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Flip N Out With Friends: JAWS Pinball Deep Dive with Keith Elwin (2024)

Flip n Out Pinball·video·1h 10m·analyzed·Sep 27, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Keith Elwin details Jaws design: mechanical toys driving layout, iterative code approach, unique shot geometry.

Summary

Keith Elwin discusses the design process and evolution of Jaws pinball in an extensive interview with Joel Engelberth. Elwin covers the mechanical constraints (fin mech, shark toy, upper Orca playfield), shot design philosophy, iterative development approach, and specific playfield geometry decisions. The game was designed with progressive code updates post-release, contrasting with his earlier experience on Iron Maiden where the ruleset was locked at 1.0.

Key Claims

  • Jaws layout and mechanical design were finalized before Elwin started working on Bond 60th, but the Grand Wizard mode was just completed a couple weeks before this interview

    high confidence · Elwin explicitly states: 'Obviously not the rule set. I just finished writing the Grand Wizard mode for it a couple weeks ago.'

  • The fin mech originated from George Gomez's request during initial design meetings; Harrison (mechanical engineer) brought back a 'giant' footprint mech that forced layout compromises

    high confidence · Elwin: 'george and we're like and george is like oh you've got to have a fin that pops up at you know the playfield and i was like oh yeah yeah we'll figure that out um so he's like yeah okay so you know i told harris i know i need to you know this fin mech'

  • The upper Orca playfield design remained unchanged from whitewood 1 through final production

    high confidence · Elwin: 'And actually we've made zero changes from whitewood one all the way to the end on that geometry because it was just, yeah, this is right. It feels right.'

  • The left spinner shot (harpoon) was originally designed to orbit around the right side but was changed due to clunky ball routing; Elwin used the largest ball guide radius he's ever used on Jaws to maintain shot speed

    high confidence · Elwin describes the original orbit concept and the redesign: 'That was originally it orbited around to the right side, but it came out so clunky... So I ripped that out.'

  • The horizontal fishing reel spinners on the upper playfield were originally standard spinners; the reel design was suggested by a team member to reference Quint's character

    high confidence · Elwin: 'At some point, someone on the team said, oh, you should make that a fishing reel. Quint's just holding this giant fishing reel the whole time.'

  • The weight on the reel spinner was added to slow the ball and keep it against the ball guide; it can be safely removed if players prefer faster spin

    high confidence · Elwin: 'I replaced the weight with a plastic spacer so it still has the aesthetic... if you take that weight off and it still feeds in there, then you really don't need it.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I like it that way because I can kind of develop the rule set as it's being played and make changes or take suggestions.”

    Keith Elwin@ 1:37 — Explains Elwin's iterative design philosophy for Jaws, contrasting with locked rulesets on older games like Iron Maiden.

  • “The only thing you really can't change is inserts like if you put an insert in the game you better code something for it.”

    Keith Elwin@ 2:16 — Identifies a critical constraint in pinball design: physical playfield elements are permanent, limiting design flexibility post-production.

  • “I designed it to kind of come in high knowing that after a few games, after the wax wears off, you know, the game breaks in a little bit, it will start feeding that little lane.”

    Keith Elwin@ 22:02 — Reveals intentional design compromise between out-of-box performance and long-term playfield behavior, showing sophisticated understanding of wear mechanics.

  • “I had to fight just to have a one pop bumper in Godzilla. And now, now Gary's just like, yeah, do whatever.”

    Keith Elwin@ 26:51 — Indicates shift in Stern's design philosophy toward designer autonomy; signals upcoming game with 6 pop bumpers.

  • “My goal was to kind of hide the ramps in this game because you're supposed to be out in the ocean. I didn't want those ramps everywhere to look kind of strange.”

    Keith Elwin@ 25:31 — Demonstrates thematic design principle: mechanical elements should serve aesthetic coherence, not just functionality.

  • “I took some old ramp and snip it up, clip it up, bent it. I was like, I'll see just by hand. I'll hold this by hand and drop a ball on it and see if I can get it to go up, back up, reverse through the lane.”

Entities

Keith ElwinpersonJoel EngelberthpersonGeorge GomezpersonHarrisonpersonElizabethpersonGarypersonJackperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Community streaming and Pinside forum discussion now integrated into designer feedback loop; Elwin actively monitors player discussion and adjusts recommendations (reel weight, ramp radius optimization).

    high · Elwin mentions seeing Pinside posts about spinner performance; references Carl streaming and community bug reports driving updates.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Elwin comparing his upper flipper cross-shot designs to Jack's innovative lower playfield mechanics on X-Men, indicating ongoing design competition/evolution within Stern's designer roster.

    medium · Discussion of Jack's unconventional Italian bottom modifications and pop-upper placement; Elwin acknowledges innovation trend moving away from standard conventions.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Insert placement is permanent constraint; removals late in development (flip lock insert) indicate iterative problem-solving to address player confusion concerns.

    high · Elwin: 'I originally had a flip lock insert in there, but then I took it out because I was afraid it'd be confusing.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Elwin intentionally designed shots and mechanics to work progressively—out-of-box performance differs from long-term wear behavior (reel shot, wax breakdown), reflecting sophisticated understanding of playfield dynamics.

    high · Elwin explicitly discusses reel shot design to feed high initially but improve after wax wears off; references similar philosophy with other games.

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Christopher Franchi transition from Stern to Spooky not mentioned, but conversation indicates healthy Stern design environment under management loosening restrictions (Gary) and supporting designer autonomy.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.212

0:30
My name is Joel Engelberth and this is the Flippin' Out YouTube channel. I'm doing, once again, I'm doing another interview here. So this is Flippin' Out with friends. I'm doing an interview here with Keith Ellin. Keith, I've interviewed you a few times and I don't know, this is either third or fourth. And yeah, thanks so much for coming back on and so we can talk about your games. Thanks. Yeah, I remember you interviewing me when I had COVID and that was super fun. Sure did. Yes. I remember that was the first time I think I interviewed you and I was so pumped and then we had to delay it and delay it. hey, we got through it. It was a great time. But yeah, I just, what I like doing is, and you're very good at this. You, you let your game, you know, you release a game. So we're, we're here mostly to talk about Jaws, but you release a game. The game is very well fleshed out, but it's not finished. And then I just know, you know what, as much as I want to interview him right now and dive into everything Jaws, like I'm going to wait, I'm going to wait and just see what happens over the next, you know, four or five, six months to see what continually is added to the game. and I know the code's not at 1.0, but you're pretty dang close. So a lot's changed since the initial release of the game.
1:35
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of how we roll. I like it that way because I can kind of develop the rule set as it's being played and make changes or take suggestions.
1:49
Like Iron Maiden, we pretty much were almost 1.0 out of the box and we couldn't really change anything. so it's kind of nice to have like you know community feedback and you know bug reports you know carl will stream and you know hey this most too easy or you know this is most too hard or i found these bugs and it's you know that's just so much easier to do progressively than have it all come on you at once so yeah and i'm realizing though the only thing you the only thing you really can't change is inserts like if you put an insert in the game you better code something for it. Otherwise, I'm assuming there's ideas that you've had, whether it was in Jaws or other games that you added a mode or you added something later. You're like, man, it would have been nice if I would have had an insert for this. That's always true. I originally had a flip lock insert in there, but then I took it out because I was afraid it'd be confusing. I kind of wish I had that back, but yeah. Yeah. Well, it's an awesome game and we'll just dive in right into it. I'm going to say dive in a lot. It's not meant to be a pun. That's just what I'm saying. But really, so you, Jaws, you learned Jaws. Jaws is going to be the next game. So here you go. You're going to sit down with your notepad, and you're going to start developing for the game. And I know, I think just to clarify, this was finished before you started Bond 60th, right? Yeah.

  • The reel shot was intentionally designed to feed high initially (out of box) but break in after a few games as playfield wax wears; there is a spin cap of approximately 12 spins regardless of lubrication

    high confidence · Elwin: 'I designed it to kind of come in high knowing that after a few games, after the wax wears off... it will start feeding that little lane' and 'there's also a cap on spins so okay uh i think just like 12 or something'

  • Elwin had to fight to include even one pop bumper on Godzilla, but Gary (likely Stern management) has now loosened restrictions, allowing six pop bumpers on the next unannounced game

    high confidence · Elwin: 'I had to fight just to have a one pop bumper in Godzilla. And now, now Gary's just like, yeah, do whatever. So there you go. So six pop bumpers confirmed.'

  • The flip lock feature on Jaws was not originally planned with an insert; Elwin removed the insert late in development due to concern it would confuse players

    high confidence · Elwin: 'I originally had a flip lock insert in there, but then I took it out because I was afraid it'd be confusing.'

  • Progressive code updates allow Elwin to incorporate community feedback and bug reports, contrasting with Iron Maiden which was locked at 1.0 out of the box

    high confidence · Elwin: 'I like it that way because I can kind of develop the rule set as it's being played... Iron Maiden, we pretty much were almost 1.0 out of the box and we couldn't really change anything.'

    • Keith Elwin@ 18:33 — Shows hands-on prototyping approach for complex geometry; indicates willingness to solve problems through physical iteration.

  • “That little return lane he has on the left. So the ball comes and hits the pop-upper and just flies through that little return lane. So you have to be on your toes a bit.”

    Keith Elwin@ 28:37 — Comments on Jack's innovative lower playfield layout on X-Men; acknowledges design trends moving away from standard Italian bottom conventions.

    • Jaws
    game
    Godzillagame
    Avengersgame
    Bond 60thgame
    Iron Maidengame
    X-Mengame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Flip n Outorganization

    medium · Elwin describes recent shift from having to 'fight' for design elements (one pop bumper on Godzilla) to current freedom ('Gary's just like, yeah, do whatever').

  • ?

    product_concern: Reel spinner design generates player confusion about performance; weight addition creates perceived issue that Elwin must explain through interviews. Suggests potential documentation/communication gap.

    medium · Elwin notes people on Pinside confused about spinner performance; references his streaming clarification about weight design intent.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Upcoming Stern game confirmed with six pop bumpers, representing major design philosophy shift from recent multi-flipper/minimal toy era.

    high · Elwin: 'So I had to fight just to have a one pop bumper in Godzilla. And now, now Gary's just like, yeah, do whatever. So there you go. So six pop bumpers confirmed.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Iterative ruleset updates post-release becoming normalized design approach; contrasts sharply with earlier games like Iron Maiden locked at 1.0, indicating platform/business model evolution.

    high · Elwin explicitly contrasts Iron Maiden's locked ruleset with Jaws' progressive updates; credits ability to respond to community feedback as advantage.

    • 3:11
    Obviously not the rule set. I just finished writing the Grand Wizard mode for it a couple weeks ago. Okay. But the layout and everything was done, and I had some downtime. And then, yeah, I threw my hat in the ring for Bond 60th. So that was a nice little diversion for a while, and then back to it. And I know when I interviewed you last, I asked about Bond 60th. What was the first shot that you designed? And you said it was the figure eight shot, and you said it was – you kind of took it from another game. I'm assuming it's from this. So you had initially designed the pawn shot, and then you were like, I want to do more with that. and you brought that into Bond 60th. Is that right? Yeah, that is 100% correct. I was like, oh, I can do this on a flat-level game, two-flipper game. I can do this much bigger and smoother than I can on Jaws. So, yeah, I was just like, I'm going to just take this shot, flip it, put a spinner in front of it, put the crazy little car jump plastic on it. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. That's right. That released first, and I was like, yeah, I did kind of steal it from a future game. so no hey no it's great it's a it's an amazing shot in both games honestly um so you finished Godzilla and then you're said you're told okay next game is Jaws so you sit down where'd you start was there a mech was there an idea was there a layout what what was the first thing that you were like I got to do this um so we actually before even um Godzilla release we started on or I started on Jaws okay um you know based on the licensor feedback and the initial meetings you know they had some requests and then you know sat down with my team and then george and we're like and george is like oh you've got to have a fin that pops up at you know the playfield and i was like oh yeah yeah we'll figure that out um so he's like yeah okay so you know i told harris i know i need to you know this fin mech that pops up kind of like a drop target fins out moves around he's like okay it's he comes back with me this giant you know footprint of a mech I don't know if you've seen it, but it's huge. And I was like, oh, I've got to design around this. Awesome.
    5:16
    So that's kind of how it started. You know, people don't realize that the jigsaw puzzle, when you design a play field, you have to count what's underneath it. And when you've got these massive brackets, it's like, okay, I can't really do anything there. So that's when we incorporated the whole chum line plastic into the mech since we couldn't really put inserts in. In that area, yeah. Yeah, that's how that developed. And then, you know, we, you know, I wanted to do, okay, so the playfield is the beach, the shark is under the water, the boat is on top of the water. So I was like, we got to have an upper playfield. And it's got to be got to be the orca. So I actually like the first couple iterations I did the entire upper playfield kind of boat shaped. but it was taking up way too much space and that the shape was just, yeah, wasn't that fun. So it's like, all right, I'm going to take the art. I'm going to cut it in half, just use the bottom half, put one little flipper on there with, you know, quick entry exit shots. You're not going to get there very long. And yeah, that was born. And actually we've made zero changes from whitewood one all the way to the end on that geometry because it was just, yeah, this is right. It feels right. On the upper playfield geometry, that is? Yeah, yeah. Nice. So, you know, okay, that's interesting because I know when I interviewed you about Godzilla, you were like, you had this shot layout in your head, and I know you had brought in the Magna Grab mech from Avengers because it didn't make it into Avengers. So you knew you wanted to put that in there. But at that time, you were like, yeah, I made a layout, and I just knew, ah, something's going to go here and something's going to go there. Well, this game, it's kind of the opposite. You're saying we had the fin mech. Okay, I got to design around that. I got to get an upper playfield. so now all of a sudden you're swapping or flip-flopping on your design constraints. Yeah, well with Godzilla I pretty much knew I wanted to have a big collapsing building so I just kind of bookmarked that out in the CAD. Here's a 3x3 something. Sure. Something cool is going to happen here and then the Mechagodzilla shield I kind of envisioned that from the beginning after I watched it and he's spinning his head and the shield comes up. I was like, oh yeah, I got to put some kind of a rotating shield on there. And so I came up with the rotating jump ramp with the targets on it. And it would jump up, it would hit Mechagodzilla. And I was just like, this is kind of boring. So I went back to Harrison. He's like, can we put a spinner or something on this? Because this isn't that fun. And then he's like, yeah, yeah, sure. We put a spinner on it. I was like, oh yeah, this is way better. I think that's a – That makes way more sense in how you're powering them up and everything rather than just you're just sitting there bashing them. Two more bashes, one more bash. Yeah.
    8:03
    I think that's a really good rule of thumb to live by. You know, if there's a shot in pinball that's boring, just throw a spinner on it. Just throw a spinner on it. That's not going to hurt anybody. More spinners, all the spinners, yeah. It's a big, fat spinner too, and it spins great.
    8:18
    So, okay, so you got the upper play field and the upper left. You know, you got the, you know, you knew you're going to have the fin mech, the chum line mech somewhere in the middle.
    8:27
    So after, I mean, you've all, all of the main shots here just have such a unique path. And that's, so I'm assuming you had a next shot. What was the next shot that you're like, I'm going to, I'm going to build around this. So where did you start with? I don't know the shot on far left, shot on far right, the pawn shot. So I started with initially the wave ramp was two ramps in one. So, sorry, my cat's gone crazy. Very distracting.
    8:55
    The wave ramp was two ramps in one. That's why we call it the wave ramp because it was pretty wide. And one of them went to the upper play field. The other one kind of came down the middle where the current little 180 ramp does. So that was our initial prototype was that. Was it a diverter or how would it know which way to go? Depending on which path you took. So the paths didn't change. and then we said well we need to put a toy in the middle and so that's when we developed the shark that popped out under the boat and originally that was the famous bollating shark it was just a scoop that came up grab, come down and that was our original whitewood that came up and went down, we had a dual wave ramp and we were just playing it. It's like, this, this scoop is not fun. This is, this is not fun. We, you know, we want a scare moment. You're not getting a scare moment when it's just kind of like, yep. Well, okay. Now what? He sold the ball. What? Now he's going to spit it back. It's just, we, we just struggled with that. And we're like, you know, let's just make it a bash toy. And then we make it a bash toy that we may have to come out really fast. You know, kind of just jumped out from the bottom of the boat. All right, here we are. So, okay, cool. So then Harrison comes back again with this giant mech. And I was like, oh, so there goes my dual wave ramp.
    10:23
    So we actually struggled with that for a while. Then I just like, why don't we just put like a really small 180 ramp there?
    10:30
    Ironically, it's like one of my favorite shots in the game. It's just kind of the default bailout shot because it's so quick and smooth. So I'm actually really glad we took that path and not, you know, not the dual wave ramp. so did you end up moving then the actual entry point to the wave ramp to the left was originally was the was the shot to the upper playfield more centered it was always there okay it was always there bucket showed up because you split that shot is that when the chum bucket showed up or that was always there too um the chum bucket was initially going to be just a uh old school captive ball kind of like Bond 60 is with the two posts and, you know, just a loose captive ball banging around in there. But then when we made those changes, it kind of compressed. Yeah. I really didn't want to use another Newton ball, but then we kind of got to the point where, well, we can either make this a stand-up target or a Newton ball again. So that's how we ended up there. Because we kind of had to keep the chum bucket, you know, kind of where it was in order to match the back of the boat. mm-hmm so it's yeah the shots you know the shots all got tighter when we added that boat next so then we put the smaller cap the bolts type the Newton style and it widened the shots up again nice and then I know the shot on the far left with the spinner honestly a no offense but honestly on reveal day I saw that shot because it just loops up turns around and then it just goes straight down on the left I was like huh it looks like Keith like ran out of space or like Like didn't, you know, like I just didn't, I didn't give it, I just thought it would be a lame shot or a boring shot. And in all honesty, it's one of my favorite shots because I totally underestimated the speed at which that ball would come down. And then the fact that, you know, so many shots in the game, the up post doesn't come up. So you got to hit it quick in that quick shot and everything. Like I just, I, I, I've learned, don't, don't question, don't question what Keith put on the play field. Was that always planned to be wide open like that on the left? That was originally it orbited around to the right side, but it came out so clunky. I mean, your shot, it would go underneath the upper play field all the way around to the right orbit. But since the right orbit is actually a ramp, you know, where they kind of meet, it was just kind of hitting the sidewall and just kind of going down the middle. I was like, yeah, this sucks. So I ripped that out. and I was like yeah I was kind of like you know I can you know pull these drop targets out a little bit and have a little lane behind them and I was like that'd be kind of cool and then the harpoon shot was born from that yeah and then yeah so does a quick little u-turn and then comes down and I didn't you know I didn't want the ball to slow down very much so I put the most biggest radius in the left ball guide on jaws that I've ever used just to keep it smooth and fast to the flipper. Because I knew once you shoot the little harpoon gate, the balls just kind of go up. You know, the kind of the virtual very targeted rolls over some switches to boost the value and then comes down. It's like I know if this comes down really slow, it's going to lose the effect of, oh, my God, there's a shark. Shoot it now. Yeah, you got to be quick. You're going to lose it. So I made that radius. I mean, Harrison's like, wow, this is a huge radius. I was like, yeah. I just, that's the first game where the slingshots aren't symmetric because of that.
    13:59
    So originally you're saying the drops, the, uh, the drops were all the way to the left. Like there were just normal drops on the side of the game. There was no plans of going behind it. Yeah. A whitewood never existed in that, but that's how I originally drew it up. Yeah. And I wasn't sure what, what all I was going to shoot from the little mini, mini flipper. I just knew I wanted a mini flipper kind of over there. Yeah. And that, that mini flipper, the fact that I, okay, be honest, did you know that you would be able to hit the spinner shot from the mini flipper like that? No, not that. Um, what is it? Well, that even that surprises me, but the fact that the ball, I just don't understand how the geometry can go through the harpoon shot, hit a flat wall and magically go up. Like it, it doesn't Geometry-wise, it doesn't look like it would work, but it works.
    14:49
    You just knew it would work, or you were pleasantly surprised? Yeah. Based on George's games, he does that a lot. The Bond pawn shot, originally, he was just smacking into a rail and dropping into the thing. He later added pads, so it wouldn't go in there all the time. He kind of did the same thing with Deadpool, the right orbit. you would shoot the right orbit it hit that metal rail just die i mean it would not bounce off that at all and it came out fairly smooth so i was like oh yeah this should be no problem so we mocked that up and shot it's like oh yeah it goes through that gate it that's yeah it's actually a gate it doesn't even need to be because it doesn't even it doesn't bounce off that wall at all it just goes up yeah it's such a unique shot and then yeah the way that that's incorporated into the game and we're talking the main game here but it's just like um and you add flip lock into it which that idea well yeah where where did house was that originally the idea or you just realized hey i can hold up like when when did you think i like this let me use this as a physical ball lock it took it took a very long time to balance um being able to flip lock and still be able to shoot the spinner the left lane from that mini flipper but yeah that was the intention from the beginning was to be able to trap up there and um you know you you know take a breath figure out where you're going to shoot because the fish finder targets are moving you know we have the fish finder stuff going so i wanted people to be able to like you know take their time and shoot so and then the flip block was born it was like i found myself in multiballs just trying to get balls in there and holding it and staging it and i was like you know what it'd be kind of cool if you could just hit a button and it would just do it for you yeah so i talked to elizabeth and she's like oh yeah that sounds awesome i'll do it and then yeah that's where that was born and then like i said it's like i had this insert for it and everything and i was just like people are going to look at that what's that i was just scared i was scared it'd be something weird on there um so i just changed it it worked out and i it is it's surprisingly um like it's a fun thing to show people like that's something like hey check this out like when you're in mall yeah it's just like i don't know it's just a very unique moment in the game to be able to lock a ball and for me like one of my one of my weaker parts of my pinball playing experience or abilities is is multi-ball like I'd struggle with with maintaining multiple multiple balls at once or cradling up two and only playing with one flipper so to me that flintlock is the best the fact that I'm like I'm going to store this ball over here and then I can just focus on one ball try to knock my shots out you know I I really like it a lot um yeah see it's important on jaws because there's no place to park a ball in that game you know games with like pop bumpers you can park a ball in the pop bumpers You can park it in a scoop. This has none of that So your multi balls are kind of in your face now really fast So that like the only place that you can park a ball safely is that flipper I totally agree And just to finish up the left side, you know, the fact that on a premium you have that ramp on the upper play field, you know, that had to go somewhere. Did you always have the idea of it going kind of doing the 180 loop back to go up? Or where was that original exit? And how did that come into play? it originally helix around the drop targets down to the left in lane okay and then uh i don't know if that ever i don't know if that ever got prototyped but i just remember harrison saying hey look and he showed me like the cad model and the ramp is sticking up higher than the glass and he's like yeah that's a problem so yeah i um i basically just um i took some old ramp and snip it up, clip it up, bent it. I was like, I'll see just by hand. I'll hold this by hand and drop a ball on it and see if I can get it to go up, back up, reverse through the lane.
    18:41
    And the first couple I did, I was like, oh, this actually works. So then I kind of tweaked the geometry that left spinner lane just a bit so it feeds the flipper nicely if it comes through there.
    18:52
    Originally, that was a little bit of a bigger shot to make it easier, but then the shot back through kind of hit the sling. I was like, yeah, I can't have that. so that's yeah what i mean that is such a wild um i know when i've streamed it or i've drawn it on the the telestrator it's like the fact that from the right flipper the wave ramp alone is such a unique geometry and then the way the ball s's or squiggles on the upper play field to slow it down and then to go up and around that around that ramp and then up the i mean it's such what a strange and crazy long ball path. Yeah, it's fun, especially when you just barely make it up there, and then it starts picking up speed and comes around and whips around back down to your flipper. Yeah, it's probably one of the longest shots in pinball before seeing another flipper. Makes sense. And so the upper play field, you said, that layout basically stayed from Whitewood 1. You did something unique here with these horizontal spinners. You have the, what do you call it, the wheel shot? up on the Orca, and then I've been calling it the real shot. Our friend Travis says the same word both times. But the real shot on the right, where did the horizontal spinners come from? How did you know? Like, was that always a plan in your head? Yeah, yeah. So it was originally just on the upper play field with a regular spinner down below.
    20:15
    And I don't know. At some point, someone on the team said, oh, you should make that a fishing reel.
    20:23
    Quint's just holding this giant fishing reel the whole time. I was like, yeah, okay, I'll just make them both horizontal spinners. The problem with the standard spinner is the ball kind of got rattly inside the little U-turn. So the reel actually helps keep the ball pushed against the ball guide.
    20:43
    So we added a weight to it just to further slow the ball down. and I noticed people talking, oh, it doesn't spin as well as I've seen. And it's like, I think a lot of it has to do with that weight. It's like, you can take that weight off. It's not going to hurt anything. You're like, it feels better without it. What's the L1 official recommendation? Because I know the last time you streamed Jaws, you're that big spun for, it's probably still spinning. That thing was going to town. It's like, okay, what did Stern do to their reel? Because I know there's aftermarket. people have made like aftermarket ones that's been better or people are adding lubrication or you're saying take off the weight what's your preferred way to play i replaced the weight with a plastic spacer so it still has the aesthetic okay so the thing with that shot is on the on the whitewoods uh we designed it from the beginning to kind of feed cleanly into the little funnel that goes to the mini flipper and what we're noticing behind the pot yeah yeah over time as the play field starts to break in, starts to get dirty, whatever that it was starting to hit the pop and it was starting to get worse and worse and hitting the pop. So I had to make a decision. It's like, do I design this shot for games 200 for the rest of its life? Or do I design it to work great out of the box? So I kind of took a risk there and I designed it to kind of come in high knowing that after a few games, after the wax wears off, you know, the game breaks in a little bit, it will start feeding that, that little lane. So when I see people on pin side, like, oh, mine doesn't do that. I'm going to start bending ball guides. I was like, no, don't do that. It'll be fine. Yeah, it might not work the first few games, but it will start working and it'll be fine. Then it's the same thing with the weight. The whole reason that weight was on there to help guide the ball over there. But if you take that weight off and it still feeds in there, then you really don't need it. Okay. So it's not a, from a code standpoint, it's not like you just, you know, put training wheels on your game and made it crazy easy because you're getting, you know 8 000 spins versus four uh well people don't realize there's also a cap on spins so okay uh i think just like 12 or something anything over 12 it doesn't count anyway so oh all right you can you can lube it up and put whatever you want there but it's gonna count the same so yeah well which makes sense because i mean even a standard flipper people put um they'll lube those up and all of a sudden you know so it's i've never i've never thought about that of whether or not you know i'm putting training wheels in my game by lubing up my spinners like no people want to see them rip they want to see it go for a while so okay so you're saying no harm done if you take the weights out and you let your you let the horizontal spinners yeah if it doesn't if it doesn't return where it should because it's already kind of counterweighted if it doesn't return where it should uh then leave the weight on or if it doesn't feed where it should then leave the weight on but okay if you don't like the way it spins you can take that weight off and see what happens and yeah it's not going to hurt anything nice so there's some very interesting geometry then over on the right you know Harrison designed that boat so big old mech in the middle did you have to alter your shots on the right and then the fact that altering the pawn shot is actually you know the way it exits needs to feed behind the pop to feed the mini flipper you know there's a lot that has to work in unison over there so how much tweaking was involved in that side of the playfield uh the pawn shot didn't change because like I said originally there was an orbit that went behind it uh-huh yep so uh that that shot was always kind of in the same place and the right side i think we changed like the ramp height the for the right orbit ramp shot that's that's all that changed over there okay and the right shot the quince shack shot you know i i love that shot i find that so there's something about it that i'm really becoming more and more of a sucker for what you think is an orbit shot that ends up being a ramp and i think it's just because it allows for such a long ball path that it just feels smooth and satisfying like I know the Black Panther shot on Avengers was a similar one where it just like there's just something about that of hitting that shot or Stranger Things on the far left and coming all the way around um I don't know I really like that shot a lot um and it feeds it feeds the right um in lane now I do know you you do some interesting stuff with uh the way your in lanes feed off your wire forms you you like in this case they're dropping below the switch so it doesn't count as an in-lane feed. And I also know the left wire form is circular at the end, while the right wire form is a hexagon. Is there a reason for that? We wanted to do all hexagons, but there wasn't room on the left.
    25:14
    But, yeah, we're going for the old-school ball drop. Okay, so no luck on the in-feed. It's just for aesthetics. Yeah, there wasn't room to do it, It was kind of too late in production to really change all the others. So it was like, eh, we'll have one that's a little oddball. Okay. My goal was to kind of hide the ramps in this game because you're supposed to be out in the ocean. I didn't want those ramps everywhere to look kind of strange. So that's why we had water, the boat, and everything. All the ramps are kind of pretty much hidden except for the wire forms. Yeah, no, it's true. I've seen that more and more that you like pushing all your stuff back, Not meaning that the middle is open, but it's by pushing your ramps further back. Obviously, the left ramp on Godzilla, you push them back. It makes for a longer shot, which I find more satisfying. But then it also, yeah, you have more room on the play field to do stuff then because your actual ramp is way back there. The problem with cross shots, which you have with any kind of upper flipper going across, is you can't have any kind of ramp anywhere near it. It's getting to bust out the side of it. So, yeah, so if you have any kind of cross shot, the ramps pretty much have to go way back. Which is why in Avengers, we kind of just modified that middle ramp. It's like, okay, instead of blowing out the side of it, we'll just angle it so you can kind of make it a nice shot.
    26:37
    So you've once again won pop bumper. You somehow sneaked that in or got away with that in Godzilla. So here in this game, you got one. Next game, are you still on one or are you going to go no pop bumpers? It's a mystery, man. It's a mystery. So I had to fight just to have a one pop bumper in Godzilla. And now, now Gary's just like, yeah, do whatever. So there you go. So six pop bumpers confirmed. That's what I just know. I love the one pop bumper. It's obviously I'm a huge fan of TNA. Most people know that there's something about one pop bumper. Terrifying. Three pop bumpers safe. Like it's just, yeah, I don't, yeah, I just don't, there's, it's crazy how that works, but it was a plate mechanic I thought needed to die. so appreciate it uh i had to fight for it uh it happened and then of course jack says well he can do that i can do none and so obviously uh gary has loosened up the reins on a what we have to do like with italian bottoms and you know that's awesome have a nest of pop bumpers so yeah it's it's it's a fun time to be designing right now that's awesome and i know with jack's latest game x-men he has two pop bumpers but they're both placed in very dangerous spots they're evil man and then what jack did with the whole lower play field i had actually mentioned that on our last interview i i said you know jack had mixed up the italian bottom a little bit with the uh with the ray gun targets um and some of the other stuff that he did down there but obviously he went way in on x-men making the whole bottom just a very crazy layout um as a i mean you've played so much pinball. Does that type of layout really excite you or terrify you or is it a gimmick? I mean, what are your thoughts on that type of layout that Jack has in X-Men? I mean, I love anything that's different. I mean, I know it's technically from Gold Wings, but it hasn't been done in 30 years. And with modern flippers, that thing is so fast. That little return lane he has on the left. So the ball comes and hits the pop-upper and just flies through that little return lane. So you have to be on your toes a bit. And like I said, your brain is programmed, you know, your brain's programmed like a standard Italian bottom. So I can just, oh yeah, this ball's going to go, oh no, it's not going to go here. It's somewhere completely different. So yeah, he keeps you on your toes. I know Jack's a big Ward Pemberton guy who used to do all kinds of crazy stuff. So you can tell his influence. No, it's really, it's surprising the more that I've played and, you know, friends and family play the game, you know, a typical fan layout, there is something very nice about it. Obviously I have cactus Canyon behind me. There is something very nice about it because of the number of shots you can have. It's very easy to understand or explain, but do I want all my games to be a family out? No. And that's where that uniqueness, I really like how much, um, how much your games bring in side to side shots that are very important and terrifying. And then, you know, the ramps, the fact that your ramps never feel like they're in the way. So it feels like you allow more on the play field. Yeah, there's, I don't know, is that like, I, maybe that leads to the next question. You know, your design, you obviously have a very unique design philosophy because you take responsibility for the rules as well, or this idea of you want to lay out the path of what's going to happen. I'm assuming other designers just design what they think is cool and then hand it off and, you know, like, okay do something with it and we'll talk about inserts but did how much like how much are you do you ever move a mech or move a ramp because of a rule thought in your head like how much do they influence each other uh i don't think i have no okay um i'll have so i'll have what i call this the skeleton rules you know this i'll be one of the first things i do okay like in godzilla i knew okay, I'm going to have this rotating shield on Mechagodzilla, and I'm going to have this collapsing building. The MagnaGrab, which is actually the first thing that I put in there, Godzilla magnetizes in one of the movies, and everything comes towards him. It's like, yeah, I'm going to do that, and then drop him down into a flipper for his shot. So those are all things I kind of designed a game around those. But minor rules, I wouldn't change any geometry for a minor rule. Okay, because that's something that, I mean, you even said, like the harpoon shot that came into play once you made a change that wasn't in your original skeleton rules or your original thought of like no no so recently yeah that flipper was your you know we would shoot the fish finder you know i i would have put something else if not that little harpoon day i would put something else there to shoot at but there was still a little bit of space there and i was like actually yeah just slamming this thing into the side rail and having it go up and roll over the switches is actually kind of satisfying so yeah i kind of just went with that.
    31:25
    It's an incredible layout. Physically, I know the last thing I see you added was on the right out lane, you have the ability to bump the ball or nudge the ball back into play. Was that always a plan? Is that something you enjoy having on games? When did you add that? That was there from the beginning.
    31:43
    I'm a big fan of Williams-Indiana-Jones. I know theirs was there out of necessity, but I thought that would be just a cool, cheap... And instead of a kickback or anything else that's going to eat into my bomb, I was like, yeah, I'll just make a little fun geometry thing. You can try to knock it over. That's great. Yeah. So originally the right out lane didn't have that extra post on the top side. So the ball was going over there way more often than it does. And so it was becoming too much of a little pachinko game. So we added the extra little post in the in lane to keep it out of there a little more often. Sure. No, it's awesome. I think it's fun. And I don't know if you found the clip or who involved from the code team, but the sound effect or the video clip that plays when you bring it back in is super fitting. It makes you feel like you saved yourself, you know? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, when I came across that clip, I was like, oh, that's definitely going there. Well, let's talk about that for a second because I know, I mean, there's way more to this game, but I know you talked about Godzilla and you took ownership of basically pulling and clipping video clips. And I'm assuming, is that something you did as well here in Jaws? Is that something that is expected out of a designer or just something you just feel the need to pull that in? You know what? You can spend your day telling people what you want or you can spend your day just doing it. Nice. it's just easier for me because I know the rules in my head I know the future rules in my head it's easier for me to just do it than it is you know I might use this clip and then I'll get like this 20 second clip well this is way too long can you trim this down it's just easier for me Rick and I have this great cadence or I'll just send up and files on slack as I hear here's for these rules nice you got it good and then you know he makes it work yeah that's awesome is that something or maybe the question is what is something that a pinball designer spends a lot of time at that a typical pinball enthusiast doesn't know about or assume they do managing a team. Okay.
    33:53
    So just, yeah, I was, I was like, everyone else was like, what does the game designer do every day? So, you know, half my day is spent, you know, talking to Jerry Thompson and talking to zombie Yeti. You know, we're talking to our contractors, you know, the metal farmers, uh, work closely with the engineer every day, just making sure we're on the same page with everything. and it's yeah it's running a team interesting so the management side of it is the is yeah okay yeah you know some people think yeah you just here's here's a cad man later you know make a great game yeah jerry's like well what do you want and then so i got to research you know like similar tunes that i'm looking for okay it kind of sounds like this so for godzilla example I used to get really heavy into Quake II back in the 90s, and I loved that soundtrack. So I said that to Jerry. He's like, this is kind of what I'm looking for, since we have the Blue Oyster Cult song. So it's kind of looking rock vibe, maybe not this hard, but maybe a little softer, but kind of this kind of sound I'm looking for. And he delivered all the Godzilla music. And it's just, yeah, every day it's just something different. Yeah. Okay. So you had mentioned the Blue Oyster Cult, so that's a licensed song.
    35:09
    Let's, I don't, maybe you can clarify some just licensing questions that I have. But so for example in Jaws you have what his name Richard the you have yes you have voice call outs directly from him Is that a decision Is that something that you decided, I want this? Or is that something that you're just told, we're going to get that? And by having somebody like that, does that affect your bomb? Does it affect what's physically in the game based on what licensing you do or do not get? I don't believe so but in this case I mean he was the only actor left alive so it was pretty easy a pretty easy call so we that was just decided early on that we would try to get him you know from everyone George on up we're like yeah we've got to try to get him okay because I was always I've always been curious if there is any sort of correlation between what's visibly in the game as in what's on the screen or the audio in the game or whether or not it correlates to you know what's on the play field. So I don't like that's the question, you know, did George say, Hey, that's above my pay. If they come back and tell me, uh, no, we can't do this actor. Then I'll assume, no, it's, it's, yeah, we can't do it. You can get Richard Dreyfuss, but you're going to have to pull out that spinner. That's a tough call. That's never happened. No. Okay. Okay, cool. Um, yeah, so you have, um, I know just code wise in the game. Um, I've, I've streamed multiple times. I've had Elizabeth Gieske on the stream. She is awesome. She is an awesome addition to Stern. You know that. And just seeing that, what's cool is it's clear that you've given her some freedom in certain modes. Like go ahead and write like scars. She wrote scars. So I don't know. What's your view on modes or empowering other people on your team to kind of take something and run with it?
    37:04
    Yeah. So I had all the other modes written except for scars. We actually didn't even know what we were going to call it. It was just, okay, it's the center ramp mode.
    37:14
    And I was busy doing, I don't know what I was doing, but I told her, hey, if you can think of something for here, go for it. And she finally watched the movie. She hadn't watched the movie before she started. She said, you really need to watch the movie, then come back and tell me what we should do here. And she's like, yeah, the whole thing where they're comparing scars, that's pretty cool. And I was like, okay, go for it. Yeah, I let her run loose on the topper mode as well.
    37:38
    Yeah. So it's, you know, having trust in your team, it's something. And I knew just from talking to her, just from working with her, that, you know, she knows what she's doing. I don't need to coach her. I don't need to tell her what's fun and what's not fun. So I totally trusted her. You know, just take on these couple modes.
    37:58
    I'm not even worried about it. I don't need to give a whole lot of feedback. Yeah. No, that's awesome. And you mentioned the topper mode. There's essentially two extra modes in this game. One, we'll get to Jaws, what is it, Jaws Revenge, which is insane. But the topper mode, real quick, so the shark is broken. I know Gieski essentially explained this as when they were filming the movie, they struggled with the shark working. So let's let's do a behind the behind the the screen here Idea of instead of playing jaws you're filming jaws and let's let's try to get the shark working Was that yeah your idea her idea? Where did that come? You just that was all her all her So you said you got the top remote have fun. That was it. Yeah. Yeah Dude, that's awesome. She came back and said, you know, I watch these documentaries and everyone's complaining the sharks always broken What if we you know? Do it the perspective of the film crew and they're trying to get the same work as again. That sounds interesting So nice and then the topper I think at some point in time in some interview you had said that Jaws might have two toppers what happened was that true? What happened with that? And then where? Like was this topper? I love the topper by the way, but was yeah, what were your initial thoughts with the topper? So it's not uncommon for us to you know pitch different ideas So Harrison and I will concept, you know, well, here's this topper A, there's this topper B, there's this topper C, then we'll pitch it to, you know, management at Stern. Usually they'll pick one. So at the time the manual came out, we hadn't picked one yet. And somehow that ended up as two different part numbers in the manual. So everyone thought, oh, yeah, here comes a second topper. No, that's not how we do it. It's not happening. But, yeah, that's all that was. Yeah, and the thing about the current topper, the topper that's awesome that I don't think people really know about is the light show. The light show is super impressive on that topper. And the fact that the light show also changes based on time of day or day within. I mean, who did that? Who's the light guy? Who gets all the credit for all of that? I think Rick did a lot of that. we uh we had brett rubin one of our lamp guys kind of gave us some bass effects like i mean you saw when you're playing the 8-bit mode and the police book comes out you see like reflections of police sirens on the billboard which is really cool yeah he did stuff like that he did like the flag kind of flying uh during fourth of july but uh most of like the bass effects uh rick did himself wow so we got all these all these rgbs back there and i told him you know it wouldn't be cool if it's not always daytime because the sign is almost always white. If you make it into the color, it looks kind of weird unless it's just for an effect. The sign's always going to be a bright white. So why don't we have the background just kind of affect time of day? If we're doing a mode at night, have the background go dark. And then during a track mode or an idle, we'll just see what time it is. Okay, we'll use this scene back here. Yeah, no, it's an awesome, awesome effect. I'm really impressed with that, the topper, when I had it here. And I'll tell you if I ever get Jaws, which it's right there at the top of my list, I will be getting the topper without doubt. Not only for what it looks like, but also Emily's mode, obviously.
    41:19
    That was all Harrison's idea. He's like, why don't we just have this cool billboard and we'll make it so it's meticulous so you can see the graffiti yes or no. And I was like, yeah, that sounds pretty cool. That's awesome. Other crazy accessories, Jaws essentially introduced the speaker lights.
    41:39
    And I'm a sucker for more lighting. I have speaker lights in every game that I can. You can see I've actually installed the Stern LE kit behind me in my Godzilla. Anything that can bring more integration with the game, I'm all for. Was that your idea? Somebody on the team idea? Where did speaker lights for Jaws come from? Oh, that was management. They, hey, let's, you know, let's make the same pop. I don't know exactly whose idea it was but we were told make some cutouts so I designed basically the Jaws logo the shark coming out and we did all we prototyped all that with some light strips we had and I was like yeah this is actually really cool so we showed them hey this is what we came up with and it just kind of ran off from there yeah and the fact that it's expanded to it seems like every new game, every LE from here on is going to have it. And then I love the fact that you've made it backwards compatible so you can bring even the pro and premiums and integrate that, which makes sense. I mean, if you guys are going to spend all that time coding the light show, the more people that can enjoy it, the better. Yeah. I mean, that's what people don't realize. Someone has to go back to all these older games and add some lights. Yeah. Which is awesome. Older games, like 8-bit games. So this Jaws Rebinge, man, this thing is insane. I know it was way early on. It was either you or George in an initial interview. Somebody said the words, yeah, and at some point you're going to be able to play as the shark. Apparently that was all we needed. We needed that out in the atmosphere to make sure that that happened. And I'm glad for whoever said it. But this was pretty much all you and Rick, right? This mode was a lot of work for you guys to to throw this in the game it was a ton of work so we didn't have any idea of the scope when we did this um because uh the art team had done kind of like eight 16-bit graphics before on deadpool but nothing that really you know just from scratch um you know we're not trying to copy anything from the movie we're not trying to copy you know any universal asset these you know these our own 8-bit animations so we could just do any kind of crazy story we wanted and um i originally the start it was going to be it's like a simpler rule set so you press start and you can do like the full game jaws like it is now or you can do like you know i just want to bat the ball around you know all the modes are lit at the start all you do is shoot a shot and i was like yeah i think I'd rather just do something unique and original. Yeah. And after having watched all the Jaws movies, I was like, wow, Jaws 4 is so ridiculous.
    44:25
    I kind of want to run with this and just instead of, you know, I forget where they were, but I was like, I just want the sharks to all gang up on Amity and just create havoc. And I thought this would be a really fun, simple, stupid thing to do. And if we did it in 8-bit, then, you know, we can do whatever we want. but because it's like separate from the story and in 8-bit we can't we can't add it to the main game because it's not part of the jaws world but we can't do it as our own little side thing um yeah so we just kind of ran with that and so i i added that to the doc a long time ago and then finally we got to the point it's like well we need to put this in because people are asking about it now um it's like yeah okay i guess i'd better actually write the rules for this um yeah i kind I had an idea in my head that, yeah, what can I do to make the game so different from what you're normally doing? It's like, well, how about something where you got to hit the action button a lot? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, we can chomp beach goers. That's perfect.
    45:25
    And then so, you know, Rick wrote that in. It's like, okay, now what? And it's like, well, now we need to add some boats. It's like, okay, so now, you know, you're killing boats. It's like, well, man, this is kind of boring. So we were just like, yeah, well, we'll just keep moving forward and we'll make it fun eventually. And it was boring. It was boring. And then finally I got the idea. It's like, well, how about each stage you have to juggle another ball?
    45:54
    And so because originally you had like the police boats shooting at you and stuff, that's how you're losing energy. And you're regaining energy by eating people. And it was just this never-ending energy bar battle. It was kind of boring. And so I was like, no, let's get rid of all that. We'll just have you. You're just creating havoc. You know, you're just raising your bounty. You're trying to lure Quinn out for, you know, $10,000 or whatever. So, yeah, it evolved into, okay, we'll just have, you know, stage one is one ball. Stage two is two balls. Stage three is three balls. And it just gets harder and harder and harder, obviously, just for the fact that you have to juggle more balls. And that was a magic ticket. Everyone was like, oh, yeah, this is fun now. It's like, okay, thank goodness, because we're shipping in two weeks. and then uh then after playing it you know after playing it like four or five balls and you can even see in a carl stream he's like sweating he's tired yeah it's like oh man we need a break it's like so i told rick it's because we weren't getting more assets at this point so i was like uh what you know what kind of game can we make with just what we already have and then i was like you know i really i was a big fan of hogan's alley as a kid it was a very simple stupid game i was like oh this is perfect you know just like left right the beach goer, the shark.
    47:07
    So yeah, this is a nice break, but it's way too easy. It's so easy to tell the shark from the swimmer. So I went in, I started modifying the assets, you know, putting bathing suits on sharks and fake fins on swimmers just to make it more interesting. And the latest update, we have Gary's in there. So it's great. That's awesome. And you said you're modifying the assets. This is what I learned, that these eight big images, you're the one making them. It's not even like you're relying on the art department to, I need X, Y, and Z. You're making some of these images. Yeah, I'm making and animating some of them. We actually did have some already from the art team. Okay, good. I didn't make all of them. Some of the more impressive ones were not me, but the silly ones of the swimmers getting eaten and stuff, that's me. Nice. Well, I just think it's clear that your games are a passion project. And even though the game is out, even though it's released, even though, I mean, we're not at 1.0 code, but I know personally, like, if the game was done today, I'm not complaining. But it's just, it's very clear that you, you had said earlier, you know, you could ask somebody to do it or you can just do it yourself. So I'm continually impressed with how much involvement you are, you get in your game. You're not the one typing the ones and zeros to code the game, but you're doing, you do a lot when it comes to everything involving one of your games. no i have an awesome coder rick nagel i just hey i need this and he'll be like that could be easy or it could be hard i don't know i'll let you know then he'll kick it out like a couple days later oh yeah it wasn't that hard so awesome yeah so and uh you know we're still we're still chomping away at the code too so what um some of the distributors have they have a saying called the elwyn effect and basically what they're saying is you know a new game will come out and sure they'll get sales for that new game but they always end up getting sales for your old games like so it's people holding onto their money and then they see a game come out and they're like ah that's not you know what now it's fine it's time to to get you know godzilla 70th or jaws or jurassic park and what do you i mean not trying to like i understand humility and all that but at the same time like what is it do you think about your games that that have had the lasting appeal that they have or that people keep getting them even years after they're they're initially released uh i mean sorry you're fine people like cats yep yeah um yeah i just it's you know part theme part um you know i try to make a game that you know keeps people coming back um and it says like it's just not me it's our whole team you know harrison tries to make interesting mechs you know rick tries to make as much code and much variation as he can and our team tries you know give us everything we can so it really is a team effort and you know we when at the end of the day we you know we sit around and we play these games and we uh it's like hey is this fun it's like yeah is this not fun no it's not fun how do we make it better and that like the whole uh the 8-bit mode was a perfect example it's like i i was kind of you know i didn't really know what to do with it and the feedback I got was pretty negative and as I agreed is like yeah this isn't fun so you know I kind of just stopped everything I was doing yeah just focused for a couple days how do I make this fun and you know that was the ticket so yeah I think we need you know you know pretty much any Stern gave me by you know it's gonna be fun yeah gonna have we're gonna take the code to completion we're not gonna you know abandon anything it's gonna be fun let's get we're gonna put all wrong I know all the teams are like that. So yeah, I don't want to single myself out. I don't want to single myself out, but I don't know the answer to that, but it's not like everyone else just releases half-baked games and no, we don't do that. We bring everything to completion. So absolutely. And I, I know James Bond is a perfect example. I will be blatantly honest. Maybe we'll be brutally honest. When I streamed that game, it was rough. It was not particularly fun. And I, I, we were, you know, things to Zach flipping out, I had a chance to stream it right off the bat. And it just, it was so lacking in so many ways. And just, so basically to play the game was just to shoot the whitewood is what it felt like almost. And that game has over time slowly developed into actually a very enjoyable game. Yeah, I actually bought one last year. Oh, nice. Nice. Well, yeah. Well, maybe that's a question for you what um is there a shot whether it's a stern game or an you know another modern game whether it's spooky american pinball jersey jack whatever is there a shot or mech that you've stepped up to a game recently that really like wowed you or like do you have like a favorite shot outside of your your world uh i'm i was very wowed at a mech i saw the other day for a game that's not yet released. I can't say it, but it is probably the most amazing mech I've seen. Oh, really? Okay.
    52:08
    So that means it's not yours. Or else you have amnesia if you forgot you designed it. It's not mine. Everyone in the room was just gathered around and was like, this is amazing. Stay tuned. I wish I could give you more info. No, no, no. I respect that. But I'm always curious about that because I know with the Avatar reveal, I was up at JJP and checked all that out And then we're at Interium that night and like there were a bunch of Stern employees that showed up. And it's very clear that like the pinball community is a community. Even if you work for different manufacturers, you're all rooting for good pinball. You're all rooting for fun things. So to see Mark Seiden and Jack Danger like play together and they both released a game, I just think that's really cool. And there's got to be stuff that you see in other manufacturers or other designers games that, you know, impress you or wow you. or let me pull that into, you know, let me learn from that or whatnot Um so I just didn know if there was anything off top of your head that like stood out to you Most of my inspiration comes from much older games Like I said the tail whip shot on Godzilla was you know, from deadly weapon. I thought that was a cool shot on that. So I kind of modified it and made it my own for Godzilla. And yeah, that's where a lot of, a lot of that's comes from. Okay. It's like, what was cool, you know, 40 years ago that I can take a modern approach to, you know, if i if i can find something great if not then you know i just like nothing in jaws was inspired from any other game that was just all um that was just all in my head but there's urban yeah there have been times like oh this this shot was cool but like you know iron maiden kind of like you know the twilight zone shot where you shoot under the flipper it's like that's a cool idea but it's a boring shot so i made that or like a repeating loop on maiden and it's like yeah it's it's kind of just like you know the twilight zone shot but it just doesn't dead end into the scoop it's you know, it keeps flowing, it keeps the action going. So, you know, I put my own spin on that, that kind of, you know, kind of a geometry, uh, thing that I thought was interesting that you have to hold a flipper up to make a shot. Absolutely. And, um, yeah, I know last time I interviewed you, you had made a comment about having your brother or your girlfriend play your games and see how they attack a game because their skillset is not, you know, you, you made the comment of like, I have to turn off my competitive brain and just make a fun game. So that's one thing that I've realized the more and more that I've been playing games is some do a really good job of just immediately drawing you in. And then others, it's like, it's like you got to put in work to understand what you're doing or how to play the game. And then once you fully understand it, then the game gets to be fun. Do you have any particular design philosophy on like how, how do you capture, because I think your games do it really well, but how do you, how do you draw somebody in quickly? Like, do you, do you ever limit yourself or force yourself to do certain things that you feel will hook a player quickly? Yeah, you've got to put everything on your release. Everything's got to be up front. When I write the rule docs, anything that's remotely related to wizard mode gets thrown to the bottom. It's like, I don't care about that. I don't care if the game releases without any wizard modes because these are going into bars.
    55:17
    Casual people are going to walk up to them, and if everything's just a black screen and inserts don't do anything, but you do this 12 times, you'll see this cool wizard mode that's fully coded. It's like, no, You can't do that.
    55:28
    Everything, the first 10 minutes, you're going to win or lose someone. You know, they're going to play for 10 minutes. And if they're bored playing the same mode over and over again, and they have to do that, you know, just keep doing that to eventually get to something that's unlocked. You can't do that for the wizard players. It's like, you know what, just trust us. Everything's coming. Just enjoy what's in there now. And, you know, if you want to wait, wait. But it'll be there, I promise. Well, I think on Jaws, my dad played it and he loved it. And even my mother-in-law, who doesn't like pinball, she played it. And I think the thing that grabbed both of them was the fin, the fin popping up and just realizing that the ball stopped. It's very clear. This is what you have to do. The audio, that everything is ramping you up. Shoot, shoot. And then if they hit it, you feel great. But if they miss it, they're like, I want to go again. I need to hit that fin. And that's a moment that's right there at the beginning of the game. You can flail away and hit enough to qualify multi-ball, and then you just have to hit one of three shots to feed that, and then you can experience that moment. Yeah. So there's an example of originally, Only if you miss the fin, you had to knock the drop targets down again to reignite it. And everyone was complaining to me, wow, this is super hard. And that's where I have to turn my competitive brain off. I was like, oh, yeah, the casual person, they're going to hate this. So, yeah, we dialed that down a bit. Well, let me ask about, well, there's two things. So modes, modes, first of all, I have found, and maybe it's just because of my skill level, but I feel like I live in modes. And what I mean by that is, you know, the mini wizard modes are a, you know, one in 10 game experience, one in 20 game experience. So as fun as they are, that's not what I really experience over and over again in the game. And for whatever reason, like Godzilla, there's four modes with the first time you attack the four creatures that I've probably played. I mean, like so many times. But for whatever reason, those four modes are still fun. Is there, like, I just think there are other designers or other manufacturers that just kind of, they don't put a ton of thought into the modes or the modes just, you know, there are certain times that I'll play a game that I just want to get through the mode to progress to the fun thing down the road. Do you have a design philosophy with that, of these, you're saying everything's right there at the start button, but how do you make the basic things fun? Or how do you keep, how do you make sure those stay fun? It's hard, man. My philosophy is if I have two modes that are very similar, then I know I've failed somewhere. So this is a pet peeve of mine. If I'm playing a game that has a bunch of different modes and all these modes are you're just chasing RGB arrows everywhere, to me that's going to get boring because, well, this mode feels like this mode and this mode feels like this mode. And that's going to make it boring. So like in Godzilla in particular, I made sure that every part of the play field was used.
    58:39
    Some modes stack well with multiballs like Titanosaurus and others don't like Megalon. So, you know, every mode was designed for a purpose in that game. And it actually worked. I was actually trying to be very, have very simple modes in that game. And one complicated one, that would be Megalon. Where, you know, he dives underground and you got away from the pot back up. because I knew if I made every mode like that, people would be like, these modes are too hard. Kind of learned my lesson from Avengers. I know a lot of people thought those modes were kind of hard. So I was like, okay, I'll just dial everything down. I'll have one or two modes for people like myself, but you don't have to play it. You can choose whatever you want. So yeah, I think having a variety in the modes, it just doesn't feel like you're chopping wood to reach an end point is very important. So Godzilla originally had five modes, five battles. and it was actually worked out that the fifth one got cut because we couldn't secure enough assets to really make a fun mode with it and it got cut that was like a blessing in disguise because I think that's where it is for even for it's like takes a long time to get through so yeah no and I think it's what I love is you know my brother he's getting better at pinball but you know when we play Godzilla it's like and he gets to battle he's like which battle should I do I'm like do you want to do spinners ramps or stand-ups I don't even and tell them about Megalon. Megalon, I'm just like, which one do you want? You know, and that's enough, but obviously those are so drastically different, which are a lot of fun. And Jaws has some very unique modes as well. And I love that some of the modes, you know, the fin pops up and just that change state or that all of a sudden it's like, I don't know, I really enjoy that about a game. And you, the huge extreme of that is the Jaws Revenge mode. I mean, it feels like a completely different game on the same play field. And anything that you can do, whether it's modes make a game feel more unique because you're focusing on a different area or lighting effects or tone, you know, audio or mood changes or, you know, to your extreme of challenge modes, other modes. Anything that you can feel like you're getting more out of this one physical layout is really a ton of fun. well it's like i said um i i wanted to do something that this is not going to feel like anything like the normal game i want this to be so different it's going to be wacky light-hearted silly and you're gonna be using the action button a lot which you know i i didn't think that the tournament players would at stern would take it seriously that that's stupid but a lot of them are like oh my god this is fun because it's so different than what they're used to you know just trap up shoot a shot trap up it's like no you gotta not have these balls drains and you gotta you know chomp beach goers so uh it's funny watching like i watched carl stream it the other day and he was just sweaty and tired just because it was so frenetic i was like yeah that's exactly what i was looking for just something that's so different from just shoot trap shoot trap what i would love because i i assumed it was just a one ball experience but it's a three i mean the game is three balls so theoretically could somebody in a tournament like actually just choose Jaws Revenge as we're going to play Jaws, but we're not playing Jaws. We're playing Jaws Revenge. Theoretically, could they do that? Theoretically, yeah. Yeah. There's really no randomness to it, so there's no reason they couldn't. And we only charge Shark Teeth to whoever is logged, you know, the original player logged in. So player one gets charged with Shark Teeth. And then, you know, anybody else that's added, players two, three, four, they don't get charged. So that was a signed decision I made. It's like, I want to encourage, you know you know people in bars hey you want to try this with me you know whatever and that's yeah it's that's not gonna you know cost you credit but it's not gonna cost you don't have to sit there and you know spend your shark teeth well so two things first off if if you're going to use it in a tournament you should probably add a setting where that pulls the shark teeth from josh sharps account um so he's billed the shark teeth not the player uh and then second thing i know when i interviewed you before we were talking about how do you balance how do you make pinball a fun social experience again, because some of these crazy, deep, long playing games, you just, people are standing around and I feel like this game or Jaws Revenge is a really good way to bring that in. I don't know. That was because you said, I'm going to try that with my next game. I'm assuming that was just due to the fact that the layout in Jaws is more chaotic or a little more brutal. And then, I don't know, co-op mode? Is there any chance co-op mode may come into Godzilla or Jaws in the future? Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Right now, obviously, we're focused on finishing Jaws before we can... Add more. But yeah, pretty much, you know, we want to make it a staple. Stern Pinball, we want to make that a staple because we know people love it. I love it. We'll get it in there. Yes. One of the last things I want to mention is, and this is something I'm learning more and more, are I love modes where you are gradually collecting things. So Iron Maiden, I actually streamed Iron Maiden just a few months ago. And so I'm way late to the party here. But Cyborg Multiball, awesome. The fact that you're chipping away at all these different areas of the play field gradually over the game, I love it. And then Bounty, obviously, and Jaws, same thing. Qualify Bounty and then all of a sudden, boom, I have to focus on aiming at the pop number. I have to focus on collecting these things. There's something about that where you feel like you're getting progress, even if you're not focusing on it. I love that. And I don't know if you have a feeling on modes like that, but please do more. Please do more of that. Yeah. So I call it the base gameplay. It's like, is there a game in the base gameplay? So like with Jurassic Park, oh, yeah, the map system. This isn't a series of modes. The map system is one giant mode with a progression ladder. So it's just something you're just constantly happening in the background. Whether you're trying to or not, you're going to get to these paddocks. You're going to capture the dinosaur. You're not going to capture it. But either way, you're going to be moving forward through the map. So, yeah, it's important to me to have some kind of base thing that you're doing. In Avengers, your base is you're collecting the Avengers. In Godzilla, you're kind of working on destroying parts of the same city. And if you destroy all four in the same city, you get the big bonuses. So, yeah, a base game is definitely important. otherwise you just feel like well I'm just lighting a mode playing a mode all right white mode play mode white mode play mode mini wizard mode you know yeah risk repeat I find those games to be boring myself so I try to have like an overarching thing that you're doing it that takes you you know you have no choice but to get there sure yeah and I understand you know players like the Carl D'Angelo's out there that need that understandable I got to do everything thing because they want to get to that ultimate ultimate wizard mode but for me especially with i'm streaming a game and i'm going to play it for two hours i love that which which direction do i want to go do i want to focus on bounties do i want to focus on just modes do i want to try to fish finder you know do i want to try to work through those it's like i love that i can steer the ship in many different directions or it's like you know what let me actually just play jaws revenge or let me play the shark is broken like there's that the fact that i can step up to the game and hit start and and feel like i can go in six seven different directions is is what pulls me back into a game for sure yeah i love torturing carl i almost always put something in my games that like no human should be able to do just because i know he's going to try to do it yeah so you know we got to like the 900 million death blow on a iron maiden and you know some of the ultra wizard modes um that they don't even have an insert because i i don't want people to even bother trying but you know carl's like i gotta get you know monster island godzilla i gotta get it and it's like so have fun because you have to rely on some like random combos too so i know soon if he's playing a good game and he gets that random combo i know his brain's gonna be oh now i gotta i gotta go yeah yeah no it's awesome so i i don't know um i don't have a jaws in the house anymore hopefully i'm i really think there's a very strong chance that i'm gonna get one um because that is the game that I am missing the most of the games that I've streamed. That is the game that I would like to get back. And I also know the fact that my dad and other people have missed it as well. But insert-wise, I think the only insert that's not coded in is Great White, right? So is that the only thing that's holding us back from 1.0? Or is there something else that you want to throw in? So we have our Wheel Wizard mode. Right now we're working on Great White. despite what everybody thinks. It has nothing to do with catching all the other sharks because that would be way too hard. Yes, yes. Yeah, Great White is going to be its own mini wizard mode related to gear collection. So we're working on that now. Then, yeah, we'll get the wheeled wizard in and then hopefully we'll have a surprise like some of my other games. Nice. That 1.0 sounds good. We still have assets to use. That's what's crazy. That game has a billion assets in it. And people are still saying, well, where's the widow slap? Or where's, you know, John's blowing up. It's like, where's him getting electrocuted? Yeah, no, yeah, we've got a plan. We'll get there. So you're still chipping away at Jaws. And I'm assuming your next game, is that play field done? Are you on? Is that? So you're done with that? Yeah, I'm on with the game after. Yeah. You're already on the physical design for the next game after the next game? Yes. Jeez. Okay. And you have to manage a team. and apparently you got to pull all the video assets from whatever you do. It's just, I like staying busy. Yeah. Well, we appreciate you. We appreciate you. And, um, I, I'm loving what you're doing. I'm glad that you, I'm glad that you're part of the industry and making games because, um, they're slowly becoming some of my absolute favorite games. And, um, yeah, I really appreciate you being on this and doing this again. And I don't, whenever your next game comes out, we'll just plan on a few months afterwards. We'll do it again. But I don't, is there anything else you want to, you want to say? shout out anything like that the board's yours the nail in the head i mean it's i i can remember i was a kid you know probably eight ten years old hammering nails into a piece of plywood and wrapping rubbers around them and getting pachinko balls and having you know i'd make this little play field and have my dad come shoot it you know it's kind of like you know bagatelle just told me it's like yeah it's my dream job to be a game designer but then the industry was just so bad in like you know the 90s early 2000s it's like yeah it's yeah it's kind of the dream that's never going to happen. And then, uh, yeah, it's kind of made it happen. Um, you know, the 2010s. So it's like my, my advice is to like, you know, myself and like Mark Seiden, it's like these guys, it's a dream job, man. If you really want to do it, you know, start building home brews. It's harder than it looks, but it's, it's rewarding. It's fun. And then it could lead to, you know, your dream job. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. Well, I'm glad you still love it i'm glad you're not you're not burnt out or run out of ideas or anything like that yeah honestly the only thing i burned out on was the tournaments because you know it's like oh i nine to five job okay and then you spend a weekend playing all weekend and it's just like yeah spend a weekend hanging out with tom graph yeah something had to go and it was the tournament travis you know i'm fine with it yes travis who stands in line all day gotta qualify no i'm just kidding, Travis. No, Travis is the worst. All right. Well, we'll end on that note. So thank you, Keith, so much for being on here. If you clicked on the video on YouTube, please leave a comment. Tell us what your favorite Keith game is. Tell us what he sucks at. Let's work on some huge... Let's bring him down a notch. Tell him where he needs to improve. Whatever you need, I'll forward any comment you give me. But yeah, leave a thumbs up. Subscribe if you're new to the channel but yeah Keith thanks so much for being on and yeah keep doing what you're doing thanks all right bye everybody