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Episode 47 - Making of Willy Wonka Pinball

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·1h 23m·analyzed·Apr 12, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Jersey Jack design team discusses Willy Wonka pinball as pinnacle 21st-century machine with innovative rotating floor mechanic.

Summary

Jersey Jack Pinball's lead design team discusses the making of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory pinball machine in a roundtable podcast interview. Pat Lawlor (lead designer), Joe Catz (lead programmer), John Yuncey (lead artist), and Vikas Deo (lead sound engineer) discuss theme selection, licensing constraints, playfield design philosophy, the innovative rotating floor mechanism called 'The Most Secret Machine,' code depth, and art direction. Lawlor positions Wonka as a watershed game representing the pinnacle of 21st-century pinball design.

Key Claims

  • Willy Wonka is probably right now the pinnacle of what you can create in the 21st century as a pinball machine

    high confidence · Pat Lawlor, lead designer, speaking directly about the game's significance

  • Jersey Jack only had rights to use two Oompa Loompa actors (Rusty and Albert)

    high confidence · John Yuncey explicitly states licensing constraint discovered midway through development

  • The Most Secret Machine device with rotating floor has never been done before in pinball

    high confidence · Pat Lawlor states 'to the best of my knowledge, that device has never been done before'

  • Wonka is a narrow body (standard) machine, not a wide body

    high confidence · Pat Lawlor and Joe Catz discuss design decision for standard body; direct confirmation in dialogue

  • Pat Lawlor considers the five-lane bottom his signature design element since Banzai Run

    high confidence · Lawlor directly states: 'I consider that to be my signature. I was the first person who did that bottom'

  • The game has four flippers (left and right lower flippers, upper left and upper right flippers)

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell describes the machine's flipper configuration explicitly

  • John Yuncey rates Willy Wonka as his personal favorite art package of all pinball games he's done

    high confidence · Yuncey directly states: 'Well, right now it's my personal favorite'

  • Art work began in spring 2018 (April/May) after initial playfield design

    high confidence · John Yuncey provides specific timeline: 'Pat told me about this in the spring of 2018, like around April or May'

  • The game features WonkaVision (camera/display) and Wankavator as carryover features

    high confidence · Pat Lawlor identifies these as attractive mechanical elements in the game

Notable Quotes

  • “This game is probably, right now, the pinnacle of what you can create in the 21st century as a pinball machine.”

    Pat Lawlor @ Opening/closing segment — Lawlor's overall assessment of the game's achievement and place in pinball history

  • “I'm partial to doing narrow body games for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest is, as a game designer, when you're working in a wide body, you tend to get sloppy.”

    Pat Lawlor @ Design philosophy section — Core design philosophy on body size and its impact on gameplay quality

  • “The bottom of a pinball machine is the signature of the game designer. On Willy Wonka, you're looking at the standard five-lane Pat bottom that you've seen since Banzai Run.”

    Pat Lawlor @ Design elements discussion — Identifies Lawlor's signature design trademark across his career

  • “The most secret machine... that device has never been done before. The entire floor under it for the pinball machine rotates and a big hole opens up.”

    Pat Lawlor @ Main toy/innovative mechanic section — Description of the game's primary innovative mechanical feature

  • “It's a watershed game for a lot of reasons... You got the video. You got the video on the playfield. You got the mechanical devices... You've got the flow... and you've got a timeless license.”

    Pat Lawlor @ Game rating section — Comprehensive summary of why Lawlor considers this a watershed title

  • “We're essentially doing two things... we're partnering with the corporation... But and this is the obvious thing... you're asking the team of people that is going to develop this to put their life on hold for a year.”

    Pat Lawlor @ License selection philosophy — Reveals the deep commitment and emotional investment required in major projects

  • “Right now it's my personal favorite.”

    John Yuncey @ Art ranking discussion — Yuncey's assessment of Wonka's art as his best work to date

Entities

Pat LawlorpersonJoe CatzpersonJohn YunceypersonVikas DeopersonKen CromwellpersonBill WebbpersonJackpersonKeith JohnsonpersonTed Essiesperson

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pat Lawlor articulates strong preference for narrow/standard body design over wide body, citing tighter constraints lead to better game design. This is positioned as core to his design methodology.

    high · Lawlor: 'I'm partial to doing narrow body games... when you're working in a wide body, you tend to get sloppy... the dimensions of a modern pinball machine are what they are through trial and error of decades.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Willy Wonka features 'The Most Secret Machine' — a rotating floor mechanism that opens a hole during gameplay. Lawlor claims this is novel to pinball design.

    high · Lawlor: 'that device has never been done before... the entire floor under it... rotates and a big hole opens up.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Game intentionally balances flow mechanics (ramp combos, five or six-way combo potential) with stop-and-go elements (lockups, saucer starts, target shots). Designed to appeal to both playstyles.

    high · Joe Catz: 'I feel like a little bit of both... you have amazing flow... but there also is some stop and go' and 'spelling Scrumdiddlyumptious via combos... 19 letters.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Special When Lit Podcast hosting in-depth roundtable with full design team at Jersey Jack facility in Bensonville, Illinois. High-quality content production with multiple expert voices.

    high · Episode structure with Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb as hosts, taped at JJP headquarters with all four leads present

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Warner Brothers IP licensing restricted Jersey Jack to rights for only two Oompa Loompa actors (identified as Rusty and Albert). Limitation discovered midway through art development.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.251

0:00
This game is probably, right now, the pinnacle of what you can create in the 21st century as a pinball machine.
0:13
Welcome to a world of pure imagination. The Special When Lit Pinball Podcast welcomes you to the making of Jersey Jack Pinball's latest release, Willy Wonka Pinball. Join us for a roundtable discussion with lead designer, Pat Lawler, lead programmer, Joe Katz, lead artist, John Yausey, and lead sound engineer, Vycos Deo.
0:40
And now, please welcome your favorite pinball oompa loompas, Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb. Hello, Pinball Land. Welcome to the Special One Lit Pinball Podcast. We are at Jersey Jack Pinball in Bensonville, Illinois. My name is Ken Cromwell. And I am Bill Webb. And today with us for the making of Willy Wonka, we have the lead designer, Pat Lawler, lead programmer, Joe Katz. We've got the lead artist, John Yausey, and brand new to Pinball, lead sound engineer, and that's Vikas Deo. Welcome to the show, guys. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having us. Absolutely. Pat, if you don't mind, could you go ahead and introduce yourself and then introduce your team? Sure. Hi, I'm Pat Lawler. I am head of game design here at Jersey Jack Pinball, and I'm the lead game designer on Willy Wonka. Rather than me introduce the rest of the people in the room, I'm going to let them introduce themselves. Works for me. And do what they do best. Why don't we start out with John? How about you? I'm John Youncey, the lead artist on Willy Wonka Pinball, and I can't count how many games I've done in the past, but I've done a few, and this was a fun one. Like I said before, I can see the finish line, and I'm glad it's there.
1:52
Vicosteo, I did the music and sound on Wonka, and this is my first pinball game, so this is all pretty new to me, but it was fun. Enjoyed it. Joe Katz, the programmer on Willy Wonka Pinball. When you guys, when you found out that Willy Wonka was going to be a pinball machine, first of all, when did you find that out, and then what are your general feelings about that license? I was pretty excited for it, actually. I think it's a great theme that can resonate with any kind of demographic, any kind of family.

  • Three edition variants (Standard, LE, Collector's Edition) have unique cabinet sides, playfield/arch packages, back glasses, and CE has special topper

    high confidence · John Yuncey describes the art differentiation across editions

    • “I literally at the end of a design cycle on one of these, I'm fighting for a seven inch.”

    Pat Lawlor @ Playfield engineering discussion — Illustrates the extreme precision and constraint in physical game design

  • “This is a team effort. I mean, I couldn't even explain to you what kind of team effort it is.”

    Joe Catz @ Code development section — Emphasizes collaborative nature of rules/code development despite 'lead' designation

  • “I don't wake up in the morning thinking, oh, man, I've got to go shovel coal this morning. It's like I have a fun job.”

    John Yuncey @ Art commitment discussion — Reflects passion and positive sentiment about the long development cycle

    • J.T. Harkey
    person
    Bill Gruppperson
    Duncan Brownperson
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Warner Brotherscompany
    Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factorygame
    Special When Litorganization
    The Most Secret Machineproduct
    WonkaVisionproduct
    Wankavatorproduct
    Addams Familygame
    Banzai Rungame
    Pirates of the Caribbeangame
    Wizard of Ozgame
    Dialed Ingame

    high · John Yuncey: 'we only have rights to two of those... the likeness of two of the Oompa Loompas... We could only use two of the actors. Oh, I gotcha. Rusty and Albert were their names.'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Playfield design involves fighting for minimal clearances (sevenths of an inch, eighths, sixteenths) to fit mechanical components. Reflects complexity of fitting multiple features into standard body constraints.

    high · Lawlor: 'I'm fighting for a seven inch... you're literally fighting for eighths of an inch or sixteenths of an inch'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Willy Wonka released in three editions (Standard, LE, Collector's Edition) with differentiated art packages: unique cabinet sides for all three, unique playfield/arch for CE vs shared SE/LE package, unique back glasses, and CE-exclusive topper.

    high · John Yuncey: 'We have unique cabinet sides for all three models... The playfield and arch... are unique for the SE and the LE as one package... the CE would be a unique playfield... all three [back glasses] are unique. We have a topper, a special topper for the CE.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Joe Catz is lead programmer but emphasizes collaborative team effort. Core infrastructure built by Keith Johnson and Ted Essies; additional contributors J.T. Harkey, Bill Grupp, Duncan Brown. Positions rules development as team brainstorm rather than individual achievement.

    high · Joe Catz: 'the groundwork that Keith Johnson and Ted Essies have laid... J.T. Harkey, Bill Grupp, and Duncan Brown... this is a team effort... It's not true that one person can do this.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Team explicitly discusses Willy Wonka as broadly appealing license that attracts non-traditional pinball players. Goal is to appeal to families, casual players, collectors, and hardcore competitive players simultaneously.

    high · Lawlor: 'You obviously need a license that appeals to the largest possible demographic... Willy Wonka fits that pretty well. You don't have to worry that mom's not going to like the game being in her house.'

  • ?

    announcement: Podcast confirms multiple game features: WonkaVision camera display, Wankavator mechanical toy, four-flipper configuration, 19-letter combo mode (Scrumdiddlyumptious), and rotating floor 'Most Secret Machine.'

    high · Multiple confirmations throughout discussion of specific game mechanics and features

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pat Lawlor considers the bottom of the machine (five-lane layout) his signature design element, used since Banzai Run. Returns to this signature on Willy Wonka despite evolution of other design elements.

    high · Lawlor: 'The bottom of a pinball machine is the signature of the game designer... the standard five-lane Pat bottom that you've seen since Banzai Run. I consider that to be my signature. I was the first person who did that bottom.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: John Yuncey positions Willy Wonka as his personal favorite art package of his entire pinball career, suggesting this represents peak creative achievement for him.

    high · Yuncey: 'In your opinion, John, of all the artwork that you've done in pinball, where do you think that this Willy Wonka... ranks? Well, right now it's my personal favorite.'

    • 2:21
    So it was really exciting. It was a classic movie kind of in the vein of Wizard of Oz that people know, people love, people have been watching their whole lives. They grew up watching it. I think it hits all the notes you want to hit on a pinball theme. Yeah, musically it's just, I mean, the music is so beautiful. Anytime you have a chance to work with those kind of licenses, it's just a pleasure to tear that music apart and put it back together. It's just a lot of fun. Yeah, for sure, Willy Wonka is one of those timeless American classics that a lot of people have fond memories of. And it's a unique environment to design a pinball machine for, which is what makes it so fun. And I think, John, you probably had a pretty fun experience going through the available stuff for the art for this thing. Yeah, I sure did. It was a lot. The only negative to it was it was low res from the 60s. But that's my job, though, to res him up, get him so that he can fit on a four-foot-wide piece of cabinet, you know, starting with a tiny little hole into a 35-millimeter slide. But, yeah, I was super excited. I think people will be watching Willy Wonka and playing Willy Wonka for a long, long time. You were talking about artwork, cleaning that up. You've got music. You've got video. Were there any limitations in regards to the assets that could be worked with within the license? or was it kind of a, you had creative license in the direction in which you wanted to take the game? Yeah, there weren't, not many. There weren't many limitations overall. It was a pretty easy license to work with. But for example, the Oompa Loompas, I found out midway that we only have rights to two of those. So you only had, you had the likeness of two of the Oompa Loompas? We could only use two of the actors. Oh, I gotcha. Rusty and Albert were their names. That wasn't a big giant setback. It was just a limitation, you know. Yeah, I sort of think that all licenses have limitation, and you just sort of have to work with what you have. And I think we've been pleasantly surprised with what we're able to use in this game with this license. Absolutely. Lukasz? Peace call-wise, like, you're just, you know, limited to whatever characters, but all those characters are the ones you want to hear anyway. So it's not like there's anyone left out that you would want. So I think it was worked out pretty well. I know our first impressions, Bill, we were able to get some time on the machine today prior to recording. It's hard to put into words. I mean, we're not going to describe this game because people will be seeing it, and we'll be talking about it here over the next hour. But as far as theme integration, I don't know that I've seen a machine that really hammers at home with the theme like Willy Wonka does. I mean, it's incredible. Yeah, it's absolutely breathtaking. I don't think you could have really added anything else into the game. Right. Between artwork, the sound, or anything else. I mean, it is incredible. It's a piece of electronic artwork in my eyes, in all honesty. Yeah, every license that you would do as a company or as a game designer has limitations because the intellectual property owners are going to make sure that their property is presented in the best possible light. It's a function of figuring out what are the ground rules that have to be used by their corporation, and then we stick to the ground rules and try and make it work. We thought we did a really, really good job on Willy Wonka of taking what we were allowed to have and turning it into a pretty spectacular pinball machine. In your guys' opinions, what factors should be considered when choosing a license theme for a pinball machine, and how does it fit with Willy Wonka and the thought process? You obviously need a license that appeals to the largest possible demographic. You know, any business, any business in the world, when they decide they're going to try and make a product and sell it, wants to cast as big a net as possible. And so, you know, Willy Wonka fits that pretty well. You know, you don't have to worry that mom's not going to like the game being in her house and, you know, it's going to be making bad noises at her. The other thing you want to do is you want to make sure that you can do that. Whatever that theme is that you found as a company profitably, you know, there are there are licenses you could go out and find and they would probably be prohibitive for, you know, what it is we do in the sale of these. You know, it's one thing to say I'm selling you a pinball machine for X dollars. Right, right. It would be another thing entirely to say I'm selling you a pinball machine because of the license for twice that much. Yes. It just wouldn't work. You know, we're always cognizant of all of those kind of things when we're chasing licenses or trying to do what it is we do. The other thing that I think isn't very obvious to a lot of people when they see the licenses, when we agree to do a license, we're essentially doing two things. The first is we're partnering with the corporation that's offering us that license. We're saying we're willing to work with you to do something here.
    7:20
    But and this is the obvious thing. The obvious thing is that you're asking the team of people that is going to develop this to put their life on hold for a year. And so the entire team really needs to buy into the idea that what we're creating here is worth their time and energy and what they're going to build. You know, so we work very hard at making sure that the licenses that we pick are palatable to everybody. Well, you can see the passion in the game. I mean, you can't just put together something without having passion. And looking at this game between the artwork, the sounds, the play field, I mean, just the programming itself, just everything looks awesome. I'm really enthralled about this game. There's so much in the game, but it doesn't come across as individual sections. It's very cohesive as a package, and I think that's important. So the idea for getting the license for Willy Wonka, whose idea was that? Willy Wonka was probably originally started by Jack. We have a working relationship here with Warner Brothers, and so Willy comes under the Warner Brothers head, and it worked out pretty well. So again, the team bought into the idea and went with it. So Pat, let me ask you this question. Was there a concept or an idea in your head in regards to the play field layout of this game before the license was presented to you, or was this created after the license was presented?
    8:49
    Anytime you do a license, I try and start from ground zero because each license has its own peculiar type of, you know, device or things you want to put in there. You know, I've got books that are full of rough sketches for play fields, but that doesn't mean that any one of those fits into what you're going to do with a given license. And so in the case of Willy Wonka, I had a starting point that, you know, we looked at and whatever. And then it's like everything else. What we do is an evolution. And you start out with something and you say, oh, you know what, what's going to be the what's going to be the central focus of this game? And it for so for the people who listen to this, they would think of it as what's going to be the main toy in the game. What's the thing that's going to, you know, that that I'm going to fixate on when I first walk up to the game? And that's a big part of it. And then just physically, the pieces that you want to represent from whatever world you're in, how am I going to get them in there? How am I going to make them fit? How do I make the play field flow around them? How do I, you know, the list is endless. And so it's an evolution. It's a constant working with it and working with it and working with it until you get it to where it's a suitable compromise to get everything you want in there. And this game has a lot of shots. It has four flippers. So you've got a left and right lower flippers. You've got upper left and upper right flippers. Crazy amount of shots on this machine. Especially for it not being a wide body.
    10:30
    It's just incredible how much you were able to squeeze in there, in my opinion. Did you make a conscious effort to not do a wide body on this design? Or do you have any comments on wide body design versus standard body in general?
    10:42
    Sure. I've been doing it a long time. And I've done wide body games and I've done narrow body games. I'm partial to doing narrow body games for a lot of reasons One of the biggest is, as a game designer, when you're working in a wide body, you tend to get sloppy There's so much space that you can dump stuff into in a wide body That you start to think, oh, I better fill up this corner Oh, I better fill up this space Right. Right. And what happens is you generally end up with these way overwrought, badly playing games because of the space that you're involved in. The dimensions of a modern pinball machine are what they are through trial and error of decades. OK. Right. Right. So they've over the decades since pinball has been in existence, these things evolve because people can sell more of one and not the other. And, you know, it's like natural selection. Yeah. OK. And so the the way that the play field dimensions evolve, people really like the layout of a narrow body game. They really feel that it plays naturally, that it's got enough speed. You can do what you need to do in there. And I've made a career out of making sure that I can put as much into a narrow body as you can to make it be fun. Yeah, narrow bodies are just, in my opinion as well, just sort of feel more together and less like you can pack what you can pack into one. But to me, since I've been playing as a kid, I just feel like there's just something more satisfying to me about an arrow body. I've played all the wide bodies there are, and I just don't get that same feel you get with an arrow body. Just my own general opinion about it. So, Joe, you were pleased that Willy Wonka was going to be... I was. Because the last machine that came out of here, which was Pirates of the Caribbean, is a wide body. Right. A Wizard of Oz was a wide body. Yeah, but it's a wide body. dialed in pat went back to narrow or standard right and now we're back to standard again here with willy wonka so both of you guys are yeah i prefer them obviously you can make a great game with a wide body but i just for some reason just my own personal playing i just prefer a narrow body game are there any design elements from this game that you've uh might have used in previous games or things that you've liked in previous games that you try to incorporate into willy Wonka? My feeling about what pinball is and the people who design them, etc., etc. To me, the bottom of a pinball machine is the signature of the game designer. So on Willy Wonka, you're looking at the standard five-lane pat bottom that you've seen since Banzai Run. Right. I consider that to be my signature. I was the first person who did that bottom and it's worked out really well for me through the years.
    13:48
    That isn't to say I don't do other things, but I really like that bottom and that bottom can shift. You know, it can move around a little bit. But but the idea that there's five lanes down there that I can play with to do what I need to do is a is a big deal. The rest of the game, there's only so much space inside one of these games. So you got people who say, oh, it's a fan layout or, oh, it's this layout or it's a stop and go game or it's a flow game or it's a, you know, there's only so much the game designers have in space that they can shoot the ball and get it to do something new and interesting. And so the whole idea is how do you combine those elements along with your new toy to feel fresh and different and, you know, something we haven't done in a while. And that's always the challenge. That's always the challenge. Along with just plain old physically fitting all of the mechanical stuff that you need to put in the game in the game. You know, all that stuff that you're looking at on top takes up a lot of room underneath. That's what I think a lot of people fail to realize is that you're almost working underneath the play field more so than on top of the play field because it has to be able to fit and make sense. Right. Right. We literally at the end of a I literally at the end of a design cycle on one of these, I'm fighting for a seven inch. and you're trying to move things very subtly so that the ultimate version of it that the person's going to get to play doesn't feel clunky or doesn't, you know, they're not making bad shots or the ball's not doing something horrible when you manage to miss something you're trying to do. All of that is totally unobvious to the casual person who plays the games. Yeah, there's a funny story back when I was doing, it was back in Adam's family. I've got the five jet bumpers in there, right? Yeah. And people said, you can't fit five jet bumpers in a pinball machine. You shouldn't be able to. You shouldn't be able to do that, right? But there it was.
    15:52
    But again, you're fighting for, you're literally fighting for eighths of an inch or sixteenths of an inch, or you're turning mechanisms a certain way in order to get them to be up close to each other so you can do that kind of thing. And the corollary to that that no one outside of the business would worry about is once I've done that, can the factory build it? Right. It's one thing to pile things on top of other things in these games. But can somebody in the field fix it? And can the people on our assembly line put it together? And so all of that has to be taken into account when you're doing the design of one of these games. I think right now in pinball, people are kind of searching for what is that one thing that's going to draw me to the next machine that comes out? And, you know, what's the toy that's going to wow us? What's the mechanism that's going to be something that we haven't seen before? It seems to me, Pat, like with your designs, you try to implement something new as often as you can on each one of your designs. When you think of Willy Wonka, what do you think people are going to be attracted to? What have you done with this design that will make people go, wow, that was pretty awesome? I think there's a few things in this game that are very attractive when you first walk up to them. There's the small screen in the game that's WonkaVision from the movie. There's a WonkaVader in the game, which is very attractive. It looks cool. It's a carryover feature from game to game that, you know, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, and finally the third or fourth game you manage to get the whole feature put together and make it go. But the big piece in the game is the most secret machine. and the most secret machine, to the best of my knowledge, that device has never been done before. The most secret machine is there's basically what looks like a target on the top of the play field. You hit the target some number of times, and the entire floor under it for the pinball machine rotates and a big hole opens up. And now you've got a big hole sitting there in your face. It's like a gobble hole. Yeah, it's like a gobble hole. Yeah. In fact, that's what we called it early on. We called it a gobble hole early on because there was that history. And, you know, so for for a for any player who walks up to this game, whether they're good, bad, don't play pinball. When they run into that target the first time and the floor opens up under them, they're going to get the idea that, oh, this is cool. I better shoot the ball now. Right. And see what happens. And it's a nice shot, too, backhanding off the left flipper. It's very attainable, and it's fulfilling when you actually do hit it. Yeah, it's an outstanding backhand. I'll add that. I love backhanding into that hole. I find it very satisfying to do. Yeah, you were saying you're going to want to backhand that shot just because it's easy. Maybe both of you guys can comment on this. There are games that are stereotypically categorized as flow games, and there are games that are kind of stereotyped as stop-and-go games. between the design and the code, where would you guys say Willy Wonka sets in relation to those two categories? It's funny. I feel like a little bit of both. I mean, you have some amazing flow to this game. I mean, you could shoot those ramps until your face turns blue and it just feels so amazing to shoot flow-wise. But there also is some stop and go. I mean, you have the lockups, you have the saucer that starts the modes. I mean, there's definitely a bit of both in there. And I think it's a really nice balance for people who want to shoot ramps and just kind of get lost in shooting ramps. You know, I have a rule in there, you know, spelling scrumdiddlyumptious via combos. And that's 19 letters. So you can shoot 19 ramps. Go for it. But if you want to play the rest of the game and, you know, have a little bit of stop and go, too, it's a really nice mix, in my opinion, of both of those things. Yeah, this game has, for the flow guy, there's a five or six-way combo possible in this game that you can shoot that basically walks through all four flippers in the game. Do you need to be able to do that to play the game? No.
    19:53
    That's for the advanced guy who wants to get so good that he has to show his friends how good he is. But there's also shots that are, you know, I call them target shots. You're going to have to learn how to deal with the target shots in the game if you want to collect some of what you've been doing on the ramps. You know, there's big risk and big reward like in any good pinball machine here. You know, extra ball comes off of shooting some deadly stand-up targets on this game that you're going to have to learn how to deal with. How do I want to play this game if I want to do that? And so I think this is a nice blend of both flow and long shot target shots for people who like that kind of thing. Where does Willy Wonka rate for you as far as the games that you've designed? Well, Willy Wonka is, for me, it's a watershed game for a lot of reasons. this game is probably right now the pinnacle of what you can create in the 21st century as a pinball machine you got the video you got the video on the play field you got the ability of the game to walk through and do the thing with the pictures from the Wonka camera. You've got the mechanical devices in the game, which is, you know, the most secret machine. You've got the flow we were talking about a little bit ago, and you've got a timeless license that is going to attract people who don't ordinarily play a pinball machine.
    21:26
    And that's hard. It's hard to put all of those elements together in one, you know, time-space continuum. This game is going to show everyone how deep the pinball world can still go. and I have great hopes when people see this game that we're going to be, you know, making some inroads both on the street, okay, with people who don't ordinarily play pinball, and to the people who still love these games and want to put them in their houses, all the way up through the, you know, the highest level of collectors who, once they see this art package, are going to be blown away. Okay. And, well, my first question for John was when you were, you know, informed that Willy Wonka was going to be, in fact, the theme that you were going to be working on, what were your initial thoughts? I mean, was this something that you were confident was going to relay or present itself well on a pinball machine? And did you have any personal interests or passion in regards to Willy Wonka, maybe as a movie or a book that might have motivated you to come up with what you actually have on the machine right now? Well, that's one of those titles, Willy Wonka, that I didn't have to think at all. It was like, boing, you know, yeah, I want that, you know. And I do remember Jack mentioning it. I think it was in Seattle in 2012 or another one of those shows that I went to. He'd run by the licenses, told me, and I was like a dog for a boney. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, get that one, you know. But I was excited about it. I didn't have to think much about it. And it was rich, very rich with art, and I knew the story was good. And like Pat said, it's kind of timeless, you know. It's similar to Wizard of Oz and that nature. So I look forward to it. Personally, yeah, I've seen the film a couple of times and liked it and had a lot of it memorized and had mental images of it. But it was refreshing. I watched it again and it was refreshing again. I watched it like a hundred times. It's been fun. And like Pat said, you do give up a lot of time. I don't wake up in the morning thinking, oh, man, I've got to go shovel coal this morning. It's like I have a fun job. I don't want to tell people I love it too much, or they'll just ask me to do it for nothing. Well, you talk about the time and the commitment involved on any art package in pinball.
    23:45
    What kind of time was actually committed on your end? I mean, how long does this art package take to put together? At the beginning, there was a rush. But, yeah, it's a lot of time. And, I mean, this is all I do now. So I don't have other clients or reps bringing me work in from wherever. You know, it's strictly pinball.
    24:05
    So the time, yeah, I think Pat told me about this in the spring of 2018, like around April or May. That's when I remember starting on it. And at the beginning, it was gathering content. You know, you spend a lot of time just getting everything you can, anything visual, you know, online or printed, whatever. As a result, it was mostly online material. And are you working with the rest of the team on that at that point? Are you guys collectively coming up with what you are envisioning on the play field, on the side of the cabinet, that sort of thing? Or is it something where you kind of do a storyboard approach or initial sketches, and then it evolves from there? Right. At the beginning, I can't recall. I got a play field pretty early. I mean, I went through a lot of revisions, you know, over that course of time. But I got a play field early. And I start with roughs because you don't want to invest a lot of time going down the wrong path, you know. Sure. I keep a loose. Listen, I fire a lot of stuff off of Pat. I can choose, you know, I like this, but I don't like that part. You know, whatever, you know, you go on to the next step, you know. So that's the way it began. And I'm not up there that often. I'm in East Tennessee. So we can talk virtually. We'll Skype. I'll Skype with JP over in Holland and Ted. And you have different art packages on the collector's edition versus the LE and the standard editions, correct? Like on the cabinet artwork? Right. I'll be uploading the CE. The CE playfield has just really come together in the last couple of weeks. We've got unique cabinet sides for all three models. The playfield and arch or apron are unique for the SE and the LE as one package. And if I'm right about this, because it could change, you know, the CE would be a unique playfield and arch package. Back glasses, all three of them are unique. We have a topper, a special topper for the CE. Oh, nice. Okay. And it's all fun stuff. I mean, the topper was a lot of fun, and I pitched a couple ideas for that. And, you know, I think the Wankavator, or not the Wankavator, the Wankatini was one thing that I kept trying to squeeze it in here and there. But, like, I had it in the back panel, and then we ended up not doing that version of the back panel. So I had the Wankatini left to do for the topper. It was a lot of fun painting it, you know, because that image was particularly low-res and pixelated. So I'll paint it. So the approach on this art package is photorealism. Is that what you would categorize this as? Yeah, trying to get as real as you can. You can't really mix cartoony artwork when you're doing a movie with real characters, live action. So it had to be as real as possible. I think the Oompa's were the toughest with that because we just didn't have good information on that. So I just started with sketches. I just drew them and just started building them up, getting them more real, more real, more real.
    27:00
    And that was all fun. I mean, I think portraits were fun. So to me, that was fun. It's a challenge. It's not hard labor. In your opinion, John, of all the artwork that you've done in pinball, where do you think that this Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory package ranks on your personal favorites?
    27:19
    Well, right now it's my personal favorites. Hey, there you go. You heard it here first, right? But I think it's going to be right up there, you know, really. I haven't held anything back. You know, I think you guys all probably know that we all love what we do. Maybe not everybody does. Maybe not everybody knows that, you know, but we love what we do, and we're always trying to do the best, you know, to shoot higher than the last one or make it better and then pull back if you have to, you know? Well, John, we want to congratulate you just on an unbelievable art package on a pinball machine, I think that I'm confident that when people see this, whether it be on online pictures or in real life, that it's going to be very well received within the pinball community, and people that walk past this on location are going to be immediately attracted to it. So our hats are off to you, and we appreciate your time in explaining and walking us through some of the art direction behind Willy Wonka and the Chalka Factory. Thank you, John. Thank you. Well, thanks for those nice words, and I'm glad you like what you see. All right, so Joe Katz, you coded this Willy Wonka, right? Lead programmer. I know you've got a team behind you. Yeah, yeah. And we can talk about it if you want to recognize anybody that had participated, because I know that that's important, I think, to anybody that's lead on a project. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, what is your approach when you find out Willy Wonka is happening? I mean, I'm assuming you're kind of ingesting the movie. You're trying to figure out modes and rule sets. What was your approach on this specific game? Before I start with that, I do, like you said, I do want to acknowledge that, I may be in here, be the one talking to you guys today, but the groundwork that Keith Johnson and Ted Essies have laid to allow me to build games on top of the system that they have created from scratch is just astounding. And I also have additional members of the team, J.T. Harkey, Bill Grupp, and Duncan Brown, who have been just incredible assets to me to be able to put this vision together. You know, I think nowadays somebody makes a pinball machine and there's a lead guy on the call sheet. And I just think at Jersey Jack right now, there may be a guy who's listed as whatever lead, software lead, rules lead. But this is a team effort. I mean, I couldn't even explain to you what kind of team effort it is. I mean, we sit around and we brainstorm and we throw ideas off each other and shoot rules and everyone has an opinion and everyone has an idea. So I just I feel like the idea that one person can do this is just insane because it's just not true. You get an all star team. Yeah, I might hear. I have guys who have been in this industry for as long as I've been playing pinball. Yeah. And for me to be able to learn from them and go back and forth with them, it's just it's it's it's almost like an honor to even get a chance to do that, to even like, yes, I'm talking to you. But this game wouldn't be nearly what it is without all six of us being involved with it. You know what's refreshing, too? Immediately when we came in, and we appreciated the invitation to come in and kind of get a hands-on experience and conduct this roundtable discussion, was when we came in the building, and Eric Minier had just kind of welcomed us in, and he's like, well, here's the game. Everybody kind of came out of their offices. Right. And you could tell that they were excited to have somebody else, like a fresh set of eyes on the game. Absolutely. And everybody was smiling, and everybody took such a sense of pride in regards to this game. And right away, just to see that excitement with the staff here, it made me feel like I was taking part in a special moment. I thought that was really cool. So what's up with this code? Yeah, yeah. What are we looking at, right? Yeah, yeah. I do want to throw a shout out to Eric, too, because, you know, Eric, it's not his game, but Eric loves to be involved in talking about rules and all that. I don't want to leave him out of that. No, not at all. And obviously, I have an entire team of people who work in this building that built these samples and do all types of other things, too. So, you know, they all deserve credit. Everyone in this building deserves credit for this game. We need to bring more microphones next time. That's on us. I apologize. We limited the accolades. Right. So in terms of the rules, and when we say rules, I mean, we don't need to get ridiculously specific. Sure, sure. But I think any player that hasn't got on the game wants to know what your approach was. Is this an adventure where you're going through the chocolate factory? Are you a character like we saw in previous titles? So what's your approach on Willy Wonka? I think it was sort of a dive into the world. You know, it tries to touch on things that the movie focuses on, you know, something like collecting Wonka bars. You know, it's a very simple concept. You make ramps, you get Wonka bars. And when bonus comes up, however many Wonka bars you have is how much your bonus is. The approach is kind of a multifaceted approach. It's sort of I want the game to be casually friendly, like Pat talks about. I want someone to walk up, see the gobstopper, and be like, I'll just hit that, and something's probably going to happen. And at the same time, I want there to be some variety. So when someone walks up to the game and they're a little bit more than casual, they're more of a pinball player, they go down one route, they see this, this, this, and then they might play it again and they may actually see some stuff they didn't see the first time. And then obviously coming from someone who likes to play competitively and knows that audience as well, I'm obviously looking always at the strategy depth of the game as well. So it's a broad stroke to say all three of those things is what I'm trying to do when you approach a code base. But that's really what we were trying to do here is to hit all of that. offers a whole new level of complexity to today's programmers because now you're appeasing somebody in the home market that's going to want longevity. You've got somebody that is going to walk up to this game on location that may need simplicity. And then you need somebody to be appeased in a tournament setting for complexity and balanced scoring. So it's not something that's easily done. Right. You have all that, and then you talk about integrating sound and display effects and lamp effects on top of all of that as well. I mean, it's a project. It's an undertaking. which is why the team mentality. Is that why there's all these empty beer cans all over the place? Right. Pizza boxes. Right. Long nights. Of course. That's why the team mentality is so important here. It's like to do this, it's so much work. And it does feel really, really well incorporated because not being, you know, not really knowing anything about the scoring when I first walked up to it or anything, you know, just shooting to see how it felt. It felt like a good game. And honestly, just eyeballing the ramps, you know, being able to hit them without a whole lot of effort was just, you know, That, I think, lends itself well to this game being on location. But, yeah, definitely I could see this with how the complexity of it, it lasting in a home use environment a lot longer. I think that's an excellent question because there's so much talk about complexity of code or lack thereof. How do you feel that this code and its level of complexity compares to prior releases here at Jersey Jack Pinball? I think from a depth standpoint, we're right up there with all of our games. Complexity is kind of an interesting word. I think that a game can be deep and have strategy, but not necessarily be complex, if that makes sense. So I think we're right up there with Dialed In and Pirates and Hobbit in terms of just all you can do and all there is to see. I think it's kind of right in line with what we do here, basically. so i'm not going to bring this game home and hit all the wizard modes and then want to think of another game at that point so there there is right deep yeah there's there's always a what we kind of say around here is there there's a carrot you know there's always a carrot hanging out there that you know in the case of this game you are collecting five golden tickets and how you do those golden tickets you know it's probably better suited for another discussion someday but the idea is that there are levels of difficulty to achieve the five golden tickets you are looking for. So one might be pretty easy and might be able to show a casual player that, hey, there's this golden ticket thing in this game, and we just gave you one. Now, if you're really interested, you could try to figure out where the rest of them are. Oh, like a little Easter egg. Kind of. Yeah, right. Like if a casual player walks up, there's a very realistic possibility that they could flip around and see a golden ticket. That's exactly what happened to me. Right. I stumbled upon a golden ticket. Right. And then I was asked, how did you get that? And I was like, I wasn't really sure, but it was cool that I had it. Right. And now you're kind of wondering. Right. What do I do to get the rest of them? I like it. And obviously the difficulty ramps up to get them. You want to you want to put that out there for people and then make it a challenge to get them all. So then the casual player, you said, can can step up on this game and have a good time. Right. And you can progress through an adventure. Right. I noticed the LCD animations on there, kind of the GUI, the GUI screen, so to speak, looks like just a cool room that you would see inside the factory. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that. Who was on animations for this game? Sure. So JP, DeWin, who did all of our digital assets, who is a genius and just knocks it out of the park all the time, did the majority of them. We recently got a new guy in-house that is also helping JP get through some of this stuff. so the idea with the ui was to present a room in the factory that maybe you don't see in the movie but kind of brings the movie to it like there might be elements of uh maybe you know the wonkavators in the background and if you know at the end of the movie he says the wonkavator goes everywhere in the factory so we were like all right well we might as well put a wall that has an elevator in it because it could be in our room yeah it could go anywhere yeah so things like that We're just trying to create a Willy Wonka room without just being like, oh, let's just use the chocolate room and make that the entire UI. We wanted to like kind of expand. It's like a hybrid of all the parts of the movie. It is. It's sort of like a mishmash of Willy Wonka. Yet it does not look out of place. Correct. It looks like something you would see on the movie, which is cool. Yeah, yeah. We see with Jersey Jack Pinball Games a tireless approach of evolving the code. Right. Where do you think at release here, because I think by the time this airs, the official reveal is going to be at the Midwest Gaming Classic MGC here in 2019. Where is the code now? And with Jersey Jack seemingly stepping up production and introducing additional titles per year now, where do you see the evolution of the code? Will there be as much time dedicated on these newer release games as some of your prior games? Because you weren't on that timeline of having another game in the queue right away. Right, right. I think going back to Dialed In, the objective or what we kind of put out there was when the game comes out, you're going to have a rules complete game. And if you are somewhat casual, you're not, if you never update the game, it doesn't matter. You have the game there. Okay. So I would say when the game comes out, all the rules will be in the game. There will be nothing that is left out. Now, that's not to say that balancing, tweaking, choreo, polish, scoring balancing is just going to be stopped. Right. But. OK. Well, that's encouraging. Right. I think with Pirates and with Dialed In, we really wanted to say, here is the game you're getting. And okay, if something happens And someone comes up with a bright idea I never want to close the book on anything But we want you to get the game And if you never update it You have the full game If you choose to be into that And wanting to update and get the score balancing And get the tweaking that might happen More power to you And this is a mode-driven game? It's interesting As a team, we were trying to do something A little bit different than Dialed In when it came to everything in dialed in is about the 12 disaster modes the 11 disaster modes and the wizard mode attached to them and you were basically okay get a multi-ball charge the phone play wizard player disaster mode charge the phone player disaster mode and obviously there were other stuff to do in that game right that's a very mode based driven game yep i tried to shy away from that a little bit that's not to say there aren't modes in the game but right now there are what i would consider like like pinball moments yeah like pinball style things that can in some in some cases be recognized as modes sure okay and in other cases be recognized as oh i have 20 seconds let me see how many times i can hit the gum target right kind of like fun house get yourself a hot dog kind of thing you know so i i don't really think i would characterize this game as like a mode-based game i'd characterize this game as just like a free-for-all into just pinball like it's not so much like you have to do this and then do it again and do it again it's an overall experience do this stuff yeah and you know what you might some start to see some things you didn't even know are in there cool yeah so it's not overly repetitive right i mean again i think pinball in general is overly repetitive yeah any game no matter what game you buy from any manufacturer from any era that's just what pinball is but you're right i think the thought was let's present people with and i hate to use this word because everybody loves throwing this word around is like linear yeah the problem is all pinball is linear to us i don't care i don't care who you are what game you've made but i want you to be able to go on this journey and do things without being restricted to doing them in the same type of order i guess is the best way to kind of put it out there okay yeah that makes any sense and then it might make sense if you play it more yep oh i think you're right i think when you play it you'll be able to see the direction in which it was intended. And it's nice because you're working with, now this gentleman's new to pinball, right? Yes, yeah. Vicas Deo, and he's the lead sound engineer here. So welcome to the show here, Vicas. Why don't you guys talk about how it was to work with one another, I imagine, with the code and the call-outs and the music. How do you guys mishmash or mix and match on a daily basis to get the game going? I think it's a really interesting experience to work with somebody who is musical and knows about music but doesn't really know a lot about pinball. Knows of pinball but also needs to sort of be taught I guess maybe be the word Like say you know like introduced to what exactly taught the better word Is that what I said Because I was like, no, right. Introduced to these concepts, right? Like to him or foreign, like, sure. Yes. He's seen pinball and yes, he's played pinball and he's flipped a flipper, but like to understand what fanfares are and what, how sound effects and fanfares and speech and music all kind of come together and how it all happens at the same time. Sure. It's interesting to like walk somebody through that. Now, again, I don't know from his standpoint how it feels, but I found it actually pretty interesting to do. Vikas, what's your background in the sound industry? Mostly slots and a couple of arcade coin ops. So this is my first pinball.
    42:29
    So the background helps, but this is like a whole – I definitely needed him to hold my hand through pretty much every concept. I didn't know what a rule was. I didn't know what anything was. I just knew there was two flippers and the ball goes around the field. So you have the skill set, obviously. It's just a matter of implementing that skill set. Yeah, like to a new project or new concept. But I definitely needed to be walked through everything because I had no idea why and where and what. So he was very good at that. Him and Ted and JT were very helpful in that way. Did you guys find yourself cohesive at that point? Pretty simple. Yeah, I thought we were the ground running. I mean, we brought him in here and we started talking about pinball in general. And I think it just naturally just happened. They're very good at describing me not knowing anything and starting to feel somewhat confident when I leave here, go work on something, and they send me an email about it. I'm like, okay, I feel like I got a good description. I'm not totally sure what this means, but I feel like I'm mentally in the ballpark to just start working and not be freaked out by it. So just jumping into pinball, with Willy Wonka being your first game, how did you feel about that when you first started and knowing what you were going to be working on? I mean, it's from our childhood, you know, so it's like Charlie Brown to me, you know, so it's fun. So, you know, you're excited about going into film music that you love by some of these great writers. So, yeah, it's an exciting project to start. And with the sound, were you able to use the original soundtrack or did you have to? I had to recreate it all from scratch. Oh, so you recreated that whole sound package. Yeah, everything is recreated, yeah, because you can't, yeah, we have to start. So I started with the Golden Ticket main tune, and then I guess once you do the main thing, everything kind of grows out of there because you learn the Wonka language. So you kind of have to study it enough that you don't stray too far away from it, and when you do, you still know you're straying from it. So it's a bit of analysis, but once you get there, it kind of sticks in your head and guides you along the way. I think – and we had this conversation on the way here, Bill. Obviously, we caught up on watching the movie again before we came over. and the one thing that was concerning me or not concerning me but the one thing i thought was going to be a potential challenge was going to be the musical score within the game because when you listen to the music in the movie it's a little bit slower and it's theatrical it's not anything necessarily that that tries to get you on that edge of adrenaline and the quality was different then versus by today's standards right so to stick something like that into this game would almost be a crime i mean you wanted the sound time period correct but you don't want it to be distorted or I almost was concerned if maybe the original music would hold back the overall experience But pleasantly coming in and playing this, it is a different experience So what you've done with the music, you've created a different tempo for that music You make it exciting, you're creating moments in the machine that you don't have that in the movie I was really pleasantly surprised on that Really nice job on that It just goes to show the collaboration that all went into this game is literally what makes it what it is. Just absolutely incredible still. What kind of a feeling, Vikas, were you trying to create for the player when they're listening to this music? Is there any type of ambience or mood that you're trying to create? And how many songs are we using from the movie in this game? I think we're using three. Yeah, we licensed I Got a Golden Ticket, Pure Imagination. I think we have the Oompa Loompa music part. Cool, okay. yeah and then barucas uh i want it now yeah yeah oh yeah taken we have those licenses and we're basically then you know creating from there and obviously he's also doing a lot of original right scores in the wonka world as well to kind of make it feel like it's part of the movie anyways yeah it's a lot of music in this game i mean we have i mean there are just like i said there's a lot of variety of modes not you know pinball things and some have tunes that are based off of the licenses and some are just made you know just out of his head pretty much so vicasso like when you're doing this are you are you envisioning all right the players in this mode and this is what i want the player to feel i mean what's going through your head i've kind of i have to i mean because my lack of pinball understanding i kind of have to rely on the movie like what would veruca you know what would it sound like a veruca was in this kind of uh mode or whatever okay so i'm kind of just keeping the the movie in my head as much as possible and the language so that's kind of where I have to draw from. And Joe's explanation of what this is for. All that kind of comes together and you're like, okay, let's try this and hopefully it stays in the world. You had to recreate the call-outs because you couldn't really use the original ones, right? Or were you able to reuse the... I've used quite a bit of movie speech in there. And then did you have to recreate any for the game itself? I know like in Wizard of Oz they had a lot they were able to use from the movie, but then they had a lot that they had to recreate as well. So basically we have audio clips from the movie of Willie and the kids and Slugworth and their parents and we're able to use that stuff and we also, of course, we needed somebody like a narrator to be saying pinball stuff because obviously in the movie nobody's saying lock, call, land. Extra ball. They didn't say that in Willie Wonka? Exactly. So we definitely have two groups of stuff there with speech. We have the movie speech and then we have a narrator who's sort of helping us move along the pinball related stuff is the narrator an impersonator of anybody or is it just a a its own entity yeah it's just its own generic narrator um okay yeah we we didn't um want to go through the process of potentially trying to get it you know like a sound alike or anything like that it's just more like he's a narrator he's just a he's just a guy kind of you know telling you the pinball stuff that's happening in the game the cost did you have any uh not setbacks but any hurdles that maybe you didn't think of ahead of time that maybe you encountered in regards to just redoing all this music and not so much than that i mean i did a wonka game before so i was a slot game so i was you know familiar with it oh very nice okay i think it was just the the amount of sound and speech and sound effects that happen all at the same time and and just change like on a dime like i wasn't used to that at all i guess just getting used to the way it is like way pinball is and way it sounds it's just a new experience i grew up on gauntlet and galaga and zaxxon and Pac-Man, so that's not even close to this in terms of sounds cutting each other off. So that was the hardest part for me. How long into the project did you finally think to yourself, all right, now I'm really cranking on this and I know the direction that I need to go? I'll let you know. I'm just kidding. Yeah, it's like, what's the way to go on? I think, I don't know, after the first tune was done and we got it more to the tempo that it needed to be, I was like, okay, now I can live in this world and just kind of use that language I learned from Leslie Brickus, that composer that did all this music and the instructions from joe like those two together can kind of carry me through this what brings you over here to jersey jack in the first place because that you're working slots and whatnot yeah how do you get into pinball my friend uh rob berry referred me uh to ted or keith one of the two and then that's this or uh yeah keith johnson yeah and then at some point last uh september august uh he emailed me and then i I started around December of 2018 on most of the stuff. So how would you rate your overall experience with your first effort here on Willy Wonka? It was fun. I enjoyed it. I mean, it's a fun title, and writing that music is fun, and these guys are easy to work with. So we can expect you for another game maybe? Yeah, if they'll have me around, yeah, it's fun. Perfect. Is Jerry still out on that there, Roger? Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
    50:02
    I just hope people like it, you know, hopefully have fun. I don't know what the pinball world is like So I'm going to MGC next week So it'll be fun just to see How people react to the sound and music And I've never seen that before So I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like It's hard to really get the audio at a show So I think what will be a pleasant surprise Will be one when this game is being streamed If you're able to sink into the audio Or somebody being able to sit down in a controlled environment And really appreciate the audio Which is always a pleasant surprise When you have something that's solid Yeah, you go to a show and you play a game and you think you're hearing it. You might as well get it home and you're like, I didn't hear any of this when I was at a show with 950 pinball machines also blinking and bleeding at the same time. Especially Jersey Jack games. Because, I mean, when I think of Hobbit, I mean, it's so important to be able to hear that sound. And it brings you back to the movie and it just kind of gets you involved a little bit more. And I've always really liked the outside audio adjustment that you guys have on the cabinets. Absolutely. And there's a headphone jack on there still. There is, yeah. So, I mean, as we summarize here, what is the goal here for Willy Wonka as a machine that's being introduced to the public by Jersey Jack? What are you guys looking to accomplish with this latest release? I think we're hoping to obviously reach the pinball community, of course. But I think we're also trying to find some non-pinball people that are looking for some entertainment in their home to add to their basement and be able to share this with their kids and have their kids grow up playing it. And then they could show them the movie, and it could kind of be a family experience as well. But also, we're just hoping people think it's a good game. Of course, what I'm looking for is people finding enjoyment. Appreciating your efforts. Yeah, exactly. Find enjoyment out of it and appreciate the amount of work that goes into these things. Can I ask you guys this together? Because I think most importantly, the lead programmer and the lead audio or sound engineer, you guys are making moments, pinball moments for people. And I think when you play a machine and you walk away, it's that moment that makes you want to come back and play it again. Do either of you or both of you have a moment in this game where even you appreciate seeing it again and it makes you want to come back and just makes you go, wow.
    52:18
    I think there are a lot of them, but I will point out one that I think will make more sense when you get to play it and see it for yourself. But I think the overall presentation of Kid Multiball is phenomenal. I think it all comes together from a graphics point of view, sound point of view, rule. I mean, the game just, it just really starts to come to life and just be on fire when that multi-ball starts. And I think people will get a kick out of how that kind of all came together. Yeah, it's just got a really great feeling to it. I love it. I like Lankatania because that was the creepiest thing I've ever seen as a kid. Yeah, I don't know if you guys have actually seen that yet. Maybe we'll play it a little bit more if we have some more time. But, you know, the whole poem scene on the ship where it's very creepy and cutting heads off of chickens and just freaking out. It's like a weird version of Pink Floyd, The Wall. Right, everybody on the boat is freaking out. Right, right. There's a mode in the game that is based off of that scene that I think people see the lights and the poem being read. Oh, man. I can see that building. It's a whole thing. It's wild. And it's funny. In this office, we've been playing this, obviously, for a while now. And people get to Wankatania Mania, we call it. And we've been walking around this office saying, oh, the rowers keep on rowing. We keep spouting the lines of the poem because we're just so used to hearing it. so it gave me an idea uh really a little creepy in here joe right exactly you know why did you just turn the lights off right uh my face is turning red and green right exactly you know so it gave me an idea that i think some people might get a kick out of as well as when the mode's running on the walk of vision display i actually have the karaoke of the poem being put on the display as he's reading the poem oh that's cool so it's like you're you see the mode and you're like you know uh i'm drawing a blank on the line that keeps saying rower keeps on rolling but But all those lines are kind of floating up on the WonkaVision display as he's saying them. And it's kind of a nice little – it's a really interesting take on a mode for that such a creepy part of the movie. And, Bill, you said that you hoped that was in the game, right? I did. We were driving here, and I'm like, is there going to be a boat scene, multi-ball, or – because that is just so – And I'm like, no, they're not going to put that in there. That's too scary. It's creepy, but I think it's cool. I mean, it's iconic to that movie. And we played a bunch of games. I didn't see that. So to know that there's just something else to always be seen is like, I think it's so great. Well, it keeps plucking the quarters, man. Yeah, we didn't we didn't we didn't want to put the video of the head chopping off and the worm going in the eye. But no, no sound are there. Yeah. You feel like you're like, whoa, what is what is happening for the 30 seconds or whatever that is running? Yeah, it's kind of an interesting moment. Let me ask you one more question and we'll let you guys get back to it. And if you hear pinball being played in the background, it's because, hey, we're at a pinball manufacturing company. So that's what it is. But in your opinion, there are a lot of options in pinball games or pinball machines right now. Why buy Willy Wonka?
    55:12
    I think someone should buy this game if they are looking for a unique experience to a timeless classic movie and to feel the dedication and love that we put into our games. There's a lot of subtle things that Jersey Jack games do that I think people who play our games see and recognize, and I think there's just more of that in this game as well. Yeah, I mean, and obviously just to have fun. I mean, isn't that the point? Isn't that why we play pinball in the first place? It's to have fun. Play it, experience it, and love it. Do you guys have anything else you want to talk about? We can touch on anything else that you guys want to. I just thought I'd throw it out there that the objective of collecting golden tickets in the game is sort of what you're going for. And people like to know about wizard modes, so I figured I can mention. So the objective of the game then Is it to collect the golden tickets? Yeah, it's like the real objective To get to the end of the game Is to collect five golden tickets Is there a sixth False golden ticket? Or you think you collected five Only to find out that you've collected four It's funny, we've I won't spoil it Get your hands on a game to play it and find out Right, exactly And I think we're going to shoot for three wizard modes Depending on you know you'll get a golden ticket you might get some points for the first one since the one that sort of kind of presented to you and show you that they exist and then there might be some wizard modes and some of these other ones and then there might be maybe an award or two that is in maybe one of the other ones so yeah stay tuned to play that and find out kind of what we're doing with those i think we have some interesting ideas on the wizard modes all right and joining us now on the back half of the panel discussion for the making of willy wonka we've got jersey jack founder Jack Guarneri on the line. Jack, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Ken. I appreciate being here. Yeah, absolutely. I was hoping that you could tell us when the idea of Willy Wonka as a pinball machine actually presented itself to you.
    57:12
    That's a good question. I would have to go back to 2011, around the time I started the company, and I secured the license for Wizard of Oz from Warner Brothers. and I was already thinking of my second game way before there was anything really material on the first game and I asked them the magical question that they seemed to get asked, what else do you have that's like Wizard of Oz? And I'm a big Willy Wonka fan, but the problem was that Warner Brothers did not have the rights to a lot of the talent secured. so they had some of it but they didn't have all of it and it actually took several years before that license became something that was available for our our category it was really early on i loved it so did you have any big obstacles that you had to overcome in order to secure that license with warner brothers or just just kind of a match made in heaven after you had secured wizard of You know, it's always a match made in heaven after you sign the agreement. Yeah, right. Exactly.
    58:23
    It was, you know, not to take anything away from what's going on right now with the game. You know, it was challenging. And I do the licenses for the company.
    58:34
    And I look out there and negotiate these things. And just sometimes it gets difficult when other people want what you want. Sure. Yeah. So that was the case. It's a great property. We won. We proved that we can make something better than somebody else could.
    58:59
    That was what I told them, and that's what they believed based on what they saw us do with Wizard of Oz and Hobbit. So the license came our way, and I'm very grateful and humbled for that. It's a wonderful property to have. So your prior machines kind of spoke for themselves, and that's kind of what set that over the top for you. That's true. You know, the first one was difficult because with Warner Brothers, they were looking for a company that was in business five years that already had some things that they could measure against some benchmarks, some other games. And we didn't have any of that. And there was a point with Wizard of Oz where they kind of said, you know, we can't give it to you. And I said something silly to the lady at the time who was managing our account. Just out of frustration, I said to her, why don't you just Google me and see how long I've been in the industry and see some of the things I've been involved with. And I felt weird doing that, like an egotistical kind of narcissistic kind of like, well, look at me. Yeah. And I remember the time of the year it was. And I went outside of my building at the time and laid on the grass waiting for her to actually get back to me and tell me whether or not I would get the Wizard of Oz license or not. And you know, and you landed it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they were they were blown away seeing the product that we made. It became something that they realized was a living, breathing, big vanity kind of item that they could showcase to other prospective people that would want to license that property. Sure. Hey, look, you know, a pinball machine was made out of our intellectual property and we actually created intellectual property that they were able to use and leverage off of. Certainly that big video animation, all the things that JP did, the use of the sound in the game and speech calls, different things that we did to make that license be a real pinball machine that came alive. they were very proud of it and um you know it did it it kind of helped me with Hobbit you know we weren't really uh far along with Wizard of Oz when we went for Hobbit but those two games are what won me uh Willy Wonka ultimately in my perseverance to not give up in the face of being told that I can't get it I mean they flat out said they can't give it to me so I said okay well let's talk about that how can we get it and uh you know i think all the listeners anybody would would realize and agree that if you want to do something you really can't give up easily so we always hear you talk about wizard of oz and in such a um such a passionate way you said this was something that you really wanted to do as a pinball machine do you think that willie wonka kind of shares in that same drive in that same passion when you were looking at at another theme yeah it's a it's a dream theme um it checks all the boxes it's got a great story there's a lot of great um iconic memories for the people that remember going to a movie theater and seeing it the first time it celebrates its 50th anniversary in a couple of years um the young people that have seen it everybody loves chocolate everybody loves to see uh the underdog win yeah and you know Charlie wins because he honest Oh spoiler alert He doesn give in to temptation And even though he was up in the fizzy lifting room and drank some drinks Yeah, he did. You know, they burped their way back down. Yep, right. And they made it happen. And so many iconic lines from the movie. So many memes made from that movie. it's just a wonderful wonderful property to be involved with again you know i i can't use humbling as a word enough to be associated with that property uh the actors that are still um alive and doing appearances and things it's just it's just a great thing to be involved with and we made a spectacular game of course i would say that but you know when other people get to play it and see it and understand it, hopefully they'll say the same thing.
    63:43
    Now, you had graciously invited our podcast in, Special Wendland Pinball Podcast, myself and Bill Webb, to come kind of get a preview of the game prior to the release that has happened. You also invited a couple other media outlets in. I know this weekend Pinball was in there with Jeff Patterson and Zach Menne and Greg Bone from straight down the middle of Pinball Show. and when we first saw the machine, it's like something we had not ever seen or frankly, didn't really think to even expect. And when I think of Jersey Jack Pinball and I think of innovations that you brought into pinball and you've set new standards, I mean, and immediately I think of like you introducing the LCD into the back glass was a pretty huge thing. Do you think that this release will have things within the game that will set a new standard for pinball moving forward? Well, every game we do is different. Probably about 80% of every game to game is probably different. They don't really try to outdo each other. They try to be companions with each other. and people that we have, wonderful customers that have all four so far, when you see them all together, it's really true. They complement each other. Simple, subtle things like the user interface that JP and the team create, they're all different on every game. So when you look at the user interface on Hobbit, it's different than Dialed In. It's different on Wizard of Oz. It's different on Willy Wonka. They all have a different feel. not just because of what's on the play field. There are many, many, many hundreds and hundreds of subtle things that go into those games. When you look at an innovation like RGB LEDs, today it seems, well, you know, there are LEDs and RGB LEDs and almost everything you would think, but it's still so amazing to see the light shows that the team come up with and that HD LCD. a lot of other people just mistakenly believe that it only replaces a DMD. It doesn't. It's there, what I said in the very beginning, it's there to entertain people that are waiting to play and inform them and also amuse and entertain the people playing and attract people to come and play the game. And that LCD, since you mentioned it, young people, when you see young people for the first time walking up to our game, they play they look at the ball they look at the screen they see everything in one capture old people uh those of us that play pinball for a long time it's a little more difficult to take your eye off the ball and look up and see what's going on you know we've developed a habit there was no reason to look up except maybe when your ball's over during your ball or maybe your ball is captive or goes somewhere that you have a moment to look up and see a score maybe where you are competing against another player, if you pass somebody, that kind of thing. This is a whole different form of amusement and entertainment. Our games, you know, I've said it many times, it's overload. It's sensory overload. And that's what I believed in 2011 we really need to capture young people to play pinball and also themes that appeal to whole families and especially women. And in the vein of Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka is right in there. Let's talk about the release. Is there any kind of strategy involved where you're thinking, all right, I know I want to introduce this game to the public and MGC is going to be the first time that we allow the public to get on this game? MGC is an important show. Dan Lucin, years ago, I was one of the early sponsors of the show. I haven't been able to get there in the last couple of years.
    67:43
    Schedule and other commitments bang into the way sometimes. As this is airing, I'm in France. So I'll be revealing the game in a show in a town called Le Treport. And it's a big, beautiful show. And it's great to be in a different part of the world for me. So you'll be revealing this game in France as well? Absolutely. yeah will you have a physical right no will you have a physical game there or are you going to be revealing via stream uh physical game is in france already wow okay uh our distributor uh christophe he's uh he's got the game and um it's a lot of fun and and you know we'll have a pod we'll have live streaming we'll have uh podcasts going with martin from pinball news and jonathan from pinball magazine they'll be there okay and um it's going to be a lot of fun there's a whole day uh it's two days actually it's a whole two days worth of festivities planned uh i know christoph bought thousands of wonka bars so i'll be uh downing them left and right right you have to hit a workout program on the way back to the race jack yeah yeah yeah so so going back to mgc so you It's like a simultaneous global release for Willy Wonka. You're overseas. It might be the first time a pinball company does that, too. Some pinball history, release history. I like it. Right.
    69:12
    MGC is within driving distance of all the folks that we have in our Illinois office that you visited. So it was important to a lot of us. You know, I'm spoiled in a way. I get to go to all these shows, and I get to hear all the comments of all the people about the games. And I always I always say thanks for the team. But if the whole team is there. We're talking about, you know, our mechanical engineers, all of our programmers, all of the people that do all of the unsung jobs in the company and design and engineering and their families. they get to take a bow they get to have fun they get to see the game in the wild because when they design something and it's in the office they're playing it and certainly they are their biggest critics and they're their biggest uh passion for the game but it's really good if you're the chef to go out into the dining room and ask hey how is uh how is everything is everything OK. Absolutely. Yeah. So it was really important to do that. And timing worked out pretty well for us. We were aiming at the show for a few months and it was it was nice to hit it. I think it's great that you're considering, you know, everybody's efforts and allow them to kind of take a bow for what they've completed. When we stopped into the office and had a chance to get on it, it was really it was exciting to see their excitement as somebody from the outside was able to kind of put some time on these games for the first time. And when we talk about your team, we know that there are a lot of people that are involved in actually, you know, manufacturing and creating a pinball machine. But what kind of things are you considering when you assemble the team of Pat Lawler and Joe Katz and John Yausey and Vikas Deo for Willy Wonka? You know, I want to say everybody works together very well. Everybody plays together well. Everybody works together well. They have a passion for what they're doing. They love what they're doing. And this was the team that was up next. We have another team that is working on JJP number six. And we have some people already working on JJP number seven. Amazing. You know, the company is nimble enough to have other people come in. There are your primary players and I don't want to call them your secondary players, but other people that are on the bench that are also asked to step up and bat and hit a couple of home runs. So a lot of people have their hands in these games. There's a lot of commentary.
    71:57
    There's a lot of constructive criticism. And everybody gets along and makes it happen. All right, Jack. So we notice Jersey Jack Pinball implements an LCD on the play field for the last few releases. And it's popular for people because you can kind of glance up, get instant info without having to look, you know, where the back glass or the DMD normally would be. Now, noticeably, the LCD is larger, the play field LCD on Willy Wonka. Can you tell us a little bit about the decision process that you guys went through regarding making that significantly larger than what we're used to seeing? You know, some of our, you know, at least one game dialed in had two LCDs. Wizard of Oz had it. you know I buried it in the crystal ball and I only made it where it could be seen by the player if he's about five foot nine right so it's a little secret you had the the compass and the book between pirates yep right and hobbit so here you have wonka vision and since it's kind of towards the back of the game play field, it needed to have a presence. It needed to take up some real estate. It's almost like an iPad that you could see there. So if you're coming closer to field division or distance from the player, you can go smaller like we did on Pirates or even smaller like we did on Wizard of Oz with the crystal ball. But if you're going back a little further, remember you're going to compete in a way with the player's field of vision with the LCD 27-inch monitor that's above it. So you want something beefy and big enough there to make an impression for all the artwork, all the animations that are going to be on that screen. It's nice because where it's larger and it's easy to spot, by no means does it feel like it's overpowering the rest of the artwork or design that's going on within the play field. So it's very tastefully done. I'm glad you could see that and appreciate that, And I think everybody else will, too. That's great. Do you have a favorite innovation on this machine? It just seems like Pat Lawler, you know, the bar is set high for him, and he keeps banging them out. And this machine doesn't take a break. It's pushing forward. Anything on this game that you are, you know, specifically fond of? I mean, the whole package is great. You know, there's a thing that people realize when they play the game, and it's almost like an upper play field. that's not an upper play field in the upper right of the game. Yes, I noticed that too. It feels segmented, but it's all part of the flow of the single level play field. Right. So that upper right flipper, you're able to play with that ball a good amount of times, even if you don't miss, even if you miss your shot that you wanted to make.
    74:54
    That ball comes back and comes back and comes back, and it gives you a lot of chances to make the shot that you want to make. so really it's kind of like an upper play field without having an elevated upper play field on the game and it's very cool you know pat you know what could i say um you know pat's work is amazing and uh he continues to do what he loves to do and his passion and his love for making really great games, there it is. It's on the play field of the game. And then the rest of the team jumps in between sound, software, rules, animation.
    75:41
    Aside from the upper play field, I would say on the right side, you know, my favorite technological inclusion in this game really is the camera because that camera, again, comes through in putting the player into the game.
    76:03
    And it's really a wonderful use of it, and it was something that I wanted in pinball machines back in 1977, and we couldn't really take a Polaroid camera and stick it on a game. Yeah, right. It was a thought. It was a half-second thought. But being an operator in Brooklyn, we knew that the camera would be gone before we turned around from the game. Oh, sure. So we couldn't really do it. Sure. Well, I think if our personal experience is any indicator as to what the general public is going to feel when they – well, the reveals happened. So I think with the excitement, a lot of people are going to be putting in their orders with their distributors, and they're going to want to have the game in hand. Can you talk about the process at this point regarding getting these games into the hands of potential buyers? So I like to look at our window now is a lot shorter. It's not going to be a pirate's reveal and then people are waiting, you know, a really, really long time to get their games. We're not taking money deposits. So we don't want anybody's money because the length of time to wait is very short.
    77:11
    I would say I like to pin a date. I would say games are in people's hands by July 4th, sooner than July 4th. So if I had to pick a holiday that's a favorite holiday, I would pick that holiday. As we're talking about this and it's Friday, the assembly line and parts and things like that, all the storyboards and things to convert the line, all of that stuff is happening. so we feel very confident that this is a very short changeover period to assemble of course what I say years ago you get x amount of orders not everybody can get the game at the same time so the first two order you know we'll be fair we'll allocate games we need games to go around the world. Certainly, the more we can build in a day and a week, the more we can ship in a day and a week. So the goal is to be full on to get Willy Wonka going to everybody who wants Willy Wonka, which I know it's going to be thousands of people. I couldn't agree more. It's going to be exciting. And it sounds like you've made necessary changes where we're not going to be waiting too long in order to get that in our hands. And I'll leave you with this, Jack. And I'll just ask you quite candidly, is this going to be Jersey Jack pinball's biggest seller to date? Willy Wonka.
    78:44
    Of course, of course. Wizard of Oz really knocked it out of the park. It established the company. It was that first 10 poll that you put up when you're building something.
    78:58
    It's my favorite game. Willy Wonka, it's going to be doing battle to be my favorite game. It's just so different. There's so many cool things about it.
    79:13
    I love everything, really. From the people that I've seen play it, I'm going to love it. But I love what people say about it. So now that it's released, there'll be more comments by more people, and that's what we aim for. I mean, what we're aiming for, Ken, is to do more, be better, learn from our mistakes, and move forward. It's just an amazing, amazing road that it's been, but this is probably going to be our biggest game. I would believe that.
    79:53
    I don't think there's any doubt this is going to be a historical release, not only for Jersey Jack Pinball, but in pinball in general. Jack, and I want to thank you for your hospitality, inviting us in to get a peek at the game. I want to thank everybody that was at the Bensonville office that helped us out, and we're very welcoming with Pat Lawler, Joe Katz, John Yausey, Vic Castello. I wanted to thank Eric Minier for his involvement in setting everything up. And, again, we're really, really excited, and we want to personally congratulate you on this release, and we wish you all the best. Thank you, Ken. And, you know, it's team effort, as you've seen. Everybody deserves a lot of credit.
    80:30
    And I would just say, really, if you only could buy one pinball machine, it needs to be Willy Wonka. And all the people that have games, this is certainly a centerpiece of a collection. And it's just an amazing accomplishment. And I'm very proud of everybody. And I thank everybody as well. and thank you. Thanks again, Jack. Thanks, Ken. All right, well, gentlemen, I'll tell you what. We'll wrap up the official making of Willy Wonka live here or live recorded from Bensonville, Illinois at the Jersey Jack office. Bill, any impressions that you wanted to... The game is beautiful. Hopefully everyone gets a chance to see it, play it, check it out, and preferably in a quiet environment just because you can really appreciate the game then. But it is absolutely just a gorgeous machine, shoots well, I think you guys nailed it, and I'm a big fan of the older themes like Wizard of Oz. So this one for me is one that really pulls. So you do really feel immersed in the game when you are playing it. That's great. I would say the art package is incredible. The amount of toys and mechs that are on the play field are extremely impressive.
    81:42
    LCD animations and music, again, at the level that you would expect out of a Jersey Jack pinball machine. So it was fun to be able to get a hands-on experience here. I did want to thank Pat Lawler, Joe Katz, John Yausey, and Vikas Deo for letting us come in and pick your brains on this. And if you guys don't mind, as this game kind of gets some legs and gets in some homes, I'd love to kind of sit down with you guys, maybe individually, and just talk about where Willy Wonka is going and the evolution of the game. Because I'm very excited to see where it goes. And I'm confident that the pinball community is going to be impressed with this release. So, again, congratulations. you guys really did an outstanding job thank you very much thank you guys for what you do for pinball because you guys have a certain touch on the hobby that I don't know any other manufacturer has at this point so I really appreciate it awesome thanks for coming out thank you for having us thank you for joining us for the extra bonus content here the making of Willy Wonka from Jersey Jack Pinball for Bill Webb I'm Ken Cromwell everybody have a good morning good afternoon good evening and don't forget to take some time out of your day to play some pinball so long everybody
    82:48
    Where does Whirlwind rank for you as far as... Well, not Whirlwind. I wrote WW down there. I keep thinking Whirlwind, too. So, I'm redoing a Whirlwind right now, so whenever I see WW, I think Whirlwind. Me, too. I was trying to make it easy on us, but I got confused, too. I was like, Whirlwind? What are we talking about? Yeah, we're not doing... That's a nice game, by the way. It is. Where does Whirlwind rank for you as far as the games that you've designed? Well, Whirlwind was designed back in 1980. I'm sorry. I keep saying that. Take three. All right. Where does Willy Wonka rate for you as far as the games that you've designed? Well, Whirlwind rates for me very high.
    83:27
    That's an outtake, guys. I like that. Okay, so I'll go with that. Thank you for joining us on this magical ride. For Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb, I'm Mark Silk. Good day, sir.