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Deep dive into "Guns N' Roses - Not In This Lifetime" by Jersey Jack Pinball!

Pintastic New England·video·53m 59s·analyzed·Dec 22, 2021
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TL;DR

Jersey Jack's GNR game deep dive: design iteration, band collaboration, multi-artist artwork, and rule depth.

Summary

Jersey Jack Pinball's Eric Meunier presents a comprehensive deep dive into the design and development of Guns N' Roses: Not In This Lifetime, covering playfield iteration, three-tier artwork (Standard/Limited/Collector editions), sculpting, audio recording with band members, animation integration from 5TB of concert footage, and rule design philosophy. The presentation emphasizes close collaboration with Slash, who served as co-designer and heavily influenced artistic direction, music composition, and sound design.

Key Claims

  • The Not In This Lifetime tour had grossed $500 million when the game launched, with performances at 199+ venues featured in the machine

    high confidence · Eric Meunier, opening remarks about tour scope and licensing

  • Slash was involved daily during development, including recording sessions from hotels at 4 AM after shows, and is credited as co-designer

    high confidence · Eric Meunier describing Slash's involvement level and commitment to the project

  • Slash created original music for each album mode and the final wizard mode, plus recorded hundreds of custom sound effects in correct tempo and key signature for every song variation

    high confidence · Eric Meunier describing music and sound effect recording sessions with Slash, Duff, and Richard

  • Guns N' Roses provided 5 terabytes of concert footage (18 three-hour HD concerts) for animation integration

    high confidence · Eric Meunier describing animation source material and processing

  • The band (Slash, Duff, Melissa) recorded 728+ lines of voice work with direct feedback from Eric Meunier during studio sessions

    high confidence · Eric Meunier presenting script counts and voice recording methodology

  • Slash rejected the initial roadcase artwork concept (similar to Metallica), leading to adoption of Ed Roth-inspired hand-drawn monster style for Standard edition

    high confidence · Eric Meunier describing Standard edition artwork iteration and Slash's feedback

  • The Limited Edition artwork involved working with Arjen Duller (who created ~75 of the tour's original lithograph posters) to curate cabinet art from rare poster collection

    high confidence · Eric Meunier detailing Limited Edition artwork process and Arjen Duller's role

  • Collector's Edition incorporates banned Appetite for Destruction album artwork with pinball-themed modifications (robot shooting pinball at Red Baron)

    high confidence · Eric Meunier describing Collector's Edition cabinet design and Slash's input on iconic artwork selection

Notable Quotes

  • “My motto is, build it. As many times as you can, as often as you can.”

    Eric Meunier@ 1:31 — Core design philosophy emphasizing iterative physical prototyping over theoretical planning

  • “I am the guy who hand-builds everything you see in the game. I personally want to be the person to do it because I want to make sure it's fun and it's functional and it's buildable.”

    Eric Meunier@ 3:00 — Demonstrates personal hands-on involvement in playfield construction and quality control

  • “Jean-Paul DeWin has been art directing this game... He is the best in the industry. He's awesome at what he does, and he's very passionate.”

    Eric Meunier@ 5:18 — Recognition of Jean-Paul DeWin's critical role as art director across three artist teams despite 7-hour time zone difference

  • “They let us take the original stems, track-separated music, for four songs and blend them together... That's something no artist in the world will ever let you just mess with their original music.”

    Eric Meunier@ 17:40 — Highlights unprecedented access to master recordings and creative trust Slash/GNR granted to Jersey Jack

  • “In the right key signature, at the right tempo, for every song in the game and every tempo change and key signature of every song in the game. So we have hundreds of sound effects.”

    Eric Meunier@ 20:45 — Demonstrates unusual level of audio production detail and band involvement in sound design

  • “Presented it to Guns N' Roses management, and they said, absolutely not, you can't put your logo in our logo, our logo is sacred. And then slash replied to that email with, it's cool, we're doing it.”

Entities

Eric MeunierpersonSlashpersonJean-Paul DeWinpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyMark MolitorpersonArjen DullerpersonDaneperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack positioned itself to Slash as 'the best pinball company on the planet' and secured unprecedented access to master recordings, concert footage, and artistic control for licensing partner.

    medium · Opening narrative, scope of licensed content approval, Slash's continued involvement and trust

  • ?

    community_signal: Design team tracked collector culture (Arjen Duller following lithograph forums) and incorporated Easter eggs meaningful to fandom (Dubai poster rarity, three-location posters: Chicago, New Jersey, Nijmegen).

    high · Arjen Duller's forum participation influence, deliberate inclusion of uncollectable Dubai poster, employee location posters

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Adult mode animations containing skeletal Kama Sutra imagery from GNR source material sparked internal debate; Eric Meunier defended inclusion as optional player-controlled feature aligned with band's mature aesthetic.

    medium · Discussion of adult mode animation sourcing and Eric's defensive but lighthearted response to controversy

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Rule design deliberately balances casual player accessibility (automatic band member spotting, achievable song completion per ball) with competitive depth (album modes with tiered achievements, hidden wizard mode complexity).

    high · Eric Meunier's closing statements on rule philosophy and design approach to $10k+ purchase retention

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Eric Meunier emphasizes iterative physical playtesting ('build it as many times as you can') over theoretical design, requiring hands-on involvement in construction to ensure fun and functionality.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.162

0:00
The American Pronunciation Guide Presents ''How to Pronounce Slash'' Slash is good friends with Jack. And a couple years ago, Slash said to Jack, I really want to make a new pinball machine with the best pinball company on the planet. And that's JJP. So Slash kept pushing Jack, let's get this to happen, let's get it to go, and so we made a game around the Not In This Lifetime concert tour. And to date, when we launched the game, that tour had grossed $500 million.
0:46
It has been seen at over 199 venues around the world, most of which are featured in the machine. So there is a lot of stuff that went into making of this game and we are going to touch on as much of it as we can. So Derek, let's get it started. Alright, so a lot of stuff goes into making a game. Playfield, art, animations, audio, code, it all has to be awesome. You can have the best laid out game in the world, but if you don't have good art, the game is not going to be cool. Or vice versa. Or if you don't have good code, the game is not going to be fun. So it all has to work together, and work together really well. So we're going to start off with the playfield. And my motto is, build it. As many times as you can, as often as you can. I mean, everything is theoretical and cool on paper, but until you actually make a game and shoot it, you have no idea if it's going to be fun. So there's about 40 different pictures we're going to look at here. Derek advance through them. So the iterative process of playfield design and layout.
1:56
Start with a CAD drawing and then just keep going and keep building and keep building. And we can see how iterative all of this is.

  • Jersey Jack initially rejected a bullet-to-skull shooter rod design due to pre-COVID sensitivity concerns, but the concept was later realized as an aftermarket mod

    high confidence · Eric Meunier describing sculpture iteration and company management feedback (November 2019)

  • Slash overruled Guns N' Roses management decision to reject the combined Jersey Jack/GNR logo, saying 'it's cool, we're doing it'

    high confidence · Eric Meunier recounting licensing negotiation and Slash's direct override of management objection

    • Eric Meunier@ 30:23 — Illustrates Slash's authority and direct creative control over licensing decisions, overriding management

  • “You should be able to get a song, on average, every game. We made it so that you were spotted band members at the beginning of each ball if you hadn't already achieved a song.”

    Eric Meunier@ 34:02 — Design philosophy balancing casual accessibility with depth for serious players

  • “Software is very important in making a good game. It has to be software that is approachable from a casual player, right? It also has to be software that holds the attention of really good players who just dropped $10,000 plus on a machine.”

    Eric Meunier@ 33:34 — Articulates core design challenge for premium pinball machines: casual/competitive balance

  • “Slash said to Jack, I really want to make a new pinball machine with the best pinball company on the planet. And that's Jersey Jack Pinball.”

    Eric Meunier (opening framing)@ 0:13 — Establishes origin story of Slash's motivation and Jersey Jack's positioning in his mind

  • “And thirdly, it's pinball. Like, it's cool. Get over it.”

    Eric Meunier@ 28:39 — Defensive but humorous response to controversy over adult mode animations from GNR source material

    • Matt Reeser
    person
    Duncan Bob Brownperson
    Jerome DeWinperson
    Duff McKaganperson
    Melissa Reeseperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    Guns N' Roses: Not In This Lifetimegame
    Appetite for Destructionproduct
    lithorati.comorganization
    Paul McCartneyperson
    Sony Licensingcompany
    Pintastic New Englandorganization
    Harveyperson
    Red Baronproduct

    high · Opening statement of design motto and repeated examples of playfield iteration, sculptor collaboration, and in-house prototyping

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Complex music licensing negotiations for 'Live and Let Die' failed despite Slash's request; song blocked by combined Sony, Paul McCartney, and James Bond rights holders. Unprecedented approval granted for blending original music stems and integrating Appetite for Destruction banned artwork.

    high · Eric Meunier describing licensing attempts and approvals; Slash overriding management on logo integration

  • ?

    community_signal: Slash remained deeply involved throughout development, approving artistic directions, recording content at odd hours from tour locations, and directly overriding corporate licensing objections. Co-designer credit reflects actual creative partnership.

    high · Daily contact, 4 AM hotel bed calls, email override quote, co-designer credit, custom music and sound effects

  • ?

    product_strategy: Three-tier edition strategy with distinct artistic visions: Standard (hand-drawn monsters by Mark Molitor), Limited (curated vintage tour posters by Arjen Duller), Collector's (banned album artwork with pinball modifications). Each edition intentionally targets different collector preferences.

    high · Structured presentation of artwork decisions for each tier and artist selection rationale

  • ?

    product_concern: Extensive iteration on physical components for manufacturing durability: skull jaw reinforcement after child testing, leaf attachment strengthening for shipping, art clearance verification to prevent packing damage.

    high · Examples of iterative fixes based on at-home testing and manufacturing constraints

  • ?

    technology_signal: Game integrates 5TB of concert footage (18 HD concerts), live Jumbotron visuals, original music composition, and 728+ voice lines—unprecedented scope of licensed multimedia content in a pinball machine.

    high · Detailed description of animation sourcing, Slash's music recording, and voice session scale

    • 2:12
    So you get some ideas. We can hold it there for a second. You get some ideas. not everything works. You know, it's fun to shoot, but it doesn't quite work with the feel of the game. Like, originally, my right ramp also fed the upper play field. And if you bricked the shot, it would instead drop into the pop bumpers. After some play time, that wasn't that fun. It wasn't fun to have the ball always on the upper play field. So we made the shot faster, feed the drumsticks instead, and just the iterative process is what helped decide that, what made the game more fun. Alright, we can keep going.
    2:51
    And so, yeah, drawing in CAD. There's a lot of stuff to keep track of. I am the guy who hand-builds everything you see in the game. I personally want to be the person to do it because I want to make sure it's fun and it's functional and it's buildable. I'm just curious what was in the middle there. Right. So, early Whitewoods, I had a LCD screen in the playfield. And then, after playing it, it was kind of a big void of art, right? When the game is off, you're looking at this just hole there, and it wasn't as visually pleasing. So, I found a better spot for it, which is where it is now, in the back panel. Alright, I think we can go a couple more slides. As you can see, as more and more stuff gets added to the game, and refinements, and other people who get their hands on it, circuit boards, different mechs, we start to get more play fields, and we get an arded play field, and I put this next picture in there just to make everyone freak out.
    4:09
    Advance it one more. Yeah, so there's freshly printed, arty play field that I just... because you find things that need to be tweaked. There was a way that a ball could sneak through the area between the pop bumper and a ball guide and made a ball trap. So I'll put posts in. I mean, again, it's the iterative process that makes the game improved and more playable. So this is the final prototype and then finally production game.
    4:39
    Alright, next, we've got the play field down. We get into, or the physical play field, we get into artwork.
    4:47
    And there's three different models of the game, so I wanted to have three different artists do the art. Because I really wanted the games to feel different, to look different, and to show off just what a different person's take on Guns N' Roses artwork should look like. And so we've got three very different flavors.
    5:09
    But what really tied it together was having a good art director. So JP DeWin has been art directed this game. He has been doing animation for JJP since JJP started. He is the best in the industry. He's awesome at what he does, and he's very passionate. He meets with me pretty much every day, even though he lives in the Netherlands. He's a seven-hour time difference.
    5:36
    Yeah, we hang out. We're on Skype all the time. Constantly throwing ideas back and forth on what makes the game visually pleasing when it comes to animations, how to make a good user interface, how to tie the art together. So even though it's done by three separate artists, it still is cohesive and looks good. All right, so we're going to go into Standard Edition and kind of go through some of the iterative process that went into the artwork on the standard. So this art was done by an internal artist at JGP. His name's Mark Molitor. Really cool guy. This was the first introduction to pinball that he ever had. And he went big. I mean, he really knocked it out of the park. It's a really cool art style.
    6:17
    And we can see kind of where we started with the standard edition, which was this concept of a road case. If you advance one more, I think it'll zoom into it. There we go. So we're like, hey, that could be fun. standard kind of low-key see what we can make it look like slash wasn't super on board at that one and then I remembered I'm pretty sure Metallica did that so I don't want to do that all right so then we decided how about this like this almost what's the phrase I'm looking for
    6:52
    yeah Eddie Roth thank you concept and so we drew this up sent it over to slash He's like that's awesome. Let's go with that this hand-drawn exaggerated monster artwork style So we advance a couple more we took that concept and
    7:11
    Made one of every member and we sent it off to them for approval so everyone loved the way they looked but slash really wanted to be bright pink With a purple tongue and so that's what you'll see in the final version of the game like that was his feedback He wants to be bright pink with a purple tongue. So then we got to the back box, and we're trying to figure out what to put on the side of the back box. We had the flying robot guy, we had, you know, an eagle, and a dead guy flying a plane, and Slash wasn't too into any of those. He was like, I really want there to be a beautiful woman on the side of the game. Of course he did. Alright. We'll make this work. It wasn't Mark's specialty to draw women in a way that Slash wanted. So I got my guy Dane to instead draw the girl that you see on the side of the cabinet, and Slash approved. And we got that one in, and that's what you see in production. Alright, next up, the limited edition. This artwork package was the culmination of a lot of people coming together. So, originally looking at all of the assets we had access to, Guns N' Roses had gotten lithographs, specialized posters, for nearly every single place they played. I mean, there's some really awesome ones. Hershey, Pennsylvania had a chocolate bar. It was always done up in a way that represents the town they were in or some of the lore from the city of where they're playing. So there's just this huge collection of lithographs. And actually, there's a website, lithorati.com, that has all of these things catalogued. And I spent hours and hours and hours looking at that thing. I really wanted there to be an art set that looked like a grungy, club wall. It just had posters slammed all over it and some of them torn off or blood stains and all sorts of good stuff. So I
    9:14
    was able to get access to the guy who did about 75 of their tour posters. His name's Arjen Duller. He just has a
    9:25
    fantastic approach to art. He really did well with all the different cities that they went to. I loved his style. So reached out they gave me his contact info, and I asked if he'd be down for doing cabinet art set with us
    9:43
    Little part You got it you got it all right, so we had this concept of getting this poster kind of cabinet put together and
    10:00
    We presented this to slash he loved it gave us some feedback. What was really great about Arian being involved is that the way we all follow pinball on the internet and the forums and Pinside and things like that, there is a forum dedicated to these lithograph collectors and what they value and how valuable these things are. And Arian followed that religiously because it's mostly his work. There's a lot of other artists who also had posters in there, but Aryan was into it, and so his suggestions helped influence what posters we picked. There are some Easter eggs in the final set as we go along.
    10:40
    So we've got kind of left side, right side, again, mock-ups, trying to get stuff together that we wanted to have in there. So if we stop here, we have a poster there, a poster here, and a poster way up there that represented the three places where Jersey Jack employees lived. So we have the Chicago poster, we had New Jersey, the Jersey Devil up there, and then we had Nijmegen, which is where Jean-Paul lives. So we got those in the artwork here. There's one poster that really stood out, which is the Dubai poster. So this one, you can't find it anywhere in the world. It is impossible to find because they got this poster drawn, and it never arrived to the show in Dubai. So you literally cannot get it. And Aryan was saying, like, Guns N' Roses fans are going to absolutely love this because they can't find this poster anywhere. So without his influence, I mean, it's a cool-looking poster, don't get me wrong. I probably wouldn't have chosen that poster to be on the side of the game. But with his influence, that one made it, and we got a lot of positive feedback from Guns N' Roses fans. Like, this is so cool, I can finally have this artwork physically in my house. So that was fun.
    12:06
    All right, next, collector's edition. So, Arian offered to do a completely unique and hand-drawn artwork set for the Collector's Edition game. So, we threw some ideas out there. We had different concepts, like a tour around the world, I think could be a really fun one.
    12:25
    Or just like Guns N' Roses name with maybe the cross on the back. So, we threw a couple ideas, and we kind of tried to figure out what would stick. So, if you go one or two more. Yeah, so a couple different concepts. This was the first sketchup of what could look like as a world tour aspect for the collector's edition game.
    12:43
    And it's cool. But then I had the conversation with Slash on, you know, it's a collector's edition game. There's only going to be 500 of them. We want it to be very impactful. What do you think? Well, Guns N' Roses fans collect Appetite for Destruction. You know, whatever it is, if it's Appetite for Destruction, our super fans love it and buy it. So, we then proposed taking the original artwork from the Appetite album, the artwork that was banned in the US, and putting that on the side of the game. And so we went through a couple iterations of taking that artwork, but then throwing some pinball flavor into that, right? Getting the bad guy robot to be chucking a pinball at the Red Baron and then we have the artwork that we have today on the collector edition version But then it not just that simple right You pick a color for the, or you pick the art for the cabinet itself, and then you know what color kind of looks best with this. So I was kind of torn between the red and the purple, but we decided to go with purple in the end and do some cool laser cut and intricate stuff. Alright, so after the cabinets, let's talk about some sculptures. So physical artwork that represents the intellectual property. This stuff is very iterative. You gotta be hands-on, gotta be able to make sure it looks cool but also works in a game. It can't be full of ball traps and stuff like that. So here's just some of the artwork. I didn't touch on every sculpt we have in the game, but we started with this skull. So Matt made this. Matt, re-serve from back alley. And just again the iterative process of going through and making sure stuff fits. Like when we first had this we had it into the leg or it ran into the bolt up top or it stuck over or you know making sure there's clearance here and here so being able to work directly with the sculptor, have them in the office is big and important. And we had this really cool idea, one more, of this bullet sculpture as a shooter rod. This picture was taken November 2019. We had this concept, but it was, we got pushback because that was pre-COVID and I think company management said we don't really want to have a bullet going into a skull. Okay, I agree. It's cool, it fits with the like the imagery of Guns N' Roses, but Yeah, it's a very sensitive subject in today's political climate, so we'll drop that idea. But then it got made as a mod in the aftermarket, which I thought was pretty ironic.
    15:24
    Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. All right, then we have the next step. Again, iteration. We have the colored version with the roses and stuff on it, and I wanted to make sure, like, when this game ships, there's so many ideas and details to think about as a game designer. One of the things is, like, when that game shifts, I can't let there be stuff that hangs off the side because of packing material, right? What supports this in the box? So that little leaf would have gotten snapped off in shipping if it stuck out like that. So we had to iterate again We had to pull that back just a hair and Make the part more reliable
    16:01
    Then we had the slash hat which I originally actually 3d printed this and colored it with a little chrome marker to kind of see how that would look and fit it in the game. And having a 3D printer in the office is fantastic because I can come up with an idea for a sculpture, or Matt can make it, we can scan it, we can scale it up, down, cut chunks out of it, do whatever we want, and print up a new one by the next day you show up. So sculpting is interesting.
    16:33
    All right, audio. So, again, another very important aspect of the game. So it's more than just beeps and chimes. There's a lot of stuff that goes into the audio package. Basically three big things. The music itself, the sound effects, and the voice work. So we'll start with the music.
    16:52
    Pretty big selling point on this game. All right, so we got to do some really cool stuff because we were directly working with Slash. I mean, to put emphasis on it, Slash was so involved in this game, he's credited as co-designer for good reason. He was talking to me daily as he was in New Zealand or Germany. Like, one time he answered the phone, he's just laying in his hotel bed. He's like, what's up, man?
    17:21
    We're going to talk work. Where are you? He's like, it's four in the morning, just got done with the show, but what's going on? We talk about the different cool stuff that we got to do. One of the things that shows how much trust Slash and the team at GNR had in us is they let us make a medley of their music. They let us take the original stems, track-separated music, for four songs and blend them together. And that's what you hear as you play the game. When you start before you enter a song, you're hearing four of their tunes that we took, pulled apart, and spliced back together. And that's something no artist in the world will ever let you just mess with their original music. It was very cool that he allowed us to do that. Slash made original music for the game. He did a song for each of the album modes as well as the final wizard mode. We wanted to get him some inspiration for what the modes were going to look like. So we sent him our first pre-animations of Desert Demolition. And Slash came back with this song.
    18:54
    Thank you. That talented. All right, so sound effects in this game were something else. I'm very passionate about music. I've been involved in music my whole life. I was a saxophone player in middle school and high school. I played trumpet in the Wisconsin Marching Band. Music's part of my life. Doing this game was very rewarding. One of the things that I really wanted to emphasize is that the sound effects needed to fit with the musical style of the game. So I asked Slash if he could help me out, and he did. He really did. So if you advance one more, maybe two more.
    20:17
    One more. There we go. So it's a little blurry. Maybe a little hard to see. But these are files that we got out of Slash. I asked him to record sound effects for us hitting a target, you know, a very short, quick zing, hitting a ramp, which is a little bit longer, half a second to three quarters of a second, or hitting an orbit shot, which is like a second long.
    20:45
    In the right key signature, at the right tempo, for every song in the game and every tempo change and key signature of every song in the game. So we have hundreds of sound effects that are in the right tempo, in the right key signature for every song in the game. And not only Slash did that, but Duff did it as well, and so did Richard. So they all got in their studios and hooked us up with just awesome sound effects. That's why when you're playing November Rain and you hit a stand-up target, it makes a good sound, but it doesn't sound out of place. It's correct. It doesn't sound weird. So yeah, hundreds of sound effects that they threw our way to make the game sound great.
    21:32
    All right, so speech is another huge thing in the game. As a game designer, it was my job to come up with a script and then get together with the people who were going to be doing the voice work. And luckily, we had the members of the band able to do the voice work. What we're going to see now is some of the scripts that I sent to Melissa, Duff, and Slash. You can see there's a couple lines they had to go through. So, yeah, that says 728. That's the first session we had with Melissa, and we had a couple follow-up ones. So this is slashes, there's 150 there or so. So basically, they'll read a line and I'll give them feedback. So I'll give them how to say the line, because if you did this in a closed studio without direct feedback, if they're not big pinball nuts, they don't understand, you'd get things like, like extra ball shoot the ramp or multi ball so getting in getting with them while they're recording is really important and we're gonna see part of that session now with Melissa get the extra ball yep so as you're playing pinball most games 99% of the games you play are gonna be a three-ball game You play the ball, it drains. Give it another chance, it drains. You're done. Your extra ball is going to earn a fourth ball. And that's like the best thing you want to do ever is earn an extra ball.
    23:20
    You get one up on the person you're playing against. You know, you get another chance. Right. Okay. So is it an exciting? It should be exciting. Get the extra ball. Okay. Get the extra ball.
    23:33
    Get the extra ball. And me, being an asshole game designer, I always make it really hard to earn the extra ball, so it's a difficult shot. So get the extra ball if you can. Okay.
    23:48
    Get the extra ball if you can. Nice. They're all musicians. They have their own home recording studios. It's like, hey, Slash, I need like four more lines. We forgot, you know, one of the cities. Can you please record Milwaukee, we love cheeseheads, you know? And sure, give me five minutes and then I had the line in my inbox. All right, so that's audio. Animations. I could have spent enough another hour talking about animations. But in this game, we did a lot. We, Guns and Roses, sent us over five terabytes worth of concert footage. So it was 18 three-hour long high definition concerts with audio and video. And then my good pal Duncan Brown, who's one of the programmers at JJP, combed through that and extracted a bunch of great stuff.
    25:03
    Jerome DeWin, who is JP's brother, went through and edited the concert footage to either slow down or space out or splice in so that we could sync up the modern day live footage with the studio-recorded master tracks that we have in the game. The audio from the concerts is never quite as clean or as good or as crisp as it is from a studio master. So we really wanted the best of both worlds. We wanted to let you hear the song that you know, but also show the energy and the excitement of the band as they're performing live on tour. So went through all that and just pulled out all the best video we could to sync it up with the master tracks. We had the company that created all of the animations that you see on their Jumbotrons, right? For every song, they had unique visuals. They had really cool stuff, so we were able to integrate all of that into the game as well. It's like, oh, yeah, you'd like that stuff? Here's the file. Go ahead. Besides all of just the concert stuff, we had to come up with a user interface. How do you convey to a player all of the stuff that we want you to do?
    26:25
    Jean-Paul's very, very good at that. And he did a fantastic job showing what band members you need. And this game is kind of unique because it has kind of two distinct gameplay modes. Before a song and in a song. and so it's two different user interfaces, but they convey all the rules that you need to see. You can look up at a glance and kind of see where you're at with everything. And that's not a trivial exercise. It's gotta be intuitive for the player to understand a game when they just look at a screen and there 50 different rules in a game You want them to understand everything that they looking at And then just lots of other cool and unique animation stuff that we do So there's a video of taking one of the tour posters in one of the album modes.
    27:13
    You're firing a cannon at tour posters. But that was just kind of boring, and we wanted to animate all these tour posters. So we took some of the art from Arian and we animated it.
    27:30
    So as you're playing that mode, you will see you're aiming at the different posters and they're all animated. They're moving and kind of attacking you. But then showing things like how to play the game. Again, this is more animation work, trying to display what you need in order to play games, and play the game and understand the rules.
    27:53
    This is videos that show up during a track mode. Sure. What's up, Joe? How did you come up with the animations for the adult mode?
    28:11
    So the adult mode, actually, JJP didn't come up with any of those animations. Those were all directly from Guns N' Roses. The skeletal Kama Sutra was one that kind of got me in trouble. But I'm like, hey, it's adult mode. First of all, it's Guns N' Roses. Secondly, you have to turn on adult mode in order to see that. So you did, and you got to see it.
    28:39
    And thirdly, it's pinball. Like, it's cool. Get over it. All right. So here's kind of showing the player user interface. This is a pre-song user interface showing what you need to do in order to collect the different band members.
    29:03
    And your progress in your booster multiballs and how far you've traveled. All these things are important rules for the player to understand. You try to convey them in a way that is visually easy to understand. You can also see locked balls, etc.
    29:20
    All right. So we're going to end the presentation here in a little bit with just some cool pictures that I had. And I tried to limit myself. I only put a couple in there.
    29:31
    So this was the first time that I got to see the printed artwork for the cabinets, and it was just mind-blowing. This artwork came out so good, I was very excited. This is why I'm not an artist.
    29:46
    So we really wanted to have the JJP logo and the Guns N' Roses logo tied together, which is, again, something that no other licensor would ever grant us. You can't take Willy Wonka's signature logo and slam a JJP emblem in the middle of it. So we presented a well-drawn logo, not my garbage logo, but the one that you'll see on stickers and posters and stuff like that, the one that's on the apron.
    30:23
    Presented it to Guns N' Roses management, and they said, absolutely not, you can't put your logo in our logo, our logo is sacred. and then slash replied to that email with, it's cool, we're doing it.
    30:36
    Shit. All right. It's cool, we're doing it. So thankfully, Jean-Paul redrew it, made it look good, and that's what we see now in the game.
    30:46
    All right, so COVID lockdown. We all got sent home in March of last year. The game was done, but we were still getting software fleshed out in the game. We were getting parts in and I had to check them. And so I brought the game home and this is one of the first things that happened. My two little guys hung out underneath it because they'd never seen a light show. They were just laying under it and the lights were just going crazy on them. So I have a six-year-old and a four-year-old and they absolutely loved it. Another thing they did, which caused some internal debate initially with the development of the game, On the collector's edition, we have the Skull Shooter housing.
    31:31
    And it's made out of a vinyl material. And there was concern that the lower jaw, because it's an open jaw, would break off or snap off and get destroyed by people beating on it. I'm like, okay, well, hold the phone here. First of all, people aren't going to be routing collector edition games. We don't really need to worry too much about that. Secondly, no one's going to be messing with that thing, so let's just all take a step back. It'll be fine. I bring the game home. The literal first thing that happens is my four-year-old comes over and says, I'm a bad guy. And I'm like, okay, out of bracket. Reinforce, reinforce.
    32:11
    So, yeah. Everyone understands the value of it except kids. Oh, it's a cool toy. Look, Daddy, it moves. It's not supposed to move. Don't move it. All right, and there's me with Harvey playing the game and enjoying the concert experience. So it was a whole lot of fun being able to have the game at home in lockdown, and these guys were some of the first ever QA testers that I had.
    32:42
    Here's a scene of when Slash was in-house with us. He does not always wear the top hat, in case anyone is wondering. I asked him to bring it because we were doing the photo shoots. This is a session where we did the selfie that you get at the end of the game, right? With Slash. So he was signing stuff for Matt. That's Matt Reeser, my sculptor, who made all the cool toys you see on the game.
    33:08
    And I think that's about everything for today. So, one more thing. One thing I didn't really touch on was software. Software is obviously a huge part of this game. I didn't have any great visuals for software. I probably could have put up the rules flow chart. But software is very important in making a good game. It has to be software that is approachable from a casual player, right? It also has to be software that holds the attention of really good players who just dropped $10,000 plus on a machine. You don't want to beat your game in a week when you just spent that much money on it. So we went out of our way to make the game approachable to everyone. You should be able to get a song, on average, every game. We made it so that you were spotted band members at the beginning of each ball. if you hadn't already achieved a song. And then had things to tie over and hold over the really good players, like the album modes and the wizard modes. But then more added complexity on top of that, which we can talk about all day. I love programming and rules.
    34:29
    But making album modes not just a single way of beating them. So there's something that spins around. There's an album, a platinum record that you collect time toward. If you loop it around once, you've qualified the album mode, but if you keep playing songs from that album, you can get a gold record or a platinum record or a diamond record, and that makes the scoring that you're achieving in your album mode that much more valuable.
    34:59
    So lots and lots of depth and breadth in the software of this game. All right, now we can take some questions. And can you please walk up to the mic so that we can hear it for recording? Recording, broadcasting, and doing all that stuff.
    35:19
    All my suggestions. So for starters, I want to say thank you. I love my SE. I have two questions. Number one, are you planning on expanding the SE programming? That would be my number one. And my number two question was really, could you tell the story about how you got the rights to live and let die? because I think it's important that you got Slash involved, and I love the story. So as far as expanding software, we're always updating and tweaking and score adjusting. As far as adding more features, the game is feature complete, but never say never. If my programmers feel inspired, I'm not going to stop them from adding more cool stuff.
    35:59
    All right, so Live and Let Die. Slash gave me a set list of 30-plus songs that he wanted in the game. And there were some that, for reasons we couldn't or didn't want to put in the game, songs like Prostitute and IRS and a couple of other songs that had, you know, some themes that we didn't really want to touch on. But the song that he really wanted was Live and Let Die. And we went to, Jack help me out if I get the names wrong, we went to Sony Licensing, licensing because they own the rights for music. We had Paul McCartney's licensing group and we also had to deal with the James Bond group because that song was originally part of a James Bond movie. No, no, no. And like money didn't matter. It was just no. And I said, Slash, sorry man, we're not going to get Live and Let Die. We can't make it happen. And Slash replied with, let me call Paul, we'll work it out. And no joke, Jack had the license in his inbox the next day. So, Sir Paul McCartney made it happen. So, when you were doing the original design, but did Slash have a lot of input? Like did he say, I like multiballs. I've only played this game like 30 times in the last 24 hours. But it does seem like there's a few more multiballs that come at you. Did he say, hey, I'm going to give you the music, and I want to have these extra features as well? So Slash provided me with a, no joke, Slash hand drew a play field that he wanted to see.
    37:53
    That's not what the play field looks like. But there are quite a few of his concepts in the game. It was his idea to have the skull shooter housing in the game. Now, he had a .45 Magnum jammed into the front of it, too, which we didn't quite get in there. But the concept of the ball moving on guitar strings, like here, was in his original drawing. The idea of the scoop in a couple different places that he had them. Some of that stuff lived. The idea of an upper play field and integrating stage presence and the show. All of that stuff was in there. And Slash loves pinball. He is very interested in the rules. He is very interested in the physical artwork, the sculptures. One of his big things was that on every version of the game, There has to be a feature for the big three, for him and Axel and Duff. So when we were doing the standard edition game, which didn't get the upper play field or the Duff ramp, I was scrambling to figure out how I could represent Duff in the game, because I'd grown to like Duff quite a bit. I had developed a personal relationship with him. We spent two or three hours in the recording studio doing voice work and stuff like that. I wanted him to have a cool representation in a standard edition as well. So we had the cool laser-etched Fender bass and showed that to him, and they all loved it. So it was cool to be able to make sure every member of the band was well-represented in each version of the game.
    39:41
    All right. Other questions? All right. Shout out to Steven Keeler in New York in chat right now. He wants to know if you're going to be adding more songs to Guns N' Roses. No. Come on. Jack says no. Deliver transactions, Jack. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about Internet connectivity and how you kind of see people interacting with these machines like in different locations. Can they play remotely, et cetera? So right now we have partnered, JGP has partnered with Scorbit to do online integration of our games. And we're starting small with the content that we've launched to public. This is a first step. What we've allowed out in the public so far are achievements, which are something that I'm very passionate about, and challenged play. Meaning, I developed a score, or I got a score, I can challenge you because I know your username, and you can try to beat my score at a later date. that is not all that we're planning, that is not all that we already developed, but it is an ever-growing aspect of the company that I feel is very, very cool. And we're going to be taking it further and further as we keep going here. What I really like about achievements is I can come up with a wacky idea and make you play this game that you've owned for a year or two years in a way that you've never thought of before. And Joe just did that on Wonka, for example. There's an achievement on Wonka where you have to play the four blue factory modes before you play any other factory modes.
    41:55
    And it really changes the way you play that game because you have to purposefully avoid spinners, you have to purposefully avoid the captive ball. If you hit those, you're going to qualify one of the other factory modes. So it's not an impossible task, but it might challenge you for a night and make you play the game that you've owned for four years in a way that you've never tried to play it before. Achievements are a really cool thing and just allow us to expand the game, you know, and you have this just wacky shower thought of, oh, this could be a really fun gameplay aspect and then release it as an achievement. It's really fun.
    42:34
    Gabe? Eric, can you talk a little bit about the development of the Hot Rails and the lighting on this game is amazing. so I know you developed that. Did you develop that, or how did that come about? So, hmm.
    42:50
    All right, there are things in pinball that haven't changed in a very, very long time, and the wood rails are one of those things.
    43:00
    For as long as pinball has been around, there have been two rails on the sides of the game that reinforce the play field to make sure it doesn't bow or bend.
    43:11
    And that's something that you absolutely need. However, I felt like those were bland, and I wanted to make something more interesting. So I worked with my mechanical engineer. We came up with a concept of a very specialized shape for a plastic extrusion made out of polycarbonate. and we developed some very special bolts that allowed us to integrate light into the hot rails, into the wood rail, and then I trademarked it as a hot rail. Sure.
    43:50
    Open this up. Oops, sorry. And maybe we can take the camera and point it right here. Is that possible? One second.
    44:04
    We can look kind of down the end of the hot rail there. So it still has to be structurally sound. It still has to reinforce the play field and not allow the play field to go or bend. So using an I-beam style shape, allow me to create two channels in there, one for screws on the top, and one for LED strip along the bottom. And then there's another piece of metal and some studs that come underneath that fasten it to the actual play field.
    44:46
    You can see those there. And then I personally patented it. That's my first patent. All right, I did have a question yesterday as we were hanging out about how to adjust the record spinner. So the record spinner is a mech that's been around for a while.
    45:12
    How high can we go there? That's good enough for me. You can come back. All right. So your record spinner has two things on it. One is this white jam nut right here. This is generally finger tight, but after you get it set to where you want, You take a big pair of pliers and you tighten that down. If you loosen this up, this silver piece here is also a threaded screw. And as you turn that by hand, you can either lower or raise the entire mech in the playfield. And then you tighten this white jam nut and that locks it in place. All right.
    46:00
    Anyone else have questions on mechs or the game or anything like that? Otherwise, I'm going to show you some of the cool Easter eggs that I hid in the game.
    46:11
    I have one question. Sure. Who wrote the script for the bands to do their call-outs? To do their speech? Me. So do you always talk in third person, or is it a Guns N' Roses thing? Well, it was kind of tough because sometimes, well, more often than not,
    46:30
    people don't know what slash sounds like. So like when I had slash say, hey, it's me, most people have never heard slash's voice. So that's why he was saying things like slash here and stuff like that. Frank qualified. Yep. Right. But nobody knows what Frank Ferrer sounds like, so I wanted him to say his name. And in adult settings, it's a lot more fun when you qualify Frank. That's true. Because he is the Thunder Chucker, and that has some fun rhyming words.
    47:04
    All right, so if we can get a video of this. Go ahead. Over the screen. There you go. All right. Now that's something you have to explain again.
    47:39
    I'm sorry, guys. I'm just disgusted. We're right here. We're going to move from here. It's downhill. It makes sense. Of course, we've got to go all the way over here. Oh, no. So that way we can go in the direction. That's all right. We're going to move all the way from here. I don't know how far to this. Let me know. There's going to be some zigging. There's going to be some zagging. Are you saying the world is flat? You don't want to go flat. Oh, there you go. We're not going to get into basketball.
    48:30
    Somebody for baby. You got the best! Alright! Radio symmetry. Wait, no, radio symmetry is... Wait, I have to... I'll have to grab something to drink to do it. Oh, where did you go? I can't see anything. There it is. Okay. I'm gonna get out to the paradise and run the grandest green and the girls are pretty. Take me home.
    49:32
    Step in the jail, look, I'll take you down straight by. This is it for real. There's an AI robot head of a raptor. It's about this big.
    50:04
    This is the conquering Deme Legion of the night, the bear of the new age. Bye. I do have another really cool video in there. It's another kind of a long one, but it is the first time Slash got to see and play the game.
    50:51
    Thank you. Don't knock me on your wall Don't knock on my damn wall Don't you think that you can beat somebody Don't you think that you beat someone Obviously somebody Don't knock me on your wall Don't you think that you can beat somebody Don't you think that you can beat someone Obviously somebody Don't knock me on your wall And I'm not the only one Don't you think that's so funny? Don't you think that's so fun? That's so funny So funny
    52:50
    All right, one more video. This one is my favorite. So during the course of developing this game, Slash got to know me and my whole family. So my kids know him as Mr. Slash.
    53:20
    Who's that? Come here, Mr. Snap. Thank you. All right. Thank you for making those work in free play. All right. Thanks, everyone.