I am the Black Knight. It's time now for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teoles. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. Please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher and check us out on Instagram at pinballprofile. We've completed three years and to begin our fourth year, five Steves. A Steve-o-rama, a Steve-fest, the five days of Deep Steve. Call it what you want. I think you'll enjoy each one of these interviews. And we begin with Steve Ritchie. Steve Ritchie, it is a pleasure to be talking to you once again. In fact, in the very room where Pinball Profile began three years ago. Thank you very much for joining me. Thanks a lot for inviting me. Well, you're here at work, so I kind of trapped you. You had to do it. Right. You did kind of corner me, and I was forced to be here, folks. A pleasure to be talking to my pinball hero. as you've known from the years of listening to Pinball Profile, and it has been a great year for you in 2019. Well, first off, talk about Black Knight, Sword of Rage. When did you know you were going to do this third Black Knight game? I would say about a year and a half ago. It's not that I knew. I just was tired of dealing with licensors. I was burned out on it two in a row. And Gary and I talked about it, and we decided we would do it. And it was a great success. Now, let's just focus on what you just said there, being burnt out about the licensors. So I know you're not retiring, as a lot of people rumored. No way. So that would mean your next game would be a license, wouldn't be a license? I know you can't say, but you were burnt out by using these licenses. I'm going to hang with licenses for this one. It's a great license, and it's very important to me. I mean, it's special to me, special to millions of other people, too. Well, there you go. Okay, so that's what we know about that. But Black Knight, it's amazing to see the evolution of this game. And as you and I have talked before, my favorite toy in all of pinball, which is very, very important to you, good toys. It is important to me. I made a lot of games without toys. I focused more on the shots and what else? I don't know, just a variety of things and smoothness and sound and music. But toys are very important to me. I think the Black Knight toy is very special. So you talk about things like sound and music. You are designing the play field. You know the toy that you want in your head. But when it comes to the music, when it comes to the sounds, how much input do you have on those things? I have a lot. I wrote most of the tunes along with Brian Schmidt and Dan Forden on Black Knight 2000. But since my hearing has been going down, I cannot direct audio on a game anymore because I don't really know what it sounds like. And I don't have a sense of pitch right now. So right now the people are helping. We were working with the sound guy, but we really didn't like what was going on. And then, actually, Dave Peterson and Jody pitched Scott Ian and Brendon Small. And it was awesome. I mean, when they brought the music into engineering, everybody was, it was like a magnet. Everybody just gathered around the game, and it blew us away. And it was perfect for the attitude of the game, perfect. Well, the shots are fantastic. It's a great flow game. It doesn't really remind me of other games. When you hear critics talk about, oh, this game reminds me of this game, do you believe those critics? Do you think, wait a minute, you're way off. The geometry isn't there. What do you think when you hear those kind of comparisons? A lot of the comments are way off. Like if they overlaid one game over another, the shots are different. I will say this, though. There's only so many places on a play field that are good shots if you'd like to keep your flippers in the same place, which I do. I always want players to be able to walk into my game and know where the ball is going to go off the flipper. So I keep that uniform. No mystery. You know how to pass. You know how to drop catch. You know how to do everything you need to do. Slap save. If I keep those flippers there any game of mine that you play you can play it the way you played it Now I know on Black Knight with the premium we talking about three flippers with the upper play field So when it comes to pro that kind of layout is what you looking at I mean, we've seen some pros from Stern come out with more than two flippers. Are you kind of in the mindset of two flippers is your comfort zone? Well, that's an actually cost problem. The Pro, I couldn't afford to do that on a Pro and have it come out to a good price point. We want to keep that price point as low as we can but deliver a game. So an upper play field was not possible. An upper right flipper would have meant just about an entire redesign of the play field, and I didn't want to do that either. I wanted to keep the toy right where it was and the shots around it the same pretty much. You know, what would a game, what would people say to me if I didn't have an orbit shot around the game, right? What are they going to do? It's like, you have to have orbit. You got to have, according to Gary, three jets. Pop bumpers, sorry. Jets is a Williams word. But I'm kind of a Williams guy. Anyway, but I'm really not. I'm a Stern guy now. Anyway, I don't know. People can say what they want. If the game is fun, if you enjoy it, you know, then, you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. See, I think of those orbit shots. I'll think of No Fear. I think of Black Knight. I think of some of your other great games. It could be even High Speed or Getaway. And that just, again, excites me for the flow of the game, the speed of the game. It keeps you on your toes. It makes pinball exciting. There's not a lot of stop and go. And that's one thing that when I see a Steve Ritchie game, I'm looking for that. It's in Game of Thrones. That's, to me, one of the many elements that makes a Steve Ritchie game so amazing. I don't want anybody ever to fall asleep playing my game. It's impossible. Right, it's impossible. I don't really enjoy, when I want to play pinball or any game, I want excitement. I just want, maybe not everybody does, but I do. I want excitement, I want action. I want to feel good about shots, and if they're smooth, they do make you feel good. Step up and feel my blade. So when I think of your games, Steve, you've worked with a lot of different programmers, too. and I wonder how much input you have in the programming of the game. When you design a game, do you have an idea of where the wizard mode is going to be, what kind of modes you're thinking of? Not always. Most of the time, the programmers have better ideas about that, but I always have programming input. Let's call it 20%, something like that. If I think we can do something great, we try it. I don't always interfere with them because deeper pinball, I'm never going to get there. I don't really understand what it's like to get there. I mean, I could cheat and learn the rules, but it's never going to happen for me because I don't have the skills. For average players, and we want their money, by the way, we want average players' money in the cash box. That's what we want. Give me your money. So I try to make the game, you know. My end is I'm the protector of the average player, pretty much. I need an extra ball at this point in the game. Can you make that happen? Yes. Those are the kinds of things that I asked Tim to do. but Tim is definitely the master of the code, and I'm glad to work with him. He tells me everything he wants to do, and I don't say no, because I don't say no to much of anything, really. I don't mind trying out stuff, because who knows? It might be great. I don't know, and nobody knows everything. Well, you look at something that I would imagine you had no foresight in seeing how great the animations were going to be. The team here at Stern did an amazing job on Black Knight. That's something that really popped on that LCD screen. You saw it coming here, of course. Danai and Josh and all the other guys. Alex Borre, lots of them. They did a great job. Incredible. So unique. That's it. That stuff hasn't been in pinball ever, that look, those characters. It's funny you talk about these things haven't been in pinball before. You know earlier you just joked about being a Williams guy and we certainly know your history with Williams Here we are as we getting ready for 2020 and I thinking we have now seen another real surgence of amazing pinball and maybe another golden age We saw things decline in the 90s, and we saw some great games in those Williams-era games, in the ballet games, but I think we're back at it again right now. What are your thoughts on the golden age of pinball, and are we there now? All I can say is I wish and I hope. I think we've made some great stuff lately, no question. and from your lips to God's ears, there it is. I hope that's what it becomes. You must be seeing the progress. I mean, I know the golden age included arcades, and that's the one thing we need to see more and more of. But they're starting to pop up, even if they're retro, even if they're nostalgic. We're starting to see the games that people are putting quarters in, which is very nice. Yeah, it's great. It's like everywhere I go, well, it's me, though. I mean, average people, some average people are still saying, I don't see them anymore. I haven't seen a pinball in years. So it's like, yeah, I'll take it with a grain of salt and be very hopeful that, you know, pinball grows even more and it would be great. In your vast career of 45 years of pinball, Steve, you've influenced so many up-and-coming designers, probably people you're working with. And they've said, wow, that's a Steve Ritchie shot. That's what I love about pinball, this flow and everything else. Now, I wonder for you, who loves pinball and is so passionate, when you see other designers come up with something, do you go, wow, I'm impressed with that. That's something, boy, I wish I thought of that. Absolutely. Okay, an instant example is, I guess it was, wasn't it two years ago that there was Scott Total Nuclear Annihilation? That game was like, I played 10 plays in a row. It wasn't because of any major feature. It was because of the whole attitude of the game. The locks behind drop targets were clever. but it was the music and how it felt to play it. Very satisfying, fun. Other games here, Jurassic Park's fun to play. I like shooting that game. What else? I don't know. There's something to like about every pinball machine pretty much. Yeah, I'm sure Scott Danesi will be very happy to hear you say that. I mean, that's a pretty nice compliment for you to give Scott. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not going to say anything bad about him. He's a good guy, and I really enjoy talking to him. But, you know, that's funny you talk about that game. That's a game that kind of reminds me of that Steve Ritchie feel, just how fast it is in the football. I don't think it's one of my games. I think it's, you know, maybe one or two shots are like mine, but, you know, people would say your shots are like Greg Kamek's or something, you know, some designer from the past. But I just think that, yeah, it is a great game. I feel, you know, like I belong to playing it. That's a weird thing to say, I know. We've seen you on a lot of shows this year. I know you did Texas. By the time this is released, you'll have been at Expo. You also went to Australia this year. How was that? I did. I'll tell you what. Australia is a beautiful place. The Carl Weathers was perfect. People were great. Good food. I even tried Vegemite. The magic is to put it on toast with some butter, very thin. Pretty salty. It's salty. It's made of the leftovers from making beer, yeast mostly. But it's not what people say, absolutely horrible. I can't let that out of my mouth. It's fine. It wasn't all that bad. It was, you know, I wouldn't buy it. But it didn't kill me, you know. It's like, it was, it's tolerable. That didn't kill you, but you actually did get quite sick coming back from that trip, didn't you? Yeah, I got really sick. And that's, I was on the plane for like 18 hours coming back. And I didn't, that wasn't the completion of the trip. I landed in Dallas, Fort Worth. And, you know, it's like being packed on a plane, recycled air, 300 people, many people from many different parts. of the world reading that error. And I have Meniere's disease, which is basically a chronic sinus infection. If it gets out of hand, it's like I get sick. That's it. You know, coughing and all this other stuff But this was actually bronchitis which is a different animal Anyway it knocked me on my ass for three and a half weeks I missed a lot of work But I feel great today because I changed my life Since August I don vape anymore Nothing's going in my lungs but air. And I had to have like a chest x-ray by one doctor who didn't help me at all. But I got the chest x-ray. And while I'm sitting there waiting, thinking about how long I've smoked and vaped in my life, I was scared. There's just no question. What's going to happen? Well, it turns out I got lucky genes, and there's nothing there. I am lucky as hell. That's about it. It's just, so I'm not going to mess with that anymore. I'm going to fight off my nicotine addiction with everything I've got now because I just, I don't know, at 69, maybe there's a little clarity. I love hearing that. Not that you were sick. I love hearing that you've got this new outlook on life and certainly, as we all should, taking care of ourselves to the best of our ability. So good on you. One thing I started doing was like we started drinking celery juice. You take a whole stalk. I'm talking about a bundle, right? Clean them all up. Put them in a juicer. It fills up a 16-ounce glass almost perfectly every time. And you drink this juice. Oh, God, it's kind of awful. It's kind of good, though, too. Anyway, it does cleanse you. And I started, I never ate breakfast before. But since that happened, I'm making fruit smoothies every morning before I go to work. That's what I do. I never was really an unhealthy eater. I don't eat fast food. I try to stay away from fatty stuff. Not much fried. Just good food. Steve, is there a Steve Ritchie diet book coming out in the near future? No. There's a Steve Ritchie pinball diet book. Pinball diets are terrible. There are hot dogs, french fries, hamburgers. What else? A lot of Red Bull. Oh, yeah, a lot of Red Bull. I used to drink that, too, but I quit after all this happened. Every day I would drink a small Red Bull in the morning. I just don't do it. Good for you. I feel better, and I feel I'm getting a little bit more clarity. That's about it, than I had before. Steve, I'm glad to hear this, because when Black Knight came out, there were a lot of people saying, oh, this is his retirement game, and you've never once said that. Let's put that to rest right now. There are some haters out there who would love for me to retire. Here's my message to you guys, okay? Bend over. That's my message. Go home to Mother Maggot. It's not happening, so obviously you're excited for your next game or game, so you don't even have to say a word about that. It's just good to know there's going to be more Steve Ritchie games coming up. I'm not going to quit. They might fire me. I'm not sure for what yet, but, yeah, I don't want to quit. I'm having a good time. It's fun to make pinball. It's my life. It's become a big part of our lives, Steve, the games you have created. And really, I've said this to you before, your original Black Knight game is what got me into pinball. And now I'm obsessed. I travel the world. I do these podcasts. I play in all kinds of tournaments. It all stemmed from Black Knight and the Steve Ritchie game. So thank you. I'm honored that you would say that. And thank you. Steve, all the best. And I look forward to what's coming up in 2020 and future years. You're never going to know what it's about, though, before then. I'm not saying a word and I mean it. I'm disappointed it wasn't the White Knight. You told us about that and my little pony, but oh, well, maybe in the future. Maybe in the future. This is my time away alley, so I'm totally enjoying it. Great. Thanks very much, Steve. Thanks a lot for having me. I am the Black Knight. Tomorrow, our second of five Steves, Vermont IFPA State Rep Steve Daniels joins us. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. Please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher and follow us on Instagram at pinball profile. I'm Jeff Teolis.