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Keith Elwin breaks down Godzilla's design: toys, shots, strategy, and balancing casual to pro players.
Godzilla is currently ranked #1 on Pinside's Top 100 list
high confidence · Joel states this early in the interview; Keith acknowledges it as 'excessively high' but takes the ranking.
Keith was given the Godzilla theme by George Gomez after Deadpool, when George became overwhelmed
high confidence · Keith: 'I was given this theme a long time ago. I think it was right after Deadpool. George was going to do it... he was overwhelmed and uh he asked me if i wanted to do it.'
The Magna-Grab was originally designed for Avengers but had a geometry flaw that required postponement
high confidence · Keith: 'it was originally going to be on avengers... there was a geometry flaw and it would... I'd have had to redesign the whole game.'
The left building shot was never intended as a playable shot until very late in production due to a sourcing change in magnet cylinder diameter
high confidence · Keith explains: cylinder size change forced playfield redesign weeks before production, making the shot suddenly possible.
The tail whip shot was inspired by a shot from classic Data East Godzilla games
high confidence · Keith: 'I played some um classic uh I guess you could call them classic godly baby b games and they had some really weird uh unusual shots uh and one of them was a deadly weapon.'
Avengers had a shorter development window (~10 months) and was impacted by COVID shutdowns, limiting mechanical innovation
high confidence · Keith: 'Avengers was a victim of both, uh, kind of a short... I think I had a 10 month window to do Avengers... when a COVID hit and we were shut down.'
The Soul Gym mode with limited flips was inspired by Carl D'Angelo's modified Creature tournament variant at Pinball at the Lake
medium confidence · Keith: 'Carl did something similar at a Pinball at the Lake tournament... when I was thinking of this, I went and looked for footage and I was like yeah that's actually kind of cool.'
George Gomez pressured Keith to add helix wire ramps to Godzilla's upper flipper ramp after seeing straight ramps on Avengers
“Yeah, it seems a little excessively high, but I'll take it. Yeah. I mean, do you want to rank it? Do you want to put it somewhere else? If you just give it to, you know, give you give yourself some room to grow, that kind of thing.”
Keith Elwin @ ~3:30 — Shows humility about Godzilla's #1 ranking; reflects the design philosophy of always having room for improvement.
“I watch his streams, and then I adjust the rule set accordingly.”
Keith Elwin @ ~6:00
“when that was a whitewood in the lab. George is like, flip it. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me what you think. Flip it. Tell me what you think.”
Keith Elwin @ ~10:00 — Reveals George Gomez's iterative feedback style during development; shows collaborative design process at Stern.
“I wanted to do some crazy, um, multiple the way diverter. Um, so that, that's how I, I went into it and I was like, Well, I can have this vertical diverter that changes three different shots.”
Keith Elwin @ ~28:00 — Explains the building mechanism's core concept: vertical diverter as the foundation; shows shot-first, toy-second design philosophy.
“I actually prefer Attack from Mars because I like bashing the center and getting the ball back right away. The medieval castle is really cool. It's animated, but I hate shooting it and waiting for the ball to dribble back out.”
Keith Elwin @ ~32:00 — Reveals the design philosophy behind the building's two-stage bash mechanic—learned from classic game analysis.
“I didn't have time to second guess anything I had to get it right the first time so I really didn't take any uh monumental risks”
Keith Elwin @ ~55:00 — Reflection on Avengers' tight schedule forcing conservative design; contrasts with Godzilla's more expansive approach.
“Nothing is really locked up right away. There's so many different modes available in battles. And then even unlocking a Tier 2 battle isn't that hard. So my goal is just like an average player can get there.”
Keith Elwin — Core design philosophy for Godzilla: accessibility for casual players balanced with deep content for experts.
community_signal: Keith Elwin actively watches Carl D'Angelo's Godzilla streams and adjusts rule set updates based on what elite players discover, demonstrating responsive post-release design iteration.
high · Keith: 'I watch his streams, and then I adjust the rule set accordingly.' Also: Mark Rid created special Insider Connect callouts for Carl based on observation of his gameplay patterns.
competitive_signal: Soul Gym mode (flip-limited gameplay) was inspired by Carl D'Angelo's Pinball at the Lake tournament variant, showing competitive scene innovations influencing manufacturer design.
medium · Keith: 'Carl did something similar at a Pinball at the Lake tournament... when I was thinking of this, I went and looked for footage and I was like yeah that's actually kind of cool.'
design_philosophy: Building left-shot was unintended and never given rules until very late in production due to sourcing accident. Keith acknowledges initial 'yeah, we'll do something with this eventually' placeholder, showing rushed late-stage problem-solving.
high · Keith: 'we realized, Oh, now you can actually shoot this shot... we actually had to redesign part of the building so the ball wouldn't get stuck... when the game released, it didn't do anything because it was such a last-second scramble change.'
design_philosophy: Community speculation about Stern increasing Keith's budget for Godzilla vs. Avengers. Keith attributes resource differences to time constraints and engineer choices rather than budget allocation, suggesting budget was not the limiting factor on Avengers.
medium · Joel: 'there's a bunch of people that have made comments about the bomb like when this game came out they're like well clearly stern got smart and gave keith more of a bomb.' Keith attributes differences to engineering choices and cost optimization, not budget increase.
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high confidence · Keith: 'george she was like saw my ramp and he's like this is boring put a helix on it... I don't care what it costs. We're playing the Helix on this.'
“I definitely learned a lesson with uh avengers where i was like yeah hey these uh each one of these gems does something you know unique and it changes the game uh but i always i always intended that to be for players like carl”
Keith Elwin @ ~83:00 — Shows iterative learning: complexity in Avengers confused casual players; Godzilla buries advanced mechanics deeper to avoid confusion.
design_philosophy: Keith learned from Avengers' confused casual players regarding gem perks, leading to deliberate strategy in Godzilla to 'bury advanced mechanics deeper' and avoid choice overload for non-expert players.
high · Keith: 'I definitely learned a lesson with uh avengers... I get all this feedback I don't know this gem though where do I put I'm confused. I took a lesson with that and was just like, I'll bury this stuff even further in the game.'
design_philosophy: Keith Elwin deliberately reserves playfield space early in design for toys ('four posts with a gigantic square rubber') rather than designing toys first, then retrofitting them. This contrasts with assumptions about toy-first design.
high · Keith: 'I'll lay out I'll make a layout but I'll reserve space for toys... I just had like four posts with a gigantic square rubber there I said okay something cool is going to go here.'
manufacturing_signal: Late-stage playfield change (magnet cylinder diameter sourcing failure) forced emergency redesign weeks before Godzilla production, demonstrating supply chain fragility and manufacturing timeline pressures.
high · Keith: 'we couldn't source that material in time. So we had to go one of the slightly smaller diameter... we realized, Oh, now you can actually shoot this shot. Crap. So we actually had to redesign part of the building.'
personnel_signal: Harrison (engineer) plays significant cost-optimization role on Godzilla, identifying hardware savings opportunities ($5 per unit cited as example). Keith credits engineer for mechanical design on building and cost management.
high · Keith: 'A lot of that's for the engineer. Harrison designs a lot of these. Hey, I can cut five dollars out of this by using this type of hardware or whatever.'
personnel_signal: Godzilla development timeline: Keith assigned theme 'a long time ago' after Deadpool with '2.5 years' development window, then paused during Avengers crunch (~10 months), resuming 'full steam' post-Avengers release.
high · Keith: 'it was still uh still like two and a half years out... crunch time came on avengers and i kind of abandoned it for a while uh focused on avengers and then uh after avengers released and i expect full steam on uh godzilla.'
personnel_signal: George Gomez's design feedback on Godzilla (forced helix wire ramp addition) suggests continued active creative direction by CCO even on designer-led projects, implying collaborative approval process.
high · Keith: 'george she was like saw my ramp and he's like this is boring put a helix on it... I don't care what it costs. We're playing the Helix on this.'
product_strategy: Godzilla had post-release rule updates planned when interviewed, with annihilation bonuses and city perks being early content, followed by power-ups in next update to add strategic depth for competitive players.
high · Keith: 'some members are seeing people wow there's only that much strategy in this game it's like well yeah because yeah just wait... Now the next update should have the power ups, which will further confound Carl.'