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Ep 12: Keith Elwin!

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·48m 31s·analyzed·Jul 1, 2019
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TL;DR

Keith Elwin discusses his transition to Stern and design philosophy behind Iron Maiden.

Summary

Keith Elwin, legendary tournament player and now senior designer at Stern Pinball, discusses his transition from San Diego-based independent operator to Chicago-based full-time employee. He details the homebrew Archer project that became his portfolio piece, Iron Maiden's design philosophy balancing tournament depth with casual accessibility, and his design principles emphasizing flow, state-change mechanics, and risk-reward gameplay. The conversation covers rule-set design, player skill development, and his approach to appealing to multiple market segments (tournament, location, home collector, premium collector).

Key Claims

  • Iron Maiden's top-right target was removed due to reliability issues (balls getting stuck), not cost-cutting

    high confidence · Keith explaining design decisions: 'I pulled that out because the ball kept getting stuck, which is fine on a homebrew, but for production, we just can't have that.'

  • Steel tariffs have significantly increased the cost of metal parts for pinball machines, affecting production economics

    high confidence · Keith: 'these steel tariffs are kind of killing us right now. Metal parts that we were using even a year ago in Iron Maiden are suddenly a lot more expensive now.'

  • Stern's typical game development cycle is 13-14 months from start to release

    high confidence · Keith: 'our normal cycle is about 13-14 months'

  • Iron Maiden's licensing was for the comics and cell phone game, not the music directly, which influenced the design direction

    high confidence · Keith: 'the license we had was for the the um the comics and the cell phone game... I'd rather focus it on the Legacy of the Beasts'

  • Keith designed Iron Maiden with the expectation it would appeal primarily to hardcore/tournament players, but discovered broader appeal

    high confidence · Keith: 'when the stern wanted me to do the archer layout for iron maiden i kind of figured okay this is going to be for the hardcore player'

  • Keith is currently working on his second game at Stern and is already brainstorming ideas for a third

    high confidence · Keith: 'I've already kind of kicking around ideas for game number three'

  • Counter-tilting technique (nudging in opposite direction to absorb tilt bob momentum) is critical for competitive play without triggering the tilt mechanism

    high confidence · Keith explaining nudge mechanics: 'I need to counter it to the right as quickly as possible to absorb... the tilt bob momentum... if you time it just right it'll kill the momentum'

  • George (Gomez) provided feedback on The Beatles pinball that led to design improvements, including adjusting the loop and adding a spinner to the left side

Notable Quotes

  • “I know the true story is like oh yeah that's exactly why this was done this way so I wish I could elaborate but it is it is really different being on the inside.”

    Keith Elwin @ early in interview — Keith hints at understanding Stern's internal decision-making that often appears nonsensical to external observers, suggesting industry knowledge gaps in community discourse.

  • “My goal is to not make the same game over and over. I like upper flippers, so I can't imagine doing a game that doesn't have upper flippers.”

    Keith Elwin @ design philosophy section — Defines Keith's design identity and commitment to evolution rather than repetition, establishing expectations for future releases.

  • “I'm having too much fun. So I'm glad people love Iron Maiden, but I think they'll like my next game just as much, if not more.”

    Keith Elwin @ pressure question — Indicates confidence in next game without feeling pressure from Iron Maiden's success; reflects optimistic but measured expectations.

  • “When you're in a tournament mode, the outlaying posts are gone, no extra balls, tight tilts. Chances you could get into the wizard mode are pretty slim as it is.”

    Keith Elwin @ rule-set design section — Explains design philosophy of providing multiple playstyles and difficulty modes rather than funneling all players toward wizard mode.

  • “I think having those choices is good compared to like, well, I'm funneled into the hand of the king here. Now I need to blow it up. If I don't, I'm in real trouble.”

    Keith Elwin @ rule-set philosophy — Criticizes earlier design approaches that forced linear progression, contrasting with his player-choice philosophy.

  • “So I think the advent of the Internet has made much of these mystery skills not so much of a mystery anymore.”

    Keith Elwin @ skill development discussion — Observes how information democratization through internet has changed competitive pinball landscape, making skills more accessible to learn.

Entities

Keith ElwinpersonStern PinballcompanyIron MaidengameArchergameGeorge GomezpersonJosh RooppersonScott Larsonperson

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Iron Maiden achieved unexpected broad appeal beyond tournament audience; even casual players and non-band-fans connecting with game (example: Pro owner upgrading to Premium)

    high · Josh: 'it seems like yes it's a tournament game that has also had broad appeal. Like there are people who have connected to it in ways that you wouldn't have anticipated' and story of friend upgrading from Pro to Premium

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith criticizes multiball-heavy 90s design philosophy (Fishtails as example) where multiball is so lucrative it makes single-ball play irrelevant

    high · Keith discussing Fishtails: 'why would I play single ball? That's more dangerous when multiball is more lucrative.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith's design approach emphasizes flow with state-change mechanics (same shot behaving differently based on game state) rather than static layouts, contrasted with multiball-heavy 90s era design

    high · Keith: 'I'm a big fan of flow but I think I'm also a big fan of state change so... I think there's a nice medium in there'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Iron Maiden licensing acquired for comics and cell phone game IP rather than music rights; this influenced design direction toward Legacy of the Beasts fantasy theme

    high · Keith: 'the license we had was for the the um the comics and the cell phone game... I'd rather focus it on the Legacy of the Beasts, and they were fine with that'

  • $

    market_signal: Classic game interest remains strong (Beatles, TNA referenced as popular); Keith interested in designing classic-style machine but notes only Woe Nelly exists as throwback offering

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.146

0:00
Hey, thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. I am Josh Roop with my co-captain as always. This is Scott Larson, and today we have straight from Krypton and down to the mean streets of San Diego, we have the very one and only Keith Elwin. Hello. What is going on, Keith?
0:25
It's another rainy day in Chicago somehow, even though it's summer. I don't know what's up with this weather. It seems like here just next door, neighbors to us, Colorado, got two foot of snow up in their mountains last week. I tell you what, I miss the mountains.
0:40
Hey, anytime you want to come out to Utah and hang out, we'll host. All right. Scott will take you down some of the ski slopes because he spends half his time up there. Well, you got to take advantage of it if you live close. You know it, man. Yeah, yeah. No one skis Chicago. Well, cool, man. Well, Keith, we really appreciate you coming on with us. just because we know that you're a busy man. We know that you've got a lot of hats you wear, I guess. And so we just appreciate you taking the time out to join us on our little podcast that we decided to do as a goof-off thing. So glad to be here. So big life change over the last few years. You were based out of San Diego and you had a great opportunity of going and working with Stern. How has that changed for you? and what is the difference for you between being outside of Stern and basically working as a tournament player and fixing up pinball machines versus actually going inside the industry? Is there anything that really has changed for you?
1:42
Obviously, a big life change from moving San Diego to Chicago. Like I said, I'm an avid mountain guy, so moving here is a bit of a system shock. I went from working for myself so basically if I wanted to hey next weekend I'm going to go out of town here or there I would just do it it's a little bit of a system shock to actually have a 9 to 5 job now but it's great it's my dream job I wouldn't trade it for anything and yeah I've always been in the industry in some capacity I grew up working on machines at an arcade and then did a few other things for a while then I came back to working on machines and then later became an operator and I was you know I was like the pin side masses why doesn't Stern do this or they're stupid for doing that and this and then of course now that I'm working for them and the inside I know the true story is like oh yeah that's exactly why this was done this way so I wish I could elaborate but it is it is really different being on the inside. so the question i was wondering we've got a friend named steven strom here and he just loves iron maiden he actually bought one yesterday at our salt lake gaming con but he wanted to know what the story was behind he knows that it kind of evolved from archer but he was wondering because it talked about he thought it was kind of like a resume for stern is that correct and kind of what built up that process for it yeah well yes and no uh i've always wanted to build uh pinball machines and i built one in the late 90s called south park it was basically a stripped out popeye that i redid the uh the play field on but it was still popeye rules and it was it was okay but by the time i was done with it i was so sick of it that someone offered to buy it for a thousand bucks and strip it. It's like, yeah, sure. Take it. Uh, you know, I kind of regret that now, but, um, yeah, uh, time goes on and then all of a sudden the P rock hits the scene right about the time my brother retired from the cell phone industry. And I just called him up one day. He's like, Hey, you bored? He's like, yeah. And I said, do you want to make a pinball machine? He's like, not really. All right. And then, uh, yeah, I think the other year goes by and then he brings it up he's like yeah we should really do that sometime and then uh that was right about the time uh archer was hot i said how about archer and he hadn't really watched it and he got on netflix or whatever and watched three seasons like yeah let's do this and so uh yeah it's kind of became a weekend project for me uh basically i had this partially stripped congo game my friend gave me So we just completely stripped it out, had a new play field, came up with this design.

medium confidence · Keith: 'he's asking us, well, what needs to change? I was like, this loop is awful... he's like, yeah, it seems like there's something missing on the left side, so he stuck that optic spinner in there.'

Lyman Sheetsperson
Bowen Kerinsperson
The Beatlesgame
Rickperson
Jeremyperson
Loser Kid Pinball Podcastorganization
This Week in Pinballorganization
Expoevent

medium · Keith: 'It'd be nice to have something a little different than Wonelly as the throwback for the classic' and expressed desire to design classic-style game

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Keith Elwin transitioned from independent San Diego-based tournament player/operator to full-time senior designer role at Stern Pinball in Chicago (~3 years ago based on timeline)

    high · Keith describes moving from San Diego to Chicago for Stern position, shift from 'working for myself' to '9 to 5 job', describes it as 'my dream job'

  • $

    market_signal: Steel tariffs significantly impacting pinball manufacturing costs, forcing price adjustments on current and future products

    high · Keith: 'these steel tariffs are kind of killing us right now. Metal parts that we were using even a year ago in Iron Maiden are suddenly a lot more expensive now.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Iron Maiden playfield modified in response to testing: top-right very target removed and replaced with stand-up target due to ball-sticking reliability issues (not cost-cutting)

    high · Keith: 'I pulled that out because the ball kept getting stuck, which is fine on a homebrew, but for production, we just can't have that. So I switched it to a stand-up target.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Iron Maiden Premium version criticized for excessive Powerslave imagery; Keith justified this as accessibility choice for non-band-fan players

    high · Keith: 'I hear a lot of people complain there's too much power slave in the premium version, but that's just kind of the way I try to make the game appealing to, say, the average person'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Keith is nearing completion of second Stern game (rules by Keith, code by Rick); already developing ideas for third game

    high · Keith: 'the rules are mine... we're nearing the home stretch. So hopefully, all your questions will be answered soon' and 'I've already kind of kicking around ideas for game number three'

    • 4:46
    It was just kind of a thought I always had in my head of a better flowing Judge Dredd game. And it's funny. Now that it's done, everyone says, oh, it's kind of similar to Twilight Zone. I was like, yeah, I guess it is. But that really hadn't crossed my mind when I was designing it.
    5:02
    So that kind of went on. And like I said, it was like a weekend project. Like, it's about three or four years, but obviously, you know, a couple hours a week here and there. Sometimes I wouldn't touch it for three months. Other times I'd spend a week straight on it. And got it to a point where it's flipping. I kind of like the way it flips, the way I took it over to my brother's house, and then he had it for a year.
    5:26
    And right about that time, Lyman contacted me. He's like, hey, you know, George is looking for a new designer. and you should think about it. And so I thought about it, and I reached out, or actually George reached out to me, and I was like, yeah, I'm interested. And then I didn't hear anything for three months. I was like, oh, well, I guess that fell through.
    5:51
    And then right before Expo, probably three years ago, I hear from George. He's like, hey, you're coming to Expo? I want to talk to you. I was like, oh, well, actually I hadn't planned on coming to Expo, so I was like, okay, yeah, I'll be there. I go there. We met for dinner, and then he wanted to see Archer firsthand. So when I got back to San Diego, we shipped it out. And then he calls me like a week later. He's like, this is fantastic. I want you on staff. And kind of the rest is history. awesome wow yeah that that that's a that's a crazy story i actually i um i watched your uh your interview or at least not your interview but your presentation at expo last year and it was interesting because you were talking about uh the similar story about bringing and i ironically i saw the part where you said the uh the yyz part uh that you couldn't get integrated into it and i Well, I just found it funny because I've been a Rush fan forever. I still am on record as saying I don't think it would be a good theme for a pinball machine, but I was laughing when it came about as the option. He's like, can you play? He's like, no, that thing's impossible.
    7:02
    There is a YouTube video on my brother's account of that video mode before we took it out. It was amazing. Yeah.
    7:12
    Anyway. So I actually had a follow-up question for you. You're a legend in the tournament pinball scene, but really as a company, and this is kind of going from Stern's perspective, there are really four groups that you're trying to cater to. You have the tournament players. You have the location players. You have the home collector, and then you have the high-end collector, the ones who are looking for the premium, premium LE-type machines.
    7:48
    When you're approaching designing a game, how do you try to keep all those factors in line? Or are there ways that you have to say, well, this is more of a location game. This is going to be more of a tournament game. This is more of a collector game. what's what is your thought process when you do this well i'll be honest with you when the stern wanted me to do the archer layout for iron maiden i kind of figured okay this is going to be for the hardcore player uh you know i wasn't of course i've heard of iron maiden but i hadn't really listened to them in many years and the license we had was for the the um the comics and the cell phone game. And so I kind of took a step back and said,
    8:33
    hey, if I'm not into Iron Maiden, how can I make this game appeal to everybody? And so it's like, okay, well, I'd rather defer it towards the comics, which has, they had a lot more art assets and more story than, say, the cell phone game. So I kind of ran it by the licensure. Hey, I'd rather focus it on the Legacy of the Beasts, and they were fine with that. So I took the design perspective of you don't really need to know much about the band other than the generic good versus evil, Eddie versus the beasts, and you just kind of go from there. That's the approach I took with it, and I tried to – I hear a lot of people complain there's too much power slave in the premium version, but that's just kind of the way I try to make the game appealing to, say, the average person. He's like, you know, I don't want all these scary monsters on my thing, but, you know, I love the Egypt theme artwork.
    9:31
    So it's kind of the approach I took to it. And since I knew it was going to be kind of a tournament game, I really made a lot of risk reward stuff for the tournament players, which they seem to love. And, you know, I like it, too. It's one of my favorite games to play.
    9:46
    Yeah, I actually so I'm actually in the camp where I grew up with Iron Maiden. And so I actually snuck out when I was 13 and went to a concert that my parents had no idea about. And that was Iron Maiden. That was my first concert. And they had an unknown band that opened for them whose name was Guns N' Roses.
    10:05
    Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. And Axl got hit in the head by a beer bottle, which was hilarious. And it was just a train wreck. And then I went out to the car and they'd already left. And so it was crazy. um but so i actually do like how um the art i i really love the art on the pro how it integrates all of those albums together um i i actually think that you made the right choice in going with the egyptian theme for the premium because really that's their zenith that was their power that was their world slavery tour and so if you're gonna pick one uh one album to focus that's the album to focus on because that was certainly the height of their power um i yeah i i think it's great i i find it interesting that um i'm very familiar with it and so i would love to at some point have one in my house i just need to wait till my kids are a little older so they don't come and sneak in my bed every night because they're terrified of the monsters downstairs um but yeah it's just at least when i look at it it seems like yes it's a tournament game that has also had broad appeal. Like there are people who have connected to it in ways that you wouldn't have anticipated. Even my friend, we were at our Salt Lake Comic Festival that has a pinball thing. He owned an Iron Maiden Pro and he went and played the Iron Maiden Premium and he texted me back. He says, I'm getting a premium. By the way, his name is Ryan. He asked for a shout out. So yeah, I said, yeah, it's an amazing game. I would love to have a premium in my basement too. but I'd also love the Translite with all the Eddies in it.
    11:48
    Yeah, it was tough because we couldn't use album art or anything, so Jeremy kind of just said, it can't look like the album cover, but other than that, just do what you want to do.
    12:02
    He did a great job As someone who grew up with the band and knew all the album covers I looked at that and I thought yes that Iron Maiden That is perfect He was able to hit that out of the park with a new interpretation on the art So I can't imagine it going any better. Yeah, I have an Ellie Backglass in my office, and when that thing is not lit up, it is just gorgeous. I think he really killed that Backglass. yeah well it's arguable to say that iron maiden is honestly the perfect storm when it comes to a pinball machine between jeremy's uh beautiful artwork your rules the layout it's just it's fantastic and really the only complaint i've heard which scott doesn't complain about this but you know everyone complains why iron maiden you know but so after the success of iron maiden and so many people liking the rule structure and whatnot where it's accessible not only to beginners but to those, like yourself, Keith, that's just super, super deep. Do you plan on doing the rule structure for your second game, or do you have to kind of leave it up to your team there at Stern?
    13:07
    Yeah, the rule structure is basically the same design team minus Jeremy. So yeah, the rules are mine. Rick's on code again. And it's, yeah, we're nearing the home stretch. So hopefully, all your questions will be answered soon. Awesome. Sorry, that was a question from Jeff Patterson with This Week in Pinball. He just wanted me to give him a shout out as well. Everyone that we've been talking to, we've been giddy. I'm not going to lie. We're like, you know who we're interviewing? We've been trying to keep it out of the wraps because we didn't want it to fall through or anything, but anywho.
    13:39
    Jeff Patterson, the guy who went to school with Zombie Eddie. I had no idea about that part. That's funny. I would not have... I bet they ran together too.
    13:53
    He's like, you want to hear the funny this thing this guy at the podcast i went to school with him yeah that's really funny uh so getting back into the design process um and i talked to you a little bit about this earlier before we started when you're doing um a home project for yourself uh you can take all the time in the world you can do whatever you want um however when you're plugging into the business you're on a timeline, you're on a cost constraint that there's only so much you can spend on the machine so you can actually still make money on it. How has that experience been different this time versus the first time where you could take time off or you could work on it as much as you want? And really, if you're putting something in that the bulk cost is $20 or $50, you don't really care because it's just a one-off machine. But when you're making a mass production machine, that's a big deal. So how is it different this time?
    14:58
    That's true, but also reliability. I'll give you a great example. So on Archer, there is a very target and a top right only accessible from the MIDI flipper.
    15:11
    And I've read so many things, oh, Stern cost cut that out. It's a shame, blah, blah, blah. I was like, no, I pulled that out because the ball kept getting stuck, which is fine on a homebrew, but for production, we just can't have that. So I switched it to a stand-up target. Now, was that the staggered targets? Because I remember you talking about that, that they weren't in line and they were kind of offset. Is that what you're talking about there?
    15:37
    In your presentation, you were talking about the one area that you kept getting balls stuck and it just wasn't working out. Yeah. It was in the top right corner. there was a very target to a subway to the left scoop and it it was just you know if you played the game at expo last year then you probably had the ball get stuck at least once over there and yeah stuff like that we obviously we can't accept that on uh on a production game so that was cut not for cost but due to reliability issues and designing to a budget it's as long as you have an idea of what something costs, it's not that bad. Sometimes we get a little surprised, like these steel tariffs are kind of killing us right now. Metal parts that we were using even a year ago in Iron Maiden are suddenly a lot more expensive now. So it's tough, but it's not impossible.
    16:33
    What about the timeline? Since you're doing it full-time now as opposed to a part-time, Are you able to maintain that same excitement or the same passion about it when it's like, well, I'm getting up and I'm going to work, whether or not I want to work?
    16:49
    Well, as George says, you need to be passionate what you're working on because you're going to be working on it for almost a year and a half.
    16:55
    So it's, you know, when I first started the project I'm on now, it's like, oh, my God, this is not going to be out forever. but as the time goes on I was like, God, I wish we had more time because once you start nearing the home stretch everything's coming together, the game's fun to play it looks great all these additional details you want to add but you just don't have time so yeah, our normal cycle is about 13-14 months like I said sometimes you wish it would be longer but also part of me, I've already kind of kicking around ideas for game number three. So now's the best time.
    17:41
    So I know that you've designed just Iron Maiden and Archer, but do you feel like you have a design style, even though you've only done one game?
    17:52
    My goal is to not make the same game over and over. I like upper flippers, so I can't imagine doing a game that doesn't have upper flippers. I'm a big fan of flow but I think I'm also a big fan of state change so if I my ideal would be a game that has good flow but also has a number of toys that change states so I think there's a nice medium in there that's what I'm trying to do right now and we'll see if I can keep doing that but if it runs stale and I start recycling designs then I might switch over more dominant either state change toys are just lots of shots in flow. Okay.
    18:37
    Do you mean a state change toy that actually moves in the play field, such as, you know, like in Lord of the Rings, the Balrog that actually moves back and forth?
    18:48
    Is that what you're talking about, or what are you saying by state change? Yeah, state change. Like the castle on Medieval Bandits. Okay. It's there with the drawbridge up. It's there with the drawbridge down. It's there with the gate down. And, you know, it's the same shot but acts differently depending on what state it's in. There's a progression. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Like Iron Maiden, you've got the left ramp. Well, sometimes it curves around the backboard. Center ramp, sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down. Those kind of things. Okay. It adds a lot of variety to the game so you don't have the same standard shots, I'm assuming. Yeah, yeah. You could take one shot, one area in the play field and have it do different things. I'm a big fan of that. So after the success of Iron Maiden, do you feel like there's any pressure on trying to live up to what Iron Maiden's become? No, not really. I'm having too much fun. So I'm glad people love Iron Maiden, but I think they'll like my next game just as much, if not more. So I'm actually pretty excited.
    19:49
    So one thing I have a question on is when you're setting up a rule set, And this is probably just my rule-following OCD self, is that there are different ways of playing a rule set. And there is the, I am following this progression to get to the wizard mode, and there's also a tournament setting. And so the reason why I bring this up is nobody in tournaments actually plays ACDC to get to the wizard mode. for various reasons. Does that make a difference in the style that you play for a tournament versus a style when you're playing for the wizard mode, or is that a good thing that there are different ways of approaching the game?
    20:40
    I think it's a good thing. When you're in a tournament mode, the outlaying posts are gone, no extra balls, tight tilts. Chances you could get into the wizard mode are pretty slim as it is. So it's always nice to have that bailout. It's like, oh, hey, Iron Maid's a good example. I need 100 million points. I'm on ball three. Do I go for the Wizard Mode or do I try to blow up Flight of Icarus? So I think having those choices is good compared to like, well, I'm funneled into the hand of the king here. Now I need to blow it up. If I don't, I'm in real trouble.
    21:15
    So it gives variety. It basically lets the player choose how they want to play a game. Yeah. Yeah, and I take a lot of my rule set cues from Lyman, and I talked to him when I first started there. He's like, yeah, when you have a multiball, don't make that score so much. Otherwise, that's all you're going to do. And I took that philosophy in Iron Maiden, and it's like you can get a lot of points out of the multiballs, but the bulk of the points are in the single ball modes.
    21:44
    I like that. I like it because it seems like a lot of the 90s era games, it was focused mostly on multiball. You got into multiball, you got your jackpot. And then you worked on getting back into multiball to get your jackpot.
    21:55
    Yeah, I mean, Fishtails is a classic example. It's like, why would I do anything else if I can blow up these jackpots? Exactly. And it makes for almost stale gameplay because it's like, why would I play single ball? That's more dangerous when multiball is more lucrative. So before we started recording, you kind of talked about you have a love for classic games. Do you think, you know, with the classic hype train still going hot and strong between the Beatles and TNA, do you think you'd be up for designing a classic-style pinball machine for Stern in the future?
    22:33
    Oh, I'd love to do that. Yeah. I'm a huge George Christian fan from the 80s. loved 8-Ball Deluxe, Frontier, even Future Spy.
    22:44
    There's something about his games that they're very approachable, yet they kick your butt. Yeah. Hey, if you can make an 8-Ball Deluxe or a similar style, I would be an Ellie on that one.
    22:58
    Yeah. Hopefully someday I'll get a chance to make a retro game. It'd be nice to have something a little different than Wonelly as the throwback for the classic. In my opinion, I'm just saying.
    23:11
    Yeah. I will say I really wanted to not like the Beatles. I really did. And then when I played it, I looked at it and I was like, I want to own one of these. This is so much fun. Yeah, it's just – and having those old layouts with modern flippers, it really updates them. Yeah, that was actually my sea witch that we brought into the office. And George kind of, you know, he copied it verbatim, and he's asking us, well, what needs to change? I was like, this loop is awful. This loop needs to change. So he pulled the target back, opened up the loop so you can shoot it from the bottom right flipper, and he's like, what else? He's like, yeah, it seems like there's something missing on the left side, so he stuck that optic spinner in there. And I think that game came out great. It's one of our office favorites to play because it's so quick. Yeah. Well, my go-to game when I come downstairs is Iron Man because I have an Iron Man and basically it kick my butt for about 10 minutes and I like okay now I can go up and do whatever I have to do at home Yeah there is something satisfying about those rule sets
    24:21
    Okay, so here's a question I have is teach me how to walk. When you do everything really well, how do you tell someone to get to be a better pinball player? And you have the pinball 101, pinball 102. What are the go-to things you're like, okay, these are the five keys to being a great pinball player? It's funny. A lot of times people ask me, you know, how do I put up a good score on game X?
    24:51
    The problem with, you know, generic advice for me is that I don't know what your skills are. So, you know, a good example is if you don't know how to loop pass, then I'm not going to tell you, well, So if you just need a few million points on attack from Mars, you can just loop pass back and forth on that game. See, I don't know if you can do that, though. The drop catch, if you can't drop catch, say, yeah, don't flip when the ball comes out of the scoop. But if you don't know how to drop catch, that's what you're going to do.
    25:20
    So the idea of pinball 101 is like, here are some of the keys you need to learn. And they're in tiers, beginner, intermediate, advanced. so if once you you know got yourself oh these basic moves no problem okay i'm done with these intermediate moves i'm having trouble with these advanced moves uh so those are ones i need to work on so you know when you ask for advice can you do this can you do that uh that would be my answer most of the time is uh what are you comfortable doing if you can't do that then you need to figure out you know if you can't drop cats then you need to figure out how to you know 90 percent of the tournament players will sit there and they'll watch the other person plays to see how the feeds are out of the scoops and they'll they'll say okay i'm really good at live catching i'm really good at drop catching i'm really good at dead passing so i'm going to see what this player is doing well that seems to be working so i'm just going to copy that if it's not working for them then they're going to try something else in their arsenal and then once all the other players see you know well dead pass doesn't work but if you just hold the flipper up everyone else is going to copy that. So it's all about what you're comfortable doing and how well you are doing it and how well you do it under pressure. I know it's kind of a vague answer all around, but yeah. Yeah, I think it's a good statement because if you don't know how to do some of these basic moves, you can't see yourself advancing further into a tournament than you already are. Or we talked a lot to – when you do talk to the professionals like yourself and Bowen and whatnot, they say play with someone that's better than you so you can learn from what they're doing. And they can kind of coach you and teach you as you're playing some pinball. Yeah, I remember it was probably mid-'80s, and I was like the best pinball player at the bowling alley. Nobody could touch me. And some guy showed up one day playing, I think it was that game Fire, and he was post-match. Save my baby. I had never seen that before, and I was like, wow, that's amazing. So I immediately started doing that skill, and I was like, oh, this is great. Oh, this is easy. Cool, I'm glad I learned that. And then many years later, my friend Mike Mahaffey was like, oh, you know, check out this tap pass I can do on these old ballet games. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. So I practiced that and got good at it. and then people were giving me credit for it. And I was like, no, my friend showed me how to do this, and his friend showed him how to do it. So I think the advent of the Internet has made much of these mystery skills not so much of a mystery anymore. So it's probably a lot easier to be a good player these days than it was back when I was hanging out at the arcades. One thing that amazes me is that when I watch you guys, it seems like you're able to, I don't know, nudge, move, and just do these subtle things that I'm looking at that saying, how did they save that ball? I like, I don't know how they would do that. Every time I tried to nudge in a tournament and I really don't push that much, I always tilt. So I, I'm, I'm looking at you guys and it's like, Oh man, what are they doing? That's actually making that, uh, that nudge not end the game. It's all about the counter tilt. And it's probably really hard to pick up on camera. So if I'm going to nudge the ball, if I'm going to nudge the game quickly to the left, I need to counter it to the right as quickly as possible to absorb, you know, take away the, the tilt bob momentum uh you need to time it right if you don't time it right then it tilts but if you time it just right it'll kill the momentum of that tilt bob and you'll look at that he's like how did he pull off that move that tilt is so sensitive yeah so that's that's that's a lesson for the day writing that down now counter tilts yes okay counter tilt and tilt and counter tilt all right i'm winning pinberg next year so it's basically the same move like on a death save you You slide the game to the right very quickly, and you want to counter it back to the right just as quickly. Okay. If you're just going to slide it, if the tilt's sensitive at all, you're going to fire there.
    29:28
    So is there a specific game, still talking about pinball skills and whatnot, is there a specific game that you would recommend to anyone that you could use these skills and help improve yourself, especially for the beginners looking for their first game? there's so many different skill sets um obviously games from the 80s it's a slightly different skill set than a modern game but there are some like the dead passes are really important on the older games tap passes so uh pretty much any of those those classic ballys are good for that and even um wizard uh if you get the ball on the left flipper what do you do on wizard okay so this is where you learn to alley pass, tap pass, get the ball over to the right flipper. So that's actually a good skills game to learn.
    30:19
    Any game with, like, Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, that have orbits where you can do a loop pass, that's good to practice. Anything with a scoop that kicks out to a flipper so you can practice your drop catches.
    30:33
    There are a lot of games that have those things. and it's just up to you to find a one that uh it's easy enough for you to practice like a great example is attack from mars you can just plunge into the jets it goes into the scoop now you can practice your drop catch out of that scoop i'm not gonna lie once i picked up an attack from mars i do feel like my game's gotten better because i have tried loop passes i've perfected my drop catches i feel like that game just has so much between the reaction time of hitting it off the target bank and whatnot, you've got to learn some skills or you're not going to last long in that game. Yeah, that's a great risk-reward game too. It's like, oh, I got all these bozo points up the middle, but you don't dare do that in a tournament because it puts the ball out of control. Yeah. Yeah, I need to get better at live catching. My friend, that's all he does. And I look at him and I was like, how do you not drain on that thing?
    31:28
    Yeah, live catch is probably the hardest to learn. So what is the current pinball machine you just can't get enough of? I've been so busy in my project that I haven't played forever.
    31:42
    I still like me some fishtails. I really enjoy the new kiss update. And there's another update I've been playing, but I can't tell you about, but I've been playing that too. Okay.
    31:57
    Yeah, it's about it. So since you've mentioned fishtails, it was a couple episodes back. We were kind of ragging on fishtails because we felt like it was just left ramp, right ramp, multi-ball, go for the big fish. What is it that appeals to you? Because I don't know if some of us get it.
    32:14
    Oh, no. It's a terrible game, but there's just something satisfying about getting to those jackpots. See, to me, this is old school multi-ball.
    32:24
    Today's games, oh, everything's lit for a jackpot to make you feel better. This game, no. You have to go these specific steps to get a jackpot. but it is so rewarding when you do it. Oh yeah. And that, that's the thing about fishtails.
    32:37
    You know what? And my old school game that I love the jackpot is the getaway. Cause it's, once you hit that, it's a little rough getting up onto that ramp. But once you get up there, it celebrates you. Like you just won the freaking world cup. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know, another game is great. That's the one you just got Jurassic park, uh, you know, for its time. It's like, okay, here's your, here's your jackpots. Okay. Now spell chaos. All right. here's a bunch more balls now spell chaos again all right now just feed the t-rex all right now shoot uh the ramp in orbit it's just like there's so many stages to that multi-ball it was insane oh yeah that's that's what i've been loving about it it's been kind of and that's what i love about because it's like even if you drain you get that final last chaos letter and you drain it's like never mind here's six balls back you're like yes thank you and when do i use my smart missile do Do I use it to spell chaos to try to get a maximum jackpot?
    33:30
    Yeah, there's some good strategies to that game. Oh, yeah, or do I use it on the T-Rex when I'm supposed to feed him because that's a hard shot when you're trying to balance six balls?
    33:39
    Yeah, that's a Gary no-no these days, having a shot only accessible from an upper flipper. Oh, really? Yeah.
    33:47
    An important shot, anyway. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Well, actually, it makes sense that Josh has a Jurassic Park since he lives in Vernal, and that's where they found a lot of dinosaur bones. I've got the biggest dinosaur wall bone in the world here.
    34:02
    There you go. Wow. How do you feel about dinosaurs, Keith? Do you like them? They're okay. Okay. No, I've got to tell a funny story really quick. Hold on. Let me tell you. So I had a goth punk band that came through Vernal. I used to book shows here. And he pulled me aside, and he asked me, Josh, how do you feel about dinosaurs? I'm like, they're cool, I guess. I don't know why. And he's like, because we were taught growing up that Satan sent dinosaurs to the earth to question our judgment on God, that he was even real.
    34:33
    Oh, okay. I didn't know how to respond to that. You know what I'm saying? You got that from a goth punk band? Yes. Like, Psycho Billy goth punk. It was a fantastic band.
    34:46
    But yeah, I was kind of thrown for a loop because I went here to kind of peruse and I show them the dinosaurs. And the one was very concerned that Satan had sent them here because, you know, to prove that God didn't exist or something like that. It was very different. I've never had a question like that before. That could be part of the next Bible game. You know it. Exactly. The next Manhattan game. Yeah, that would be awesome.
    35:13
    Wow. Hey, so one thing I did want to ask you is going back to your Archer game, how do you design a game that makes sure that everybody can play it on some level and not just the elite? Because I remember you specifically saying that when you designed Archer, there was one shot where people said, Keith, the only person that can hit that shot is you. And really no one else could hit that shot. And so how does that factor into how you do things? well the archer design and kind of the the r&b design there are very few sucker shots the game is pretty friendly so uh i tried to give a longer ball time on iron maiden as like some people complain about the ball times but and until you actually beat the game i don't want to hear it um yeah i i think uh i think it's important to have a game that's fairly friendly if you want it to succeed. I mean, of course, you can make a super draining game that does well on location, but are you going to want that in your house? Is it going to frustrate you It all about finding a balance How do you find a balance considering you have elite players there Do you have also people who kind of stink at pinball who is like yeah, this isn't fun to play? Yeah, I don't watch the elite players. When my game's testing, I want to watch just the average player play it. My engineer is a perfect example. He's a casual pinball player. So I like to watch him play to see what he struggles with and see what's too easy. and I make adjustments based on that, not what Zach and Tim do.
    36:52
    Well, you're welcome to come out to Utah and watch me play anytime. Because I will be a drain monster. Yeah, when I play for myself, I'm not good feedback. So I try to design a rule set to what I will like, but then I will intently watch people play it. And it was the same. when I made and released, the code was pretty complete. Then I watched the tournament players, hey, I'm just going to shoot loop jackpots all day. So, you know, I nerfed those a bit. And then, you know, I see casual players struggle with Revive, so I made that easier. So, you know, I pay attention to the streams. I see what works, what doesn't, and we make adjustments.
    37:31
    Okay, so of all the games that you have at Stern, who has the most high scores between you, Zach, and Tim? Actually, I think it's Tim.
    37:47
    He's, especially this time of year, it's too hot to go into Stern Arcades. So last time I was out there, there were a lot of TSX initials up there. But I have to give it to him, I think. I think Zach did get $10 billion on Deadpool, though. Wow.
    38:03
    Yeah, Deadpool is actually, that's really grown on me. That katana shot is one of the most satisfying shots in pinball because it's hard, but when you get it, it just feels so good. yeah when george was developing that shot he had uh whitewood in the lab and he's keith shoot this keith shoot this i'm like the resident hey make this shot so i can film it guy so uh uh yeah he had me shooting that thing for like 20 minutes while he was recording it and taking notes and yeah i think you got it dialing pretty good yeah it's it's actually moved up from one of those games that i thought i am just gonna it for me it would be a brick fest but to where I've pushed over to, wow, I really want one of these games in my house. Yeah, it's just a fun theme. It's pretty straightforward, easy to understand, and deep enough that there's stuff for everyone in that game. So my question for you is, Keith, after looking over Iron Man and whatnot, there is a ton to it. What is your most proud, whatever it may be, design, achievement, what is your most proud thing of Iron Maiden?
    39:10
    I think just the ability to take a license that basically nobody else wanted to do and have it be a success.
    39:20
    It's just to show that if you could still make a good game, whether people like the music or not, I get a lot of people saying, hey, I love this game. And that meant a lot because it was tough to make something that so, you know, people's opinions sway really hard either way. but most people can agree that they think it's a good game, and that's what I'm most proud of. Awesome. I saw a picture of you at Coney Island recently. Was that a vacation?
    39:49
    Yeah. My girlfriend lives in New York, so I head out there once a month or so. It wasn't much of a vacation because I was only there two days and had a lot of things to cram into that trip. But I love going to Coney Island, the Wonder Wheel and the original Cyclone coaster that the Timbalt's based on. It's a great time.
    40:11
    So one of my questions that I just thought of that I remember I can ask you, if you can't answer this, that's fine. But with Iron Maiden being so successful, but like you said, some people complaining about the music and or the theme. If you could re-theme Iron Maiden to anything you wanted, what would it be? Archer.
    40:30
    I just didn't know if Archer was that much of a love to you. I didn't know if it was, you know. I'm a huge Archer fan. I mean, it's dropped off a bit in the past few seasons, but those first four seasons, they're great. And I would love to do a spy-based game. I think that's amazing. I will say that when you were talking about re-theming it for the shot up the middle for Iron Maiden that goes into the pyramid as opposed to straight up, and that was your shot against the guy, right? But I actually – like as an Iron Maiden fan, I looked at that and I thought that's actually a great integration because on Power Slave, they're actually going up into the tomb and it goes through that – well, let's just say the man zone area. And so I thought that's actually a great shot. It works well for the theme. Yeah, my original plan was to have a staircase decal on that ramp, but it didn't really work the way it's intended. But yeah, you still get the idea. yeah it the integration of the theme that's the thing too is i'm not a huge iron maiden fan myself like it's good like i'll listen to him but um just looking at that game man the theme is so well integrated it's ridiculous so i i if i speak for everyone man we're just excited to see the next theme and how it integrates because if if it's half as good as iron maiden it's still gonna be in the top 20 games that's made in the last 30 years so well thank you yeah uh this one's gonna be completely different for me because it's a lot more story based than just uh um banging her head and metal music to uh random animation so yeah i'm really looking forward to see how this is received cool yeah well we can't we can't wait to see it all right awesome well keith we really appreciate you coming on with us um i can't think of anything else i know there's probably people screaming through their phone right now like, you should ask this.
    42:24
    When's the next code update? Yeah. We don't hang out on Pinsign very often, so we don't see those questions very often. You know what? Well, now I will say, I kind of glance at what the topics are, but it is interesting how there are a few people who have that one drum that they beat all the time, and I think, dude, you just got to move on. You just have to let it go. I mean, this is getting ridiculous. Yeah. Everyone talks about how negative Pinsight is, but it's really, you know, it's a handful of the same 20 guys or so just going back and forth on every single thread. It's just like, why? Yeah. Actually, I will say, yeah, the one thread I check every day on Pinsight, though, is high-end pins and his restorations. Because have you seen that thread? what he does is he takes all these older games and he makes them a work of art like taking them all the way down to the studs and it's really amazing when you look at the resurrection of all these old games that you haven't seen in that condition because most of those games they were routed and they're pretty beat up and just don't play the way they were intended when they were designed so if there's one pin side post it would be it's a high end pins. It's HEP. So yeah, I would love to have one of his pins right now.
    43:49
    Yeah. Those are amazing. If you want to go one step further down the rabbit hole, you should have friend, all those people on pin side that, you know, drive you nuts, put them on Facebook. They even drive you more nuts. Cause then you get to see their political beliefs as well.
    44:02
    It's just, no matter what the subject is, it turns into JJP versus Stern thread. Yeah. It's funny. Those guys are down the street from us. We, you know, we see them at lunch all the time. We're friends. It's just not, there's not some huge rivalry. It's just very strange. You know, I work in heating and air conditioning. I learned one thing a long time ago. The only competition is myself. And I don't know how you guys believe in the pinball industry, but really, I think if you're looking on how to focus and make yourself better, it's going to transition on how your company works and operates. And so I think oftentimes everyone picks a team because they like to root because that's how it's always been for the last hundred years since America started doing sports, I guess. I don't know. But I think – I don't know why, but everyone feels like we have to have some kind of contention or competition going when in all actuality all pinball is good pinball, right? Yeah. I mean we're all on the same team. Every company, every player, every collector, we're all on the same team in the end. I can't remember. No, it's the same type of thing is that I certainly love aspects about all the major players, And really, I have Stern. I have I have Chicago Gaming Company. I have JJP. And there's certainly aspects of each machine that I really like and aspects that I'd like to change. But I think that's that's life is that you can't have that perfect machine. I'll tell you what the perfect machine is. It'd be the LE that's 100 bucks and never breaks down.
    45:34
    But but that that's never going to happen. And so there are drawbacks and there are compromises, and that's just how life is. It's just like a movie. Not every movie is for you. Yeah. Well, and that's really what I've said about when we've gone over games is that you have to ask, okay, does this speak for you versus will it be a success? because I think that's when people start complaining about the different markets when they talk about a pro, a premium, an LE, a super LE or whatever. And when you take the car analogy, you know what? Not everybody's going to buy every car out there. There are people who are into those high-end cars that are $200,000. And there are also people who need that $15,000 car that just gets them around. And you can't just immediately think I'm Stern's only customer. and so they need to design for me and I think that's where people get lost a little bit in the complaining and talking about all that stuff yeah exactly if every movie was the same Fast and Furious type thing it's like I look at that and it's like wow these movies are super dumb but I get it because you know they make a lot of money people enjoy watching them so you know I get it it's the same way with pinball you know sometimes we have to appeal to everyone rather than something so niche and specific.
    47:03
    Yeah, and that's always been my pushback is when people talk about, I mean, Pinside, they trashed Supreme. But guess what? It sold and it sold out very quickly. And so what if it's not for you? Guess what? The next game probably will be. Yeah, exactly.
    47:20
    Well, awesome, Keith. We're not going to take up much more of your Sunday afternoon. We really appreciate you coming on. like I said we I don't know if did we talk about this already but we're gonna send you a hat as a thank you I know we talked about before the show but we just printed off our new loser kid pinball podcast hat so we're gonna send you one free hat you know it so next time you're hoisting up your trophy you should have that on please all right I will say the one thing about you is that every time I see you play, there are different styles to play, and you have the most relaxed stance of any competitive player that I've ever seen. You just have that stance where you're like, you know what? I got this. I don't need to have an aggressive stance, and I have no idea how you do it, but it just feels like you're playing at the bowling alley. It doesn't feel like you're playing on the stage at pinberg yeah uh it's a stance i've always had and uh i guess i'll stick with it it seems to work i i think it's been successful so far okay thanks again keith we really appreciate it all right no problem