Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 266: Keith Johnson keeping us busy

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·43m 14s·analyzed·Jun 26, 2020
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Keith Johnson discusses JJP design philosophy, Pirates updates, and confirms planned co-op mode for future releases.

Summary

Keith Johnson, head of software at Jersey Jack Pinball, discusses his career trajectory from online pinball forums in 1992 to designing complex rule sets for games like Pirates of the Caribbean, Wizard of Oz, and Avatar. He details the collaborative design process, balancing gameplay mechanics, the evolution of video modes, and confirms co-op functionality is planned for the JJP system, though timing remains unclear. Johnson emphasizes the importance of playtesting, community feedback, and historical pinball knowledge in modern game design.

Key Claims

  • Keith Johnson created the video mode concept for Elvis pinball and originally wanted to call it 'Flip Flip Revolution' before lawyers intervened

    high confidence · Keith explicitly states: 'The video mode in Elvis was entirely my idea. I pitched it and everyone went for it... I originally wanted it to be literally called Flip Flip Revolution but the lawyers axed it'

  • Pirates of the Caribbean will not receive another official release until the final wizard mode is completed

    high confidence · Keith confirms: 'I think you once said there will not be another release of Pirates of the Caribbean until the final wizard mode is in the game. Yep.'

  • Co-op mode will be implemented on the JJP system at some point, but likely not immediately to avoid players seeing all content too quickly

    high confidence · Keith states: 'I've come to the conclusion that I committed to putting it in... Putting it in our system at some point' and explains they don't 'want to encourage people just to play it and get to the end of the game right away'

  • Keith Johnson has been active on pinball forums since September 1992 on RackDotGames.Pinball, which led him to attend the Papa Tournament in NYC with Kevin Martin

    high confidence · Keith recalls: 'I started on RackDotGames.Pinball back in September... 1992 is when I first got posting access' and credits this with leading to his career trajectory

  • Pirates of the Caribbean underwent multiple rounds of balancing, including doubling the value of all multiball jackpots and super jackpots at one point

    high confidence · Keith explains: 'We definitely went through several rounds of balancing the game... I know at one point we just flat out doubled the value of every multiball, jackpot, super jackpot'

  • The action button (gold collection mechanic) in Pirates was inspired by modern game design patterns where players collect dropped items

    high confidence · Keith states: 'a lot of games you play nowadays, if you do something, they drop stuff and you have to go collect it' and 'I'll play web browser type games or I'll play PS4 type games'

  • A fighting video mode concept for Family Guy (Chicken Fight) was originally designed but later converted to a standard playfield mode because players couldn't understand the mechanic

Notable Quotes

  • “My initial reaction is to tell them why their idea is stupid, you know, or in rare cases, I will sit there and think about it... everyone's got ideas and you should listen to everyone while you're designing because no one knows everything about everything that's fun”

    Keith Johnson @ ~14:30 — Reveals Johnson's design philosophy on accepting player feedback while maintaining designer authority based on experience

  • “There are usually very specific reasons, even if it's unobvious, of why I do things the way I do things. Maybe a plan I have in the future, like a mode is going to affect something, and that's why it's doing that now.”

    Keith Johnson @ ~14:50 — Explains the long-term thinking and hidden design rationale behind JJP's complex rule systems

  • “Making a trip from Blacksburg, Virginia, to New York City, like 12 hours... It's just nuts to think that we did that and it went on to shape, well, really both our careers... it's amazing just one little choice you make on an innocent college day and just changes the trajectory of your whole life”

    Keith Johnson @ ~22:00 — Reflects on how discovering online pinball community in 1992 led to career at Williams, Stern, and Jersey Jack

  • “Pirates has a ton of rules and subtlety to it. And most people don't necessarily know or care about everything that's going on in it. But there's a lot to do and a lot to figure out if you take the time to peel the onion”

    Keith Johnson @ ~30:15 — Describes the depth-versus-accessibility philosophy in designing complex modern JJP games

  • “If you want to play a video game, go play your PS4. Go play Big Buck Hunter... the important stuff is everything that's on the play field and the pinball part”

    Keith Johnson @ ~1:17:00 — Articulates Johnson's design priority: pinball mechanics over digital screen features, relevant to discussion of video modes

  • “I've talked with Scott Denisey about co-op mode... And it's definitely not a bad idea. And I think I've come to the conclusion that I committed to putting it in our system at some point.”

    Keith Johnson @ ~1:19:30 — Confirms JJP's plans to implement co-op gameplay, addressing a feature competitors like Spooky and Stern have already adopted

Entities

Keith JohnsonpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyJoe KatzpersonEricpersonPirates of the CaribbeangameWizard of Ozgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball implementing beta testing system for downloading code updates to customer machines; software infrastructure investment underway

    high · Keith mentions: 'beta tests are running for downloading updates onto your game... We've got a lot of stuff on our plate'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Action button mechanic on Pirates of the Caribbean faced criticism similar to Star Wars implementation; Keith Johnson defends mechanic as intentional design choice borrowing from modern game patterns

    high · Keith acknowledges: 'I was a little perturbed to see Star Wars come out with it before we did' but defends concept as necessary for character-heavy game design

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Johnson views playfield mechanics as primary focus; digital screen features secondary priority, explicitly states preference for pinball over video game elements

    high · Keith states: 'If you want to play a video game, go play your PS4... the important stuff is everything that's on the play field and the pinball part'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Johnson deliberately designs complex rule sets that reward deep player engagement; accessibility to casual players sometimes sacrificed for competitive depth

    high · Keith explains Liar's Dice qualification: 'you don't want a casual player to accidentally be able to get that and have no idea what they're doing and get presented with a wall of tech'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jersey Jack design process involves extensive collaborative playtesting and iterative balance adjustments; multiball values increased significantly to balance mode scoring

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.130

0:00
it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teals you can find everything on pinballprofile.com past episodes search out people you want to find out games you want to find out it's all there on pinball profile you can also follow us on twitter and instagram at pinball profile email us pinball profile at gmail.com and please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher He's been on before, but it's time to catch up with Kiefer. Keith Johnson from Jersey Jack Pinball. Hey, Keith, how are you? I am doing pretty well, Jeff. How are you doing? Good. Everything okay COVID-wise? I mean, it's obviously not where we wanted to be in 2020, but, you know, you make do. Yeah, the whole thing's been wacky. And, you know, certainly I've just been down here in my basement working away. So things have been progressing, but it's strange just being down here all the time. See, now I think of a guy like you who makes these great, amazing, deep rule sets. And I'm thinking, listen, nobody wants COVID around. But if you're going to take advantage of what's in front of you, this has got to be great for you because it gives you, I would assume, more time, less distractions maybe, to go deep into whether it's the latest update coming on Pirates of the Caribbean or whatever's next for Jersey Jack Pinball. Yeah, we've been trying to split our time up into getting the next thing going and working on some additional stuff. And some of the stuff people know about already, like the beta tests are running for downloading updates onto your game. So we've got a lot of stuff on our plate. It's nice to just be able to hammer stuff out. But you definitely miss the interaction of playing with each other and, you know, bouncing things off each other as you're flipping the ball around and that kind of thing. Are you able to have the machines you're working on, past or present or future, at your home? And whether it's Zoom meetings or some sort of interaction with some of your colleagues, whether it's Joe Katz or Eric or Pat or whomever? Yeah, of course we do that. You know, we do phone calls. We do the Zoom thing or Google Meet thing or whatever. Yeah, obviously we can interact, and we have a messenger that we use all the time, Telegram, that we're constantly on and talking with people about stuff. But you're not there just commenting on the game as you're playing it, and that's the thing that we really miss the most, I think. So when a game comes out, whether it's a past game, whether it's one you're working on, and you talk about being there and talking about what's happening in the game, What kind of details are we getting into? Is it light show? Is it, you know, this shot, the angle? Is it stackability? Bring me into one of these conversations. All right. So in general, you're not going to be, when you're at that point playing the game, you're not going to be doing much to the geometry of the play field or, you know, probably not too much to the art of the play field or anything like that. But, you know, you've got a basic framework of rules in there. You're seeing how they feel. you'll be evolving ideas and modes and that kind of thing so and the biggest thing I think is you're playing it's like oh would it be cool if it did this if you did these other things and that's the main kind of thing that you know like you're just playing and you talk to each other and either someone will get inspire someone else to do something or you know someone like oh I can work on that or you know I could make that change. That sounds like a good idea. You know, like I'm sitting there playing something Joe wrote and, you know, tell him it's, you know, maybe you could add this and it'd be a little bit more fun. And he'll ponder it for a while and go back and do it or some version of it. And we'll play it again. It's like, yeah, that's really good now. You know, a lot of, I feel like Wonka in particular benefited from a lot of us just sitting there playing the game and bouncing stuff off of each other in terms of, you know, what if we did this? What if we did that? you know, that kind of thing. Is the glass off so when something happens you stop? Oh, quick stop. Let me just make a point here. Usually not. Now, when you're writing stuff and first testing things out, you know, and you have the game next to your desk or whatever, yeah, you're not going to have a glass on it as you throw the ball around. You know, you'll flip it. They'll use their hand and make sure things are doing what you expect. But when we have the game in the more public area, the glass is on and we're playing it as it's meant to be played and just seeing how far we get and seeing, make sure everything's doing what it's supposed to and that kind of thing. Now, when somebody has the balls to dare suggest something to one of your games, what is your reaction, Keith? My initial reaction is to tell them why their idea is stupid, you know, or in rare cases, I will sit there and think about it. I was like, oh, yeah, OK, you got a point there. I joke about that a lot. It's not that bad, but everyone's got ideas and you should listen to everyone while you're designing because no one knows everything about everything that's fun and that kind of thing. That being said, there are usually very specific reasons, even if it's unobvious, of why I do things the way I do things.

high confidence · Keith reveals: 'Chicken Fight and Family Guy was originally a video... no one really got it they were just flailing the flippers and didn't know what to do and no one was being successful at it and it just got turned into basically a regular mode'

  • Keith Johnson initially had reservations about the action button but defended it against criticism noting Star Wars implemented a similar mechanic first

    high confidence · Keith says: 'I was a little perturbed to see Star Wars come out with it before we did' and 'they got all the flack... I knew I wanted that element'

  • “The video mode in Elvis was entirely my idea... I originally wanted it to be literally called Flip Flip Revolution but the lawyers axed it”

    Keith Johnson @ ~1:07:00 — Reveals Johnson's authorship of the Elvis video mode concept and the legal constraints around game naming

    • Avatar
    game
    Elvisgame
    Family Guy Pinball (Chicken Fight)game
    Carl D'Angeloperson
    Jeff Teolisperson
    Kevin Martinperson
    Scott Deniseyperson
    RackDotGames.Pinballorganization
    Papa Tournamentevent
    Indiana Jonesgame
    Counterforcegame
    Battle for the Krakengame
    Star Wars Pinballgame
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Time Shockgame
    Innovationgame

    high · Keith describes: 'I know at one point we just flat out doubled the value of every multiball, jackpot, super jackpot in order to make it more interesting'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ken Cromwell recently hired to Jersey Jack Pinball; Keith Johnson expresses confidence in his contributions despite playful ribbing from host

    high · Keith says: 'he's been really good to have aboard so far. So once all this craziness gets past us, it'll be nice to be in an office with him'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pirates of the Caribbean final wizard mode remains in development; Keith Johnson working on other priorities but confirming continued development with beta versions showing progress

    high · Keith: 'I've started the mode. I've been working on it on and off. But right now, all of my time is spent on the next game'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Upcoming Jersey Jack Pinball game titled 'Innovation' teased with official video; Keith Johnson confirms development is underway with undisclosed details

    medium · Keith states: 'I did see the teaser video of Innovation coming... We're always trying to make our stuff better... There will be something next'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack Pinball planning to implement co-op mode functionality on their system platform at future date; timing remains unclear and likely gated to prevent spoiling game content

    high · Keith Johnson: 'I've come to the conclusion that I committed to putting it in our system at some point... we don't want to encourage people just to play it and get to the end of the game right away'

  • ?

    code_update: Pirates of the Caribbean receiving code updates including character changes and improvements; beta version with updates already distributed to beta testers

    high · Keith states: 'there is a version floating out there that has some improvements and some character changes... we are working on it, and we have made progress'

    • 5:27
    Maybe a plan I have in the future, like a mode is going to affect something, and that's why it's doing that now. Or, you know, just from experience, I know that the way something has worked before isn't going to work the way they're suggesting because I played it and it wasn't fun. You know, I mean, I can't even imagine how many different games and different modes and all that kind of thing that I've played over the years. And when you've played as much pinball as I have and as others have, you have a pretty good idea. You can tell in your head that that idea is not going to be any fun because I played something similar in this game and I hated it. Now, maybe I can take that thing that I hated and tweak it into something that's actually good. I'm sure I've done that over the years. But there's a lot of things that just miss, and you don't want to repeat those mistakes. Experience does go a long way, and I think you are such a great historian, too. Before we get back to the code, it really goes back to following you, whether it be on Twitter as PinballKiefer or even the forums. Tilt forums, obviously. I know you dabble once in a while or at least keep an eye on Pinside. Even going back to RPG, you have been very prominent on forums for a long time, and that's got to be great feedback for you. Yeah, definitely. So I started on RackDotGames.Pinball back in September. I was actually reading it before that, but in September of 1992 is when I first got posting access.
    7:05
    And, yeah, life was never the same after talking with other pinball enthusiasts online. We got into it heavy and deep, and that's where I first learned about the Papa Tournament in New York City.
    7:19
    And so Kevin Martin and I drove up there to take part in that. It was quite an eye-opening experience, you know, and meeting everyone for the first time that you've known for however long and just taking part in a pinball competition, crazy. Obviously things have changed, you know, a lot since then. But back in the day, you know, making a trip from Blacksburg, Virginia, to New York City, like 12 hours or whatever it was, you know, maybe a little less than that. It's just nuts to think that we did that and went up there and went on to shape, well, really both our careers. Because Kevin worked at Data East for a while there, and then eventually I went to Williams and Stern and now JGP. So it's amazing just one little choice you make on an innocent college day and just changes the trajectory of your whole life from everything after that. You're blessed if your career is something that you're passionate about and that you don't really perceive it as work, as, you know, I'm punching the clock, I hate doing what I'm doing. When you love what you're doing and you really get rewarded by the end result, there are great benefits. So back to this COVID-19 isolation, I'm watching guys like Carl D'Angelo and just obsess over games and, you know, waste his time with stupid things like Big Buck Hunter. What the hell was he thinking there? But enjoying things like him completing the wizard mode on the Simpsons pinball party or him tackling Pirates of the Caribbean, two of your amazing games, and you have a long list of them too. We haven't even included World Poker Tour, Lord of the Rings, Wizard of Oz, but watching Carl on these games just makes me appreciate how deep these codes are that you do, especially right now when you really can't get out and about, and you can tackle all of these games different ways. There's not really one path to do that, especially with Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah, so the thing about Carl is he is obviously dedicated and loves the games he plays, for the most part, or at least he has a goal or whatever. But he really does a great job of making what we do look good, if you get what I'm saying. Right? It's like, he spent all his time, and, you know, are people going to get there? Are people not going to get there? Or, you know, will people get everything that we're trying to get them to do in the game? like Pirates has a ton of rules and subtlety to it. And most people don't necessarily know or care about everything that's going on in it. But, you know, there's a lot to do and a lot to figure out if you take the time to peel the onion, as it were. Yeah, when he can showcase everything that's there, and there's a lot that's there. Before I called you, I gave Carl a quick shout-out to say, all right, let's get deep into Pirates. I don't own that game. And I've only played it a handful of times and instantly, by the way, loved it. Even the action button, huh? Even with your stupid action button. Oh, don't worry. All right, let's get into it right now. Let's talk a little Marty, shall we? Yeah. Okay. First of all, you know I'm going to give you a hard time about the gold button during the Marty. It's a beta version, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yep. Okay. We talk about you being a pinball historian. What made you obsessed with the bashing of that button Well if I honest it was really Joe who took the Marty thing to a new level Joe Katz? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that who's under the bus right now, Joe Katz? No, the idea was definitely initially mine because I play other games too. I'll play web browser type games or I'll play PS4 type games or whatever. And a lot of games you play nowadays, if you do something, they drop stuff and you have to go collect it, like either mouse over it or go run after it. And it's a balance between collecting stuff before it goes away and not getting the reward, right? So it's just another generic gameplay element that you can add to any game. So you don't have to get the gold ever. I mean, you probably won't get to Tortuga if you don't ever go after the gold, but you don't have to play Tortuga ever to necessarily, you know, win the game, as it were. So I don't really have a problem with it. I mean, back when games started making you take the hand off the flipper button, was High Speed 2 the first one, maybe, where you had to shift gears? Sure. There were a couple games back in that era which were doing it, High Speed and Lethal Weapon in particular. Oh, yeah, Lethal Weapon for sure on those orbits. Yeah, because you had to shoot the bad guy. And if you really wanted to get a lot more points, you'd wait until his eyes started blinking before he started shooting them. So, you know, even that has its own risk-reward. It's like, do I just shoot the guy right away when I flip the ball away? Or do I try and get control of the ball and wait for a couple seconds? He's flashing. Okay, now I can pummel him and get way more points than I would have if I hadn't waited. Okay, on that lethal weapon, and even the high-speed, too, with the shifting gears. Shifting gears isn't a hurry up. Sure. But you'll waste a lot of shots if you don't do it either. Okay. I mean, I will admit there are very specific circumstances where you would actually not want to shift gears. And so there's a very teeny amount of strategy as to whether you want to do that or not. That's mostly if you have the mystery work lit and you can make that tunnel shot pretty easily. If you have mystery lit already, then you want to take that tunnel shot and then shift gears in order to relight it again. Especially if you're in tournament mode and every fifth mystery ward is giving you multi-ball for free. Okay, all right, I'll give it to you. A little hurry-up stuff there, so yes, there's some risk there. The difference is the location. It's right beside your right hand. Whereas, I know it doesn't seem like a lot. It's, what, a foot long, maybe, from the right flipper? You can even do it other ways, too, right? you can use your knee and your chin, your belly. You're right. Yeah, there's lots of things. A trained boob. Anything. I mean, normally you're going to make a shot and then reach over and slap that thing down and, you know, put your hand back on a button. I grant you that. It's just, you know, it was an experiment. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because, listen, when you have that many characters, you need an extra button. You need something else to do. Yeah. I mean, it was an idea that I conceived about, you know, very early when we started doing it, you know, which is why I was a little perturbed to see Star Wars come out with it before we did.
    14:13
    Yeah, but they got all the flack. Yeah, I guess that's true. They might have on this show. Bruce Nightingale may have done a video about it. Yeah, right. I knew I wanted that element of trying to collect stuff, you know, before it went away. And, you know, there's a whole lot of psychological stuff that we do, you know, in order to make it really stressful and make you really want to do it and therefore put the ball in peril because, you know, you've got to take your hand off the button in order to sit there and collect it. So, you know, because, you know, if you hit the loop enough times and then the targets, you'll spot a bunch of gold and you'll see all these expensive, you know, chests and piles of coins on there and stuff like that. But those are the last things you pick up as you're hitting a button. It always does all the low value stuff first. So you really got to commit to hitting that button and getting your full payout in order to really take advantage of it. Whether it's Liar's Dice, whether it's another character, another mode, the multiballs, I have to imagine a game that deep. The most difficult thing is not maybe coming up with the modes. It's balancing them. Yeah, we definitely went through several rounds of balancing the game. We started off, you know, when you're first working on stuff, you just assign scores of things that you think are going to be okay. And it's like, okay, well, we want a good score to be a million or whatever. So we think mode shots should be worth around this much, and jackpots and super jackpots should be around this much. And then you sit there and you play the game, and it's like, well, clearly multiballs are undervalued compared to what you can get during mode, so we've got to bump those up a bit. And then, like, I don't think the mode values really change once they got put in there. Everything was kind of adjusted to conform to what the modes are giving you. I know at one point we just flat out doubled the value of every multiball, jackpot, super jackpot in order to make it more interesting. You want multiballs to be more than the modes? And I say that because I think I've dialed in where the modes to me are more important. It just depends on what you're trying to do. I mean, for any game, you know, you want, there's a couple things. There's risk and reward, right? So, and then there's the amount of work it takes for you to do something and then get paid off on it. There's a trend for a long time to be no matter how much work you spent into getting to the multiball, when you started the multiball, things weren't really worth that much because, hey, you're in multiball, and there's no peril. You're not going to drain your ball. So we're only going to give you some piddly points here. And even if you get to the end of the multiball, you get the super jackpot or whatever, it's still not worth that much. A lot of that's still true today from games that are coming out, I feel like. But the point is you've made a lot of shots to get to that point, so they should be worth something, right? They should be, if you've made all this work to get to where you're going, they should still be worth something. So, yeah, you don't want them to be trivial where you don't care about it, but you don't want it to be overpowering either. It's like, okay, so the good player could get there and hold two balls on one flipper and just pick off shots with the other flipper. You don't want to be there and, you know, just have them be able to exploit a multiball, you know, compared to what a casual would do. So it's a very fine line between getting things to score, things that seem reasonable and worth going for, and the current risk that's involved. Like I said, there's no risk during multiball, but there was probably a fair amount of risk before you were in multiball, trying to get it and start it and light it. Okay. I think you once said there will not be another release of Pirates of the Caribbean until the final wizard mode is in the game. Yep. So I have to ask you, I know you're probably working on the next game. Is your time divided between the next one and this one? I've started the mode. I've been working on it on and off. But right now, all of my time is spent on the next game and other stuff that we as a company have priorities to do, you know, that obviously we can't talk about. Well, I did see the teaser video of Innovation coming, so that has been floated out there. I assume that's probably what you're hinting at. Yeah, well, right. We're always trying to make our stuff better. We're always trying to make it do more. We're always trying to add more value to our games. So that's the kind of work that I'm involved with, even if it's not specifically getting that one released on. But as a partial bonus to the people that signed up for the beta, as you alluded to, there is a version floating out there that has some improvements and some character changes and that kind of thing on Pirates, just so people know, yeah, we are working on it, and we have made progress. See, here's some stuff, even if the final mode's not in the game yet. I mean, I don't know why people are so worried that we're never going to finish the game or whatever, because I don't know what in JJP's history has made people think that. I agree with you, and I also really appreciate something that Jersey Jack has always prided themselves on, is that communication with the customers. And it's a good reassurance when you're buying an expensive product like a pinball machine to know that you're going to have that support. JJP's support system is fantastic. Oh, thanks. I appreciate it. I mean, you know, we've gotten some new people recently, and they were fighting to get through a backlog of stuff, which I think they're caught up now, and they're providing top-notch solutions to people that need help for whatever reason. Well, not all hires are great. I mean, you did bring on Ken Cromwell.
    20:14
    I'm kidding, Ken. Obviously, yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, I've met Ken a few times, but he's been really good to have aboard so far. So once all this craziness gets past us, it'll be nice to be in an office with him and talk about things more regularly and that kind of thing. Let's go back to Pirates for a second here. One of the things Carl and I were talking about was, again, Liar's Dice. And Carl and I were struggling to try to think of a Keith Johnson game that closely resembled a video mode. And not that Liar's Dice is a video mode, but it's kind of close. I mean, you're looking at the screen. I can't think of one. Right. So some people know and some people don't. The video mode in Elvis was entirely my idea. I pitched it and everyone went for it. You can argue as to whether it's any good or not. But so that game, you've got the arrows going by like Dance Dance Revolution. I originally wanted it to be literally called Flip Flip Revolution. but the lawyers axed it, so... Too close. Steve came up with a name, Flip Flip Dance Dance, which I was just like, okay, I don't get it, but, you know, whatever. And then, you know, years later, obviously, I found out about that place in Seattle or whatever, which I assume it was... Flip Flip Ding Ding? Yeah, which I assume is a reference to that, but you know I don know for sure I never asked him about it since I found out about Flip Flip about FlipFlipDingDing but that my assumption as to what he was referring to So how come we haven seen any since Is it just not your thing? So doing a video mode on a dot matrix display, you have very low expectations for what you're going to get presented on that thing. So you can get away with some pretty crappy late 70s era ideas that on a Dimetrix screen are like, oh, wow, this is kind of cool. I'm racing a car or I'm doing whatever. I mean, obviously the game with the best video modes was Indiana Jones. I mean, those were all three of them. Choose wisely is whatever, but the other two were just amazing. Fishtails is pretty good. Yeah, Fishtails isn't bad. I mean, it's, you know, the other two in Indy are better. So there's been some good things, and they're all very simple. And like I said, you're just looking at three-shaded color graphics, so, you know, you don't have high expectations of what they should look like or what they should be. I thought with, first of all, JJP's great LCD screens that they introduced, and now it's the norm for pinball, I thought, especially with something like Wizard of Oz, where all those assets were there and great voice talent too, I thought maybe that might have had an option for a video mode. But what would you have done, though? You're asking the wrong guy. But, see, that's the question that I ask all the time. Everyone kept asking me, oh, are we going to get a video mode with the screen? I'm like, what's the video mode in Wizard of Oz? I mean, are you on a broom and you're flying through a canyon? I mean, are you sweeping something up? You know, I don't have an idea as to what the mode would be in Wizard of Oz. Okay, I got one. Dodging flying monkeys. I guess. I mean, having a house, not land on the witch. I don't know. I'm making stuff up. I wasn't expecting this. I do the questions around here. All right, Keith, what is this? All right. That's right. Turn the interview process on its head. How dare you?
    23:38
    I'm reminded, though, I did have another attempt at a video mode that I kind of forgot about because it's not a video mode now. But Chicken Fight and Family Guy was originally a video. OK, nice. Yeah, so you could kind of see that in the way that they hit each other and there's bars going down and stuff like that. I tried it. It had some depth to it in terms of when you could hit and when you could block and when you could hit back and forth and that kind of thing. Something better than Game of Thrones, the stab, and something maybe more along the fighting scene in Lethal Weapon 3? Well, no. I guess it was somewhere between there for sure. Yeah, I'd like to think it'd be better than both of those. so like you could you could hit you know left to throw you know a left hit and a right to throw a right hit and both to throw the uppercut or whatever it was and you know you could time it based on what the chicken was doing or you could try and block them and that kind of thing but no one really got it they were just flailing the flippers and didn't know what to do and no one was being successful at it and it just got turned into basically a regular mode and so to what it is now. So the chicken beats up on you over time, and that's how you eventually lose if you don't do anything. But otherwise, the shot that you hit determines how much damage you do to the chicken. Is it also really hard to code something like that? And you have to ask yourself, is this worth the time to invest in something like it? You know, it's, again, with the dot matrix display, you can get away with, yeah, to be blunt, you know, kind of half-assed effort at a mode or something like that. I didn't have to have Mark do that much stuff, Mark Delves. I didn't have to have him do that much stuff to get that mode working the way I thought it should work. But now that we're in the era of 1080p displays and stuff like that, it's like your expectation with how something should look and feel and play is way, way higher than what you would get from a dot matrix game. So, now there's probably ways to pull it off. You know, something obviously looking more retro or something like that. You know, like you said, Deadpool had that, you know, pixel graphic looking thing, you know, they had going on there. There's ways to do that kind of thing. But there's a lot of work, you know, to get all that stuff working on display. And we're trying to get games done. And the important stuff is everything that's on the play field and the pinball part. If you want to play pinball, and I've said this before, if you want to play a video game, go play your PS4. Go play Big Buck Hunter or whatever, I mean. Flyer's Dice. Yeah. So, right, I mean, Flyer's Dice, you can't even normally qualify it until you've done the Pirate Lanes a bunch of times. And then it finally gets added to the rotation where you can start playing it. And the whole point is you don't want a casual player to accidentally be able to get that and have no idea what they're doing and get presented with a wall of tech. It's put out the way that it is in order for it to be mostly a good player thing who knows to look up the display and figure out what to do during that mode. I mentioned the LCD screens, which obviously Jersey Jack brought into pinball. Everyone's doing it now. innovation has always been a big thing for Jersey Jack. I'm always amazed to see what is next. And we've already been given a teaser. There will be something next. But will you, let's just put in air quotes, borrow from somebody else that might evolve your games? And I say that because others have borrowed the LCD screen. That's something that we saw with Jersey Jack. We see it everywhere else. What about something that we've seen with Spooky and also now with Stern, the co-op mode? Yeah, so that's a good question. I've talked with Scott Denisey about co-op mode and stuff like that at least a couple of times now. And it's definitely not a bad idea. And I think I've come to the conclusion that I committed to putting it in. Putting it in the new one or putting it in the new update for Pirates? Putting it in our system at some point. So I don't know when we'll get to it, but it will probably happen. And, you know, we'll give people the ability. But I'm guessing that for most of the time it probably won't be something that you can do right away so that you don't – like we don't want to encourage people just to play it and get to the end of the game right away and then be, you know, it's like, oh, I've already seen everything in the game and I need to get rid of it or whatever. Like that part, that part's not good for anybody. So might be one of those things that we time release, you know, at a later date and that kind of thing. And there is precedence for that. You know, if you go back to Time Shock, the video pinball game, they actually have a mode in there like that where you share progress between all the players. So as far as I'm concerned, that is the genesis of co-op mode. Although, to be fair, in Time Shock, they actually called it cutthroat or something like that. Because whereas you shared progress between all the players, everyone's score was individual. So if someone left multiball lit, then the next player comes up and collects multiball and gets all the points for multiball. You know, we would probably do something where we offer you both those styles of play. You know, one score for four people or individual scores. It's funny you bring up time shock and video games and games of the past. I talked about you being a great historian. When I was talking to Carl, he mentioned a time that he saw you kind of fascinated back at the old Papa facility with the Gottlieb game Counterforce.
    29:38
    Sure enough, you look at Battle for the Kraken Wizard mode and kind of takes that concept from that game. You must get inspiration from older games. Oh, yeah. I mean, Counterforce is a really interesting game if you sit there and figure it out. Like, you walk up to that thing, I don't know if you really have a prayer of figuring out exactly how it's going to work or, you know, but if you're interested in it and you're dedicated to it, you play this thing like ten times in a row, you're like, okay, I get how this thing's working now. But you're right, there is definitely a similarity. You know, I don't even know necessarily that I was thinking of counterforce, but the concept of running out of time is certainly not a new one. And it made sense, you know, for it being a Kraken. It's like, you know, he's going to get all his tentacles up and he's going to suck the ship down or whatever. It made sense that that was the thing that, you know, would do you in if you took too long. Everyone should play Counterforce next time Papa has a thing, because that game is great. I don't know if I played it. I'm dying to now. It's basically a game. You've got a line of drop targets, and your goal is to kill the invaders coming down to you as fast as you can. Every time you kill an invader or do some other stuff, your bonus goes up, and you have so-called bases that are basically your bonus multipliers. So you have to shoot all the shots to light up your bonus eggs, but any invader that gets to the bottom will take out one of your bases and your bonus X when they get there. So it's a battle of keeping your bonus X up, because bonus is huge on that game. So it's a matter of keeping bonus up and your bonus X up and killing the guys before they hit, you know, your things at the bottom. And there's an additional time thing where if you kill everyone fast enough, then you get some additional award based on how quickly you did it. Like if you kill all the attackers when they're in the first row or whatever, the first row of lights, then you're, like, special. And if you do it by the time they're all in the second row still, you light up your ball. And there's a couple other awards, and then if you get to the bottom, it just, okay, you save your base. But it's a really interesting game for a Gottlieb of that era. Again, we're still in certain phases, depending on what state or province or country you're in with COVID-19. There's a new JJP facility in Elk Grove Village. Interesting area. But have you been to the new facility yet? Yes, I was there last week or the first. Well, I'd been in the building before the COVID shutdown started. But we been you know since like construction work and stuff like that is okay if there not too many people and they not close together or whatever so we had various contractors come in and work on the building and uh it's very very nearly done and you know so when illinois releases its lockdown um we'll be able to go in there and uh start taking care of business in the new place what does the new facility bring compared to what you've been working in before So obviously before our factory was in New Jersey and all of design and engineering was in Chicago. So the new place will unite both the factory and engineering in the same building, which is basically whatever your pinball company has. and we'll be able to be more intimate with the manufacturing process and catching things while they happen and taking care of them, whether it's from an engineering perspective or a manufacturing perspective or whatever it needs to be. And hopefully also have some tighter QC on product as it's going out the door with more eyes and more people just wandering around when they get a chance and taking a look at things and speaking up if something doesn't look right and that kind of thing. Sounds good. Yeah, hopefully that happens soon, but everyone has to really be conscious of being healthy right now, and you especially, too. It's been a little over a year since you had that heart attack in February 2019. That would, I assume, put you in a major risk factor for COVID-19. Yeah, so, right, I have two things going against me, heart disease, And I've been a type 1 diabetic since I was 15, which is over 30 years ago. So, I mean, I feel good now. I don't have anything to complain about. But in theory, yeah, I've got two strikes against me as far as, you know, COVID being extra bad for me or whatever. But I'm sure there will be great precautions when you get back to it and the new JJP facility. And I've got to admit, looking forward to the next game. There's a lot of rumors out there I don't like to ask on this show, and I won't ask. But from what I've heard, if even half of it's true, pretty excited. Well, yeah, I want to, and I've said this before too, but I want to give people, and, you know, it's hard, but every game that you do, you don't want it to be exactly the same or largely the same as something you've done in the past. At least I don't. Like, I want every game to be a more or less unique experience as much as I can. Now, I've said, partially joking, partially not, that Wizard of Oz is really Lord of the Rings 2.0 because the rules in general have the same kind of flow that Lord of the Rings had. And then we went in a completely different direction, you know, whether people liked it or not, for The Hobbit. But, you know, you don't want to do exactly the same thing again. and you want to give people a new way of doing stuff or new experience or whatever. And it's been our goal to give people a very different experience in our next game for sure. So hopefully people will like what we've done and, you know, get a kick out of it, and it'll be entertaining for a long period of time. That's always the goal. I'm just going to speak out loud. You don't have to react. You can talk to yourself, but I always wonder if COVID-19 didn't happen and we weren't in isolation and we were manufacturing and shows like TPF happened or Pintastic or any other show, certainly ReplayFX. I wonder how many other games we would have seen by now. That's a good question. I will say you probably would not have seen ours yet, honestly. I didn't even ask, but there we go. I offered it. You wouldn't have seen ours, even though people were speculating that we were going to be in Texas and stuff like that. You know, we had no plans to unveil there. And would some other company have showed something sooner or anything? You know, I don't know. Obviously, America was trying to get Hot Wheels out because they showed at the trade show in Vegas. But I don't know. It's hard to say. I would guess that you probably would have seen at least one, if not two more games, but they wouldn't have been from us because we're removing the factory.
    37:02
    Well, as always, we look forward to the next thing that you do, Kiefer. It's always fun. You put so much work and so much devotion, and people are passionate about your games. I know I am. I just try to tackle them, too. And I even think of Pirates of the Caribbean. I know a lot of distributors are getting calls. hey, can you get me on those games? So maybe, fingers crossed, hopefully we can see that come again, but some great games too. By the way, I did have to give up on one of yours. Oh, no. Yes, I tried, I tried, I tried, and have since sold it, and regret it because of COVID-19. It would have been a perfect opportunity to try and crack it. I bit the bullet and moved World Poker Tour.
    37:43
    I wasn't even coming close on that thing. You know, it's funny because I thought that game at the time would be a lot easier for people to get the wizard mode on than some of the others because Simpsons is all about execution and having that perfect game where you've perfectly executed everything to get to the end of the game. on Lord of the Rings it's a little bit of a combination of stuff you can sit there and brute force your way to the end almost except for the fact that you still have to destroy the ring at the end in order to get to the final mode which I in retrospect you know I'm fine with being able to brute force your way through the game but making you kill the ring at the end was really a stroke of brilliance I think because your nerves are just through the roof when you have Valinor ready to go and you're trying to destroy the ring to start it. I just think that moment, as I do, like if you go watch the infamous Mark Steinman video at Papa where he's trying to get to Valinor and he trains during Destroy the Ring, it's just, it's the perfect end to that video. I have one of those moments, in fact, that happened before this phone call, and it wasn't on video, but it was the first time I ever completed Alien Invasion on the Simpsons party, and I was like, okay, I've got five balls. I've been there many times, never been close, but I put two in the couch right away during ball save. I'm like, oh, okay, I've got three balls here. Next shot was an itchy and scratchy. I'm like, this is really good. I've got two balls here, lots of opportunities to go. Put one in auto, one ball. I'm like, I have the easiest shot to make. It took me 10 bricks, 10 survives. I finally got it in. I'm like, okay, complete the alien. Let's check the status. Damn it, I need, yeah, I got my itchy and scratchy super jackpots, or itchy and scratchy revenge, I guess. Got comic book guy, got Otto with the, what do you call that with the reverse flippers? Springfield mystery spot. Got that. Daredevil mania is the easiest one. And I just mentioned Alien. It's the main couch multiball. And getting all those super jackpots, so damn hard.
    39:51
    It's, you know, it's funny because I wouldn't even normally think it would be that hard to do. But I will tell you, the last time I got there, that was the last thing I had to do, too. Probably because you're like, oh, I can get this any time. I know I'm going to get it eventually. You're just concentrating on doing all the other stuff to get to the end and kind of blowing it off a little bit. But, yeah, you really have to concentrate and play everything to get to the end of that game, which is, I guess I never finished it back on World Poker Tour. So on World Poker Tour, you can basically brute force your way through that game, too, because, quote, all you have to do is get so many points on, you know, a lot of the different features. And wizard modes and multiballs and stuff count towards those features as well. But if you're not sitting there playing everything, they will be very hard to accomplish. Like, the number one thing people do on that game is blow off the hurry-up from the upper play field. If you sit there and play the hurry-ups every time you get a chance, that particular goal is really easy to do. But if you don't do it and you're getting near the end and the hurry up is counting down like really fast because you've blown it off so many times, that gets significantly harder in order to accomplish that. So from a game design perspective, I feel like it definitely achieved its goal of making you play the entire game. And I feel like it's very achievable, especially if you concentrate on one thing at a time and doing that one thing very well. So you've done it? exploit your way through them. It's possible in World Poker Tour to get, during the main multiball, no limit multiball, to get a 9x jackpot probably for like 18 million points, which is almost the entire requirement that you need in order to check that off your list. But people don't play the game that way. They play the game and they're setting up the next thing. And you can do whatever you want, but if you're trying to get to the end of the game, you have to play each of the things and get to a point where you can play them well and execute on them. But if you don't, you can brute force your way and you'll probably get there eventually. Well, thanks for keeping us busy during this isolation. Appreciate it, Keith, and it's why your games sell very well. The resale value is incredible as well, and we appreciate everything you do. I appreciate you talking to me. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Keith. Thank you, Jeff. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. And check out our Facebook group and please subscribe. I'm Jeff Teoles.