, I mean, no lie, the rules doc is 70 whatever pages and there's a lot of really bad stuff in there because, you know, I'm a nerd, pinball nerd, so it starts with something that, like, only I understand that I think is cool in my mind and then having to make sure that it can be something that can be fun for everybody and, more importantly, with the limited displays that we have to work with, you need to be able to, I'm a firm believer that you need to understand what's going on in order to find that emotional connection to the player when you're doing things. And I think that is something that, like, 90s Williams games did better than, you know, a lot of the games today still. There's the charm that those games have where you're not hitting 11 shots to tell some hour-and-a-half story. You're doing a two-, three-, or four-step thing, and the excitement level. I mean, I can appreciate modern games and being able to take a story from 0 to 10, and I feel like the magic of those Williams games where they were just like, well, we're not going to worry about 0 to 7 because that shit's boring. We're going to start at 7, and everything we're going to give you is 7 to 10. And I feel like we tried to do that as best we could with this through the rules themselves and then through what I find more important is the choreography that George has put on these rules that I was at in Terium yesterday, and the game was off to the side, and I knew where people were in the game just from the sounds that David Thiel had done and the sound effects that George is calling, and that's the kind of stuff that I grew up with in Adam's Family and Twilight Zone in my bedroom, and those moments of starting seance and hearing the cabinet knock while my brother's down the hall, it sticks with you. I'm almost 44 now, but that stuff really meant a lot to me in my teenage years, and it still does. So trying to sort of put that into this was my goal.
    36:29
    So I just want to make one comment, because Josh undersells himself. The rules in the game are amazing. And that was probably one thing that when Mark and I were talking about doing a pinball, I was like, I don't even know what pinball is these days. I mean, seriously, it's so complex. And I love pinball. I mean, I grew up on pinball the same way Josh did just a bunch of years earlier.
    36:50
    But as Mark said, you know, it's supposed to be a single-level game, but it's got a lot of stuff hidden in it. The rules are the same way. You play it, and it seems right away it seems very approachable. but then it can get deep on you quick. And we've been playing this game for, well, whatever, whenever I got the rules right in 2020. I mean, we've been playing it over three years, and we still love it. So it's a lot of fun. Josh just brought a level to it that we would have never achieved if he didn't engage and kind of show us what pinball needs to be. So I feel really good about that because we didn't want to make a game that wasn't going to live up to what people are expecting these days because there was so much about this game that was not what pinball is right now. I was super worried about the rules, but Josh stepped in and made it. Stepped in is the wrong word. He was the right member of the team that we needed, and we're like that. He barged in. He barged in, and we love it.
    37:49
    Okay, you briefly mentioned the sound there, and sound is kind of important in terms of setting the period, and we've talked about how Quentin wanted a retro game. David's not here, he wasn't able to make it. Could you tell us a bit about the development of sound for Pulp Fiction? Yeah, that was actually very interesting because I'd never worked with Dave before. And, you know, Dave, does anybody know who Warren Davis is? Okay, so you got, oh, Chris does. Everybody, Warren and I worked together back at Williams and Warren program Qbert, and he wrote a book like a year ago. And he asked me to read an early version of it and write something for him on it. And I read it, and it had so much about David Thiel in it. And I'm like, wow, Dave goes back really far in the business. I had no idea how many things he had done and how many things he'd been involved with. And he just has so much knowledge. And like Josh said, we wanted to get a certain sound and feel out of this game, and I had those same ideas that I wanted it to be very sonically expressive in the right moments. And Dave just knows what that is. It's like you talk to him about, hey, I need a sound for, you know, we're going to be doing a countdown for this, and you're going to hit this target and collect. He goes, got it. And he wrote all the stuff, and he goes, here's how you run this, and when you jump out of it, you do this. and I'm like, this guy, he's right on top of everything. Spinner sound, the spinner sounds amazing, right? There's super, there's different modes of the spinner, and he came up with these really cool progressions. Just stuff like that, he just knew, and we didn't have to try to explain it, and it was really, really great to work. I mean, I feel like everybody on the team was really good at what they did, and Dave just fit that bill 100%. And I have to say, I had to write a whole new sound system. I had to write everything for this game because we had nothing. We had zero. And so I had to write a sound system and I spent one summer. Leslie, I don't know if you knew that. I was in the basement.
    39:56
    I spent one summer literally back and forth. Dave Thiel was my best friend as we wrote a sound system together to multitrack everything. And he told me how he wanted a script. And yeah, it was crazy. But I did it. And it was awesome.
    40:10
    So at this point, how complete is the game? And what more development work is going to go on? I'm literally putting the final touches on things no one but Josh and maybe a couple other guys will ever see. So it's done, pretty much. Okay. So there's a couple. We've used up all our allotted time. But before we go, we've got two things to take care of. We've got time for maybe one or two questions, and then we'll move on to the raffle and close. So any questions out there?
    40:43
    Over there. Yeah. Oh, okay. So it sounds like Button was very involved in the aesthetic development. Was he involved in the rules development as well?
    40:55
    Not a stitch. Okay. Yeah. He doesn't, you know what, we figured out very early on that all he wanted was an art piece in his house. Because that's what old pinball was. They were art pieces. It has to look good turned off and turned on. And we figured that early, so that's what we focused on. Okay, another question to the guy back in the right. Hi. Question about narrative. What kind of draft did you guys do? Did you guys, I'm thinking, watch the movie a lot of times? Did you read Daniel Pullman's book, Pulp Fiction? And how did you integrate the narrative into the game?
    41:33
    Mark, do you want to really? Probably the easiest implementation I've ever had in front of me. Honestly, there was so much stuff in that movie, and the fact that that movie hops all over the place, back and forth, my first thought with it was it's going to make an excellent pinball machine. It was a question of how we lay the rules out and where things. Really, I think what really sold it was where we placed all the speech calls. So I think we were really careful about where we implemented speech and how we could best take moments of that film and bring them to life on a play field. and I feel like we did a pretty good job of that game. It's very satisfying when you hear, I can't repeat it here, but put it on adult mode and it does the job.
    42:24
    He watched the movie 500 times to answer your question. Yeah, I did. Don, can I ask you to come forward with raffle tickets?
    42:35
    The play field in the back class. So which do you want to raffle first? What do you guys want us to raffle first, play field or backflip? Let them choose.
    42:46
    That's next level. I'm going to count. Are you for hire? Fair choice goes to... This is the dealer's choice.
    43:01
    Drumroll. Are you reading the numbers? It's a blue ticket. Okay. 658090 bingo who's got it somebody's got it okay oh Justin's on Can we have an accountant up here please verify the numbers.
    43:43
    They are accounting. Hand to the table. Here, take this one too. It's good. What's your choice? I'll go with the play field. All right. Enjoy. Nice choice.
    44:01
    I'm good. And if you care to stick around, the team will sign that for you. Thank you, guys. Just outside beyond the doors. And for the last mark, can you pull us a winner, please?
    44:17
    We should read it right side up, I think. 6-5-8-1-4-8. he wants a play field no he wants production games in Europe ok so all that remains is for me to thank you for coming I hope you enjoyed the seminar and found it informative and thank you to the panel and not forgetting Butch who mastered the slides for us Thank you, Birch. Thank you. Bye-bye.