claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029
Kyle Smet discusses Friday the 13th homebrew design philosophy and path to Big Trouble in Little China.
Friday the 13th debuted two years ago at Texas Pinball Festival 2024
high confidence · Kyle Smet stated directly in interview: 'So, this is my first game. Debuted here two years ago at TPF24.'
Kyle used four complete playfield iterations for Friday the 13th development
high confidence · Kyle explicitly detailed the four-iteration process: first whitewood prototype, second with inserts, third with refined inserts and art, fourth with final clear coat
Friday the 13th contains 23-25 total modes across 12 movies and 2 video games
high confidence · Kyle stated: 'So, I think there's something like 23 or 25 modes in this game' after describing multiple movie final girl modes and side quests
Kyle used Cobra boards instead of FAST hardware for Friday the 13th
high confidence · Kyle explained the board choice: 'With this one, I use Cobra. So Ernie was offering fast and Cobra. Cobra was a little bit uh more simple.'
Kyle's third homebrew game is currently in development and expected to debut at TPF 2027
high confidence · Kyle stated: 'I'm working on number three, which will hopefully be here next year at TPF.'
Kyle designed Friday the 13th playfield layout on paper/napkin without digital tools
high confidence · Kyle confirmed: 'legitimately a napkin and and I'm not being hyperbolic. Uh I did I tried VPX for about 10 minutes. I'm like, No, I'm done.'
Six actors provided custom callouts for Friday the 13th
high confidence · Kyle stated: 'I had six of the actors provide callouts for the game and and they're not all spooky. They're kind of fun.'
Friday the 13th font issue: the Friday the 13th font only supports Roman numerals up to three, causing crashes with standard '4'
high confidence · Kyle explained: 'The Friday the 13th font only goes up to three. If you use a four, it has a string of things and the game will crash... That was about a week of me pounding my head against the wall'
“I don't know that because pinball.”
[name withheld pending review]@ 7:47 — Humorous acknowledgment of pinball's unpredictability; encapsulates community inside joke about the chaos of pinball mechanics
“The enemy of like creativity is pretty much everything. Right.”
Kyle Smet@ 5:14 — Core design philosophy statement about avoiding over-engineering and digital tools as creative blockers in homebrew development
“I just want to recreate that experience. Some of the big guys probably wouldn't uh tackle this.”
Kyle Smet@ 2:22 — Explains motivation for homebrew as a way to tackle IP combinations and niche themes commercial manufacturers won't pursue
“The hardest part for me when I was coding this game was deciding what not to put in.”
Kyle Smet@ 9:28 — Reveals key design constraint in homebrew: managing scope and curation across multiple movie licenses and actor involvement
“You get a piece of wood flipping and it's not fun... then you add the light and you add the music and you add the callout and then you add the UI. You've just now made a moment.”
Kyle Smet@ 6:08 — Articulates the progressive magic-trick approach to game feel and explains how audio-visual polish creates emotional impact in homebrew
“There are a hundred reasons not to do a homebrew. The biggest thing you need is a desire to finish a game.”
Kyle Smet@ 14:55 — Distilled advice to aspiring homebrewers emphasizing persistence and self-defined success metrics
design_philosophy: Kyle Smet explicitly rejects digital design tools (VPX) in favor of rapid physical prototyping with wood, drilling, and fail-forward iteration. Advocates against 'fancy digital things' as creativity blockers for new builders.
high · Kyle: 'I tried VPX for about 10 minutes. I'm like, No, I'm done... I am very much a tinkerer and I'm a doer. So, I put the piece of wood down and I start drilling... I found 35 different ways not to do something.'
design_innovation: Friday the 13th successfully integrates 12 movies + 2 video games + 6 actor callouts into cohesive ruleset, demonstrating homebrew can tackle complex IP fragmentation that commercial manufacturers avoid.
high · Kyle: 'I've got 12 movies and every movie has a final girl mode... probably nobody would get everything that they wanted. So, I decided to build one on my own.'
product_concern: Friday the 13th font has technical limitation: crashes on Arabic numeral '4' and higher, forcing designer to use Roman numerals throughout codebase. Caused week of debugging.
high · Kyle: 'The Friday the 13th font only goes up to three. If you use a four, it has a string of things and the game will crash... That was about a week of me pounding my head against the wall like why doesn't my game work?'
manufacturing_signal: Four-stage playfield iteration process documented: whitewood proof-of-concept → inserts & coding → refined inserts with art decal → final clear coat. Represents formalized homebrew development pipeline.
high · Kyle detailed each stage: 'The second playfield, plain wood, but now I've got inserts... The third playfield has those refined inserts... then this is the fourth playfield, which is a direct thread clear coat. It's done.'
youtube_auto_sub · $0.000
“You have to be kind of good at everything. If you're really really good at one thing, that that doesn't mean you're going to be successful.”
Kyle Smet@ 15:26 — Speaks to the multi-disciplinary challenge of homebrew creation spanning coding, woodworking, art, electronics, and design
“It looks like a commercial game that could be shipped tomorrow, right?”
[name withheld pending review]@ 15:57 — High compliment on production quality; suggests Friday the 13th competes with factory-built games in polish and design coherence
community_signal: Homebrew ecosystem emphasizes mentorship and resource-sharing. Ernie Silverbird (Trident Pinball) credited with patience-based guidance. Marco Pinball provides platforms for showcasing and knowledge transfer.
high · Kyle: 'Ernie has a patience of Job. He was able to walk me through all of my, you know, questions and issues... there's help all over the place. Everybody's there to help you.'
gameplay_signal: Friday the 13th initially too difficult; players couldn't experience designed content. Lessons learned applied to Big Trouble in Little China (game 2) to surface moments earlier in progression.
high · Kyle: 'The problem I saw was that the game is so hard is that nobody really saw a lot of what I was trying to do. So, I kind of went back and tinkered a bit and a lot of the lessons learned from this one I put in Big Trouble to put more of those moments right up front.'
design_philosophy: Designer must ruthlessly curate features despite abundance of available content. 12 movies, multiple actors, and video game integration created scope challenge requiring cherry-picking creative decisions.
high · Kyle: 'The hardest part for me when I was coding this game was deciding what not to put in... I had to like cherry pick just the cream of the crop.'
community_signal: Homebrew success requires multi-disciplinary competence (coding, woodworking, electronics, art). Specialized expertise in single domain insufficient; builders must develop broad skill sets or secure collaborative support.
high · Kyle: 'You have to be kind of good at everything. If you're really really good at one thing, that that doesn't mean you're going to be successful... you're going to need help.'
event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival 2026 features dedicated homebrew developer showcase (PinDevCon) with hands-on playable games, interviews, and mentorship opportunities. Signals growing infrastructure for homebrew community.
high · Event branded as 'Marco Pinball booth with the homebrew pinball DevCon' at TPF 2026 with live gameplay and design discussion
product_strategy: Homebrew can pursue thematic depth and niche IP combinations unavailable in commercial market. Kyle explicitly chose Friday the 13th because 'some of the big guys probably wouldn't uh tackle this' due to fragmented licensing.
high · Kyle: 'The rights are all over the place and video games and all kinds of stuff... I decided to build one on my own.'
design_philosophy: Designer emphasizes layering sensory/emotional elements sequentially (mechanics → lights → music → callouts → UI) to create cumulative 'moment' rather than treating components independently.
high · Kyle: 'You get a piece of wood flipping and it's not fun... then you add the light and you add the music and you add the callout and then you add the UI. You've just now made a moment.'
personnel_signal: Kyle Smet's trajectory shows rapid skill development: Friday the 13th (learning project, high difficulty), Big Trouble in Little China (Best of Show, refined difficulty curve), third game (expected TPF 2027). Suggests accelerating design maturity.
high · Timeline: Friday the 13th debuted TPF 2024, Big Trouble won Chicago Expo 2025, third game in development for TPF 2027