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Episode 41 - Homebrew Games

Wedgehead Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·40m 3s·analyzed·Jul 29, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Sean Irby discusses building 8 Ball Beyond, a reliable homebrew pinball machine using modern frameworks and off-the-shelf components.

Summary

Sean Irby, a Seattle-based tournament player and electrical engineer, discusses his homebrew pinball machine 8 Ball Beyond on the Wedgehead A A Pinball Podcast. The episode covers homebrew pinball definitions, hardware/software frameworks (Multimorphic P3, Mission Pinball Framework), the design philosophy behind 8 Ball Beyond as a love letter to classic 8-Ball games, and Sean's experience deploying the game on location at Adaball arcade. Key discussion points include why homebrew games can be more reliable than boutique commercial machines, the cost and time investment required, and the psychological challenges of multi-year projects.

Key Claims

  • 8 Ball Beyond has been running reliably on location at Adaball arcade in Seattle for extended periods (summer, then after Expo through ongoing operation), requiring only standard maintenance

    high confidence · Alan and Sean discussing 8 Ball Beyond's location deployment

  • 8 Ball Beyond experienced one audio system crash per day due to a potential code bug, but otherwise remained stable on location with minimal intervention required

    high confidence · Sean directly describing the audio issue and operational reliability

  • Building a single homebrew pinball machine costs comparable to or exceeds the cost of a new Stern Pro machine

    high confidence · Sean noting he couldn't track costs after 5 months, Alan estimating Stern Pro ballpark, reference to Led Zeppelin homebrew presenter saying it costs more than Stern Pro

  • Mission Pinball Framework allows game rules to be written in configuration files rather than line-by-line code, with complex features like multiball requiring only six lines of configuration

    high confidence · Sean explaining MPF's approach to game logic

  • Sean's custom-molded resin ball targets have held up well on location but yellowed after 6 months due to UV exposure from window light

    high confidence · Sean discussing durability of his resin cast components

  • Modern boutique pinball manufacturers experience higher reliability issues than Stern due to scale differences, software problems, and bill-of-materials cost-cutting not present in single homebrew builds

    medium confidence · Alan's theory about software load management and manufacturing at scale; Sean's commentary on hardware quality

  • Sean's electrical engineering background provided confidence but minimal practical help for woodworking and mechanical design aspects of the project

    high confidence · Sean explaining his background and lack of shop class experience

  • 8 Ball Beyond uses Multimorphic P3 Rock boards and runs on Mission Pinball Framework, not Fast boards

Notable Quotes

  • “The whole concept with it was to make a new 8-ball game that paid homage to all the three prior ones that Bally made in the 70s and 80s. So it includes a shot that is similar to one of each of those games.”

    Sean Irby @ early in episode — Explains 8 Ball Beyond's core design philosophy and connection to classic pinball heritage

  • “I didn't think about the theme at all. I just thought I would make a cool play field and then bolt the theme onto it later. And that was a bad way to start, not having a plan, basically.”

    Sean Irby @ mid-episode — Reflects on his first failed homebrew attempt and lesson learned about starting with a strong concept

  • “I definitely wanted it to be code complete before I let anyone play it... Once I saw that and started thinking about ways that I could include some more features that took up that back part of the play field, I started running with all these different ideas.”

    Sean Irby @ mid-episode — Shows his commitment to completeness and iterative design refinement based on physical cabinet space

  • “Having played quite a few homebrews at shows now... to learn that like this thing's actually just been living like I said in the wild like a pinball machine should, it's very impressive.”

    Alex the Waterboy @ late-mid episode — Highlights how unusual and noteworthy 8 Ball Beyond's reliability is compared to other homebrews

  • “You can count on that. [about the audio crash happening once a day]... If it crashes, they just go reset it kind of thing? Yeah. Yeah. It's the only thing different is you got to wait about about like 20 seconds after you turn it off to wait for the laptop to shut down gracefully.”

    Sean Irby @ mid-late episode — Demonstrates the minimal operational impact of the known software issue and practical workaround

  • “Most fun part? Anything having to do with modeling... I spent about a month or two kind of spending a few hours every day learning Fusion 360... it was almost like my own kind of like making my own like project management tool while doing it.”

    Sean Irby @ late episode — Reveals the most rewarding aspect of the build and unexpected creative benefit of CAD modeling

Entities

Sean IrbypersonAlanpersonAlex the Waterboyperson8 Ball BeyondgameMultimorphiccompanyMission Pinball Framework (MPF)technologyWedgeheadorganizationAdaballvenue

Signals

  • ?

    design_innovation: 8 Ball Beyond demonstrates exceptional reliability for a homebrew machine through deliberate component selection (high-quality off-the-shelf boards, professional-grade parts from Fast/Multimorphic/M-Ball Life/Marco), conservative mechanical design (single-level layout, no complex ramps), and thorough testing cycles (3 years of personal play before location deployment).

    high · Sean's deployment at Adaball for extended periods with minimal failures; comparison to boutique manufacturer games with higher failure rates; specific mention of sourcing production-grade parts

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Single-unit homebrew builds achieve higher reliability than multi-unit commercial productions because they use premium components without cost-cutting and receive extensive personal testing. Mass production forces bill-of-materials optimization that reduces reliability.

    high · Alan and Sean's discussion of making one vs. thousands; George Gomez quote about difficulty of mass production; Sean noting all hardware in 8BB is 'as nice as this shit gets' vs. cost-cutting in commercial production

  • ?

    community_signal: Homebrew pinball scene has expanded significantly in last 5-10 years due to two key enablers: (1) off-the-shelf board sets from Multimorphic, Fast, Bimball eliminating custom electronics engineering, and (2) Mission Pinball Framework allowing non-programmers to develop game logic through configuration files rather than code.

    high · Sean explaining MPF's accessibility; discussion of how board availability removed major barrier to entry; emphasis that these frameworks are 'as approachable as programming could be'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: 8 Ball Beyond's success stems from deliberately embracing design constraints (single-level layout, no ramps, classic theme with no attached licensing expectations) rather than being overly ambitious. This contrasts with failed first project that attempted 3 upper flippers and lacked theme planning.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.120

0:00
Well, I left Kentucky back in 49 and went to Detroit working on assembly line. The first year they had me putting wheels on Cadillacs.
0:14
Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by and sometimes I'd hang my head and cry because I always wanted me one that was long and black.
0:24
One day I devised myself a plan that should be the envy of most any man. I'd sneak it out of there in the lunchbox in my hand Now getting caught meant getting fired But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand I'd get it one piece at a time And it wouldn't cost me a dime You'll know it's me when I come through your town I'm gonna ride around and stop Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast My name is Alan, host of this podcast and one of the owners of Wedgehead, a pinball bar in Portland, Oregon. Joined by my co-host remotely, it's Alex the Waterboy. How you doing? I'm doing pretty good, Alan. We're also joined today by someone who's a bit of an expert on today's subject, which is homebrew pinball, and our guest is Sean Irby from Seattle. Sean, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to chat with you guys. Good. You don't mind Alex calling you an expert, right? so whether he wants to admit it or not he's like top two homebrew guys now so he's gonna take it yeah so for anyone that's listening i'm not an expert well for anyone that's listening what we're talking about today homebrew when we say homebrew it's just like what you think of it say like homebrew beer but it's like making your own pinball machine making it from scratch Sean is a tournament player up in Seattle, started making his own game called 8 Ball Beyond. He documented the whole process on a thread on Pinside, and he's been taking it to a bunch of shows around the country so people can play it. And it came out pretty fucking good. Thank you. Yeah, I guess for the listeners, we just got to start off with, like, can we define a little bit more of, like, what the homebrew is, what compels somebody to build one, all those sorts of things? To me, homebrew pinball is basically anything where you, it could mean building a game like entirely from scratch, or it could mean re-theming a game, like an already existing playfield and changing out the assets and artwork on it to make a new theme for it. Yeah, kind of anywhere in between, because you do see some where it's like they'll recycle the playfield, but they'll change a handful of shots like that Jetsons. That was a Gottlieb super spinner or whatever that someone did a while back. That one guy has I can't remember his name. I'm sure you know him well. That did Mass Effect and it's like a recycled Game of Thrones layout, I think. Yeah. And that Mass Effect is kind of in between those two, because not only is it rethemed and entirely recoded, but it also has some additional play field changes onto it. It has some new mechs that make it shoot different. Yeah, so there's kind of a wide variety of homebrews, but yours, despite the name kind of sounding like an 8-ball, you know, spin-off for another 8-ball title, it's a completely from-scratch design, correct? Yeah, that's right. The whole concept with it was to make a new 8-ball game that paid homage to all the three prior ones that Bally made in the 70s and 80s. So it includes a shot that is similar to one of each of those games. Yeah, we kind of like George Christian games on this podcast, some of our listeners know. So we kind of appreciate a good 8-ball homage. Yeah. Nice. You chose wisely, I think. Can you tell us why you chose that theme in particular or why those series of games? Starting 8-Ball Beyond was a response to me coming off of my first effort in making a game where that year before I started 8 Ball Beyond, I had decided to make a game, and I was just really motivated and excited to get started. So I started putting a layout together. I didn't think about the theme at all. I just thought I would make a cool play field and then bolt the theme onto it later. And that was a bad way to start, not having a plan, basically. And yeah, there were also some other mistakes I made, like trying to have three upper flippers all on a single level layout. And that was really tricky to get right to. So after several months of working on that, I decided I really need to start over and I need to come up with a theme that has a bunch of different qualities. It needs to appeal to me. It needs to be a theme that lends itself to kind of a more simple kind of construction, you know, something single level. It also, I wanted to make something that other people would like. And so when I think about, you know, playing pinball with my friends, I think about hanging out at Ataball, an arcade near here, and playing 8-Ball Deluxe, like dollar games, into the night. And so it seemed to make sense to make a continuation of the 8-Ball games. Yeah, that's sick. And I think part of the reason that 8-Ball Beyond has turned into such a big success, or at least why I was drawn to it immediately, is that, like you mentioned, you kind of tied it into this throwback layout. Like, if anyone listening hasn't seen the game, first of all you should just pause the episode and at least go look up a picture of the game if not gameplay it's a throwback game kind of in the same way that like pulp fiction would be it does have a vuck and it has some stuff going on that you certainly wouldn't see in a traditional solid state there's no ramps and i think sticking to that and not being overly ambitious with trying to create a bunch of you know huge molded plastic ramps was a big part of the success as was not trying to nail a theme that people are really passionate about like with movies that's kind of one of the, I don't mean to speak negatively of other homebrew projects, but when you try to create someone's favorite movie as a pinball machine, everyone has a lot of expectations. Whereas when you do 8 Ball Beyond, no one knows what to expect other than pinball. Well, yeah. And the people are very critical of the major companies doing it. That's all they do is make pinball machines, let alone one guy in his spare time doing it all himself, right? So. Yeah. That's hard. Yeah, so I think it was a very good choice of theme. I think one of the biggest things that stood out with 8 Ball Beyond right away was kind of the finishing touches. Even before you had the art package completed on there, it felt like one of the most complete homebrews I had seen. Is there anything that you kind of like sought to do that you were like, I need to make sure this, anything outside of the art package that was really critical to you to kind of have before you let the public play it? I definitely wanted it to be code complete before I let anyone play it. And I think I would have got there a lot faster had it not been for kind of a whoopsie I made when I finally got the cabinet for the game and I installed the play field in. I saw that I had all this space in the back that I wasn't using at all. And it just looked really, really off. Once I saw that and started thinking about ways that I could include some more features that took up that back part of the play field, I started running with all these different ideas of different things that I wanted to include. Like I originally just wanted to include that eight ball and the tube that comes out of that feeding the left flipper, but eventually that turned into making these clear stand-up ball targets and learning how to resin cast those and making a big triangular rack display that glowed in the back left and a cool stick that's pointing at like a spinning moon. Yeah, those are some of the features that I really wanted to nail down before I shared with other people. Yeah, you absolutely, you kind of like, you went hard on the side quests for it. Once I saw you were creating your own molds to do those unique, the ball, the spherical stand-up targets on the left, I was like, okay, this guy's like doing something special here. Speaking of, have those things held up? They have, yeah. That's incredible. I'm really surprised at how well they've held up The only issue I've had is that they kind of yellowed After about like six months Because I have all these windows in my living room And that's where I keep my games So I think there's some UV exposure that Well, I didn't notice a little bit That's because I keep the lights on in them Good, yeah Was finishing 8 Ball Beyond I don't know, I'm kind of skipping ahead here I guess maybe we should go back and talk about Just more of the homebrew scene what you're using for hardware in there and why you think there's been such like a there's been a big rise in the popularity of homebrews in the last you know five to ten years that's at least how it feels like from my new perspective is that just a result of the availability of hardware or what do you think kind of has led to that i mean of course everyone well lots of pinball people want to make their own game right it's everyone dreams about their dream theme and that desire has always been there, I think. But I think the two big things that enabled lay people to start doing it themselves is, one, boards that are now available off the shelf, board sets from Multimorphic or from Fast, Bimball. That's a huge amount of effort that a designer doesn't have to worry about because doing that all yourself, which some people in the community do do, and it's really impressive, but that's a lot of engineering work to make your own boards, and having that available off the shelf is just a huge way to ease into it. And yeah, the other thing would be the software frameworks. Is 8Ball Beyond written in Mission Pinball framework? Yeah, yeah, MPF. I've used it a little bit with just beginning my own project. Can you describe that to the listeners what Mission Pinball is what Alex is talking about Sure It a pinball software framework that lets you write the game rules for your game and it's already taken care of underlying logic that every pinball machine needs that you don't have to worry about writing. Things like the game loop, high score entry, ball tracking, things like that. You just need to hook into those different things and write your game rules. The Mission Pinball framework is pretty unique because you don't actually have to write typical software code, like line-by-line instructions of Python code or something. It's all written in configuration files. So it's a little bit different. The multiball for my game is basically six lines of configuration. And that's all it takes to write the logic that will spit out multiple balls in response to some event in the game. Yeah, it was kind of nuts just as I began getting into it. It was much simpler than I was expecting because it's like the basic stuff, like you mentioned, there's the core functionality there, but it even goes so far as the pot bumpers, right? Like the really basic stuff. I thought I would have to go manually write that. And so it was like eye-opening to see Mission Pinball Framework for the first time and be like, oh, they actually made this pretty approachable. As approachable as programming could be. That's a great way to put it. It's about as easy as you can make programming. Going back to your experience building 8-Ball Beyond, first of all, I didn't realize you had any project in the works prior to this, and it sounds like you kind of abandoned that early on. Did you have any experience that kind of overlapped with this or anything that kind of gave you the confidence to like launch into a project like this, or did you just kind of go for it. My background is in electrical engineering and software. Oh, fellow EE right here. Look at this, you two. A couple electrical engineers here. Yeah. Gives you the confidence. You're like, oh, we can figure anything out. Yeah. And it's funny because that double E experience really doesn't help you out much. That's what I say with everything in my life. But I'm like, no, it doesn't actually teach me anything, but gives me the confidence. you're the least confident electrical engineer i've ever met i've met a few alex and you're always like no no no i don't know what i'm doing i was like what are you talking about dude you're like no you should meet the real electrical engineers out there yeah some people have a better idea you know some people are out there building a ball beyonds besides the double e background like did you have experience woodworking and stuff because did you built your entire cabinet from scratch no no no so my my uh technical background kind of Yeah, electronics and software. I never took a shop class in high school.

high confidence · Sean confirming board choice in response to Alex's question

  • “It's hanging on, forcing yourself to do something every day if you can and to think about or to try and plan out some events or milestone in the future that you can look forward to. You just have to endure it.”

    Sean Irby @ late episode — Candid reflection on managing motivation through multi-year projects, applicable beyond pinball

  • “Games have to work... my criticism is reliability... these people are passionate about pinball getting themes they're getting cool art they're doing all the right things and i think when the games play there's an audience there but i'm just concerned about reliability of handmade games.”

    Alan @ mid-late episode — Operator perspective on the core tension between passion projects and commercial viability in boutique pinball

  • “It helps that not only are the board sets that are available, like, really high quality. I mean, the case of Fast and Multimorphic, they're both used in production games. But also the parts that are now available on, like, M-Pinball Life and Marco, like, they're super high quality, too.”

    Sean Irby @ late episode — Key insight into why 8 Ball Beyond could be reliable: access to high-quality off-the-shelf components designed for production

  • “I'm completely out of motivation to do anything else on it. Once you said you've been playing it every day in your living room for three years, I was like, yeah, I think I would be probably ready for the next project regardless.”

    Sean Irby / Alan response @ late episode — Acknowledges burnout from extended development cycle and the natural endpoint of a long creative project

    • VirtuaPincompany
    Fastcompany
    [name withheld pending review]company
    Johnny Kraftperson
    Sterncompany
    8 Ballcompany
    Pinball Lifecompany
    Marcocompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Chicago Gamingcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Fusion 360technology
    Pinsideorganization
    Tacoma Showevent
    Pinball Expoevent
    Ataballvenue
    Roadsyperson

    high · Sean's explicit discussion of abandoning first project and starting over with clear constraints; Alan noting success comes from 'not trying to nail a theme that people are really passionate about' and avoiding complex molded plastic ramps

  • ?

    operational_signal: 8 Ball Beyond represents rare successful deployment of homebrew machine on unattended location (Adaball arcade) requiring minimal operator intervention. Daily audio crash has negligible impact with 20-second graceful shutdown. Standard pinball maintenance (rubber replacement, micro-switches) sufficient for operation.

    high · Sean confirming months-long operation at Adaball with only normal maintenance needs; known audio crash with minimal operational impact; contrast with other homebrews requiring constant owner presence at shows

  • ?

    product_strategy: Building a single homebrew pinball machine now costs equivalent to or exceeds purchasing a new Stern Pro machine ($7,000-$11,000), not including tools acquired during the process. This challenges the notion that homebrew represents cost savings.

    high · Sean unable to track final costs after 5 months; Alan's estimation of Stern Pro ballpark; Led Zeppelin homebrew presenter stating costs exceed Stern Pro; Sean's mention of tool acquisition costs

  • ?

    design_innovation: Sean's use of Fusion 360 CAD (industry-standard comparable to SolidWorks) to model 8 Ball Beyond to nuts-and-bolts detail served triple purpose: visualization, project management, and reproducibility documentation. This represents a novel homebrew design methodology.

    medium · Sean describing Fusion 360 learning as most fun part of project; explanation that modeling helped with project planning and mechanical visualization; emphasis on reproducibility motivation

  • ?

    community_signal: Public exhibition of homebrews at shows provides critical real-world stress testing that home development cannot replicate. Hundreds of players with varied play styles expose bugs (multiplayer issues, edge cases) that single-developer testing in living room misses.

    high · Sean noting multiplayer bugs emerged at shows despite 3 years of single-player testing; discussion of how strangers find unexpected behavior patterns; Alex's comparison of show stress-testing vs. owned-game testing

  • ?

    operational_signal: Commercial pinball operators (Alan, roadsy) now avoid purchasing boutique games despite appreciation for design and art, prioritizing Stern due to superior reliability and proven cost-of-ownership. Higher boutique prices combined with lower reliability create unfavorable ROI.

    high · Alan explicitly stating 'we just won't buy a boutique game like it's just not worth it because the prices are more expensive than a stern and they've proven to be less reliable'; examples of specific unreliability (Spooky's Ultraman, generic boutique failures)

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Multi-year homebrew projects face critical motivation plateau after 6-12 months when initial excitement fades and project lacks obvious external milestones. Overcoming requires deliberate daily effort, future milestone planning, and acceptance of obligation-driven work phases.

    high · Sean's detailed explanation of motivation transformation; discussion of multi-month stretches with no visible progress; statement 'You just have to endure it'; emphasis on forced consistency and future milestone planning

  • ?

    content_signal: Sean's transparent documentation of 8 Ball Beyond build process on Pinside thread demonstrates emerging pattern of homebrew builders sharing methodology with community, contrasting with proprietary manufacturer development.

    medium · Alan referencing Sean's documented build thread on Pinside as community resource; podcast framing of Sean as expert precisely because of public documentation

  • $

    market_signal: Emerging pattern of competitive tournament players (Sean Irby) transitioning into homebrew design, suggesting skills transfer from competitive play to creative development and suggesting tournament expertise informs homebrew design philosophy.

    medium · Sean identified as 'tournament player up in Seattle' who started designing homebrew; his design philosophy emphasizing playability and flow suggests competitive play background

    • 12:44
    And yeah, I couldn't tell you the difference between like a number six and number eight screw when I started. That's a good way of describing where I was at when I started the project. Nice. I didn't build the cabinet myself. There's a company called VirtuaPin and they make cabinets for virtual pinball machines. Yeah, and they also make Williams reproduction cabinets. so I bought it. Gotcha. Okay, so yours is running, that's like a WPC kind of cabinet body? Mm-hmm. Okay, that makes sense. I didn't recognize what it was, but I guess that all checks out. I really wanted to talk about your game, how, again, not trying to be negative about other homebrews, but your game's actually been left on location, unattended at Adaball, correct? Right, yeah. I had it there starting it last summer, for like the whole summer up until Expo, and then after Expo, I set it back up there and then, yeah, I've basically been keeping it there and taking it out to take it to shows. How have you been able to build a game in your garage or wherever you built it that actually could stand up on location when so many boutique companies that do this for a living can't? Like what? Ooh, shade.
    13:56
    Dude, I thought it was there for a week and that was already impressive. And now I'm just like, you're telling me it was there for fucking months? Yeah. any spooky game can't be somewhere for months i'm just saying you're not wrong and you're the spooky guy yeah man like i got two in the house if you left ultraman somewhere for months you would come back to that thing just burn down in like an insurance claim from the bar so with eight ball beyond how did it survive like like overall how would you say it did how much stuff did you have to fix and what efforts did you make to make it reliable enough to like actually live in a bar like a pinball machine should be able to let's see i mean there wasn't anything crazy really um definitely made sure to replace the the beer seal on the lockdown bar i put it there yeah it had some issues first week some things that were on the verge of failing uh when suddenly exposed to a lot of plays went bad like some some like micro switches and in like a one coil but since that it's just been the normal normal pinball that stuff like rubbers is normal maintenance needing replacements replacing yeah and is your game running fast boards it's not it's uh using the multi-morphic p3 rock board p3 rock boards that's okay okay that's kind of making sense then going back to uh how it held up on location um it's not perfect so there's a issue with the audio system Um, it may be a bug in my code. I don't know, but it crashes about once a day. Okay. You can count on that.
    15:32
    Does Adabolt, like, is there like a involved start process here? Or do they just flip the switch, just treat it like a game? If it crashes, they just go reset it kind of thing? Uh, yeah. Yeah. It's the only thing different is you got to wait about about like 20 seconds after you turn it off to wait for the laptop to shut down gracefully. That's very impressive to me. having played quite a few homebrews at shows now i mean most of the time you see them and you know they have to have the owner there full-time kind of like keeping things going so to learn that like this thing's actually just been living like i said in the wild like a pinball machine should it's very impressive i don't want to throw any unnecessary shade out there so i want to make sure the listeners are listening building a pinball machine is hard i think sean can attest to that having done it it's more that and a lot of these homebrew guys are getting the real stress test under player condition at these shows so it's essentially under beta like and they're you're finding all the problems when you're having person after person hundreds of people trying to play your game in a day it's just changing you know kind of the math how everything works when they're your own games you just kind of don't even think about the way you're playing them sometimes and then someone else will walk up and do something you never even thought to do you know they might be sitting there just cycling flippers as fast as they can while a ball is like in a captive lock or something so you do definitely just find goofy stuff when you have you know random strangers come play your games yeah and also i've basically like been testing the game uh for like three years in my living room playing it every day and so i think i by that first northwest show i had worked out all the single player bugs but as soon as people started playing a bunch of multiplayer games yeah a few more cropped up and so like you said alan um these shows are a great way to figure out some new issues yeah it's fascinating because i'll even i even have the thing where it's like having a location and i'll work on a game a game that was made by a manufacturer that knows what they're doing more or less and that you know something happens and my play style was one way and then somebody like no it's doing this thing and i can't replicate their issue yep and it's sometimes it's just interesting to see some people are going to bring their kids and the kids are going to flip both flippers at the same time rapid fire over and over again or some people are going to like trap and hold balls and talk to their friend while drinking a beer for a few minutes at a time you know like and that's something i don't do right so it's like there's something about that like games getting played and the figuring out and hammering out of issues as games get played. I want to ask you, this sort of tangentially relates to homebrew, but I want to ask Sean, since you're building a game, what Alex was alluding to earlier, he was poking fun a little bit at some boutique companies, in good fun. Alex loves boutique games. I do love boutique games. And he loves them. He seeks them out. Usually I'm the harsh critic on boutique games, but my criticism is reliability. As an operator and a location owner, games have to work. And it's one thing for me like i work on games every day it's not a problem when i'm fixing you know broken parts or wear parts or anything like that but i want to ask you like when you're building the process because i have a theory but i'm wondering why games are seemingly less reliable now in the modern era from anyone outside of say maybe stern or i think jjp probably is pretty good now i don't know we don't operate those but chicago games are solid oh chicago's are super solid i was wondering if it's my assumption is it's software issues and not having i think back in the day there were bigger companies and so when they made the move to solid state and they started programming machines one the games were simpler but then over the years like you like now at stern gary's been in the solid state pinball industry right since his dad was running stern electronics So I think that they understand kind of load management in their software. And I'm wondering, like, what's going on when you see these games and the boards blow up on location or, you know, whatever? Like, what's happening now that people don't? I know this is a big question, but I'm just like. Why does 8Ball Beyond not blow up boards, but other companies do? Like, that's really me and Alan keep coming back to this. Yes. I don think I can answer that It an apples and oranges kind of thing I wish I could but yeah I mean these homebrew games are they our babies you know We know them in and out We only had to just make one And so I don know why manufactured games are having these kind of issues but I think the problem lies in they have to make a bunch of them Sure. Certainly making hundreds or thousands of something is much harder than making one. That's sort of the oldest joke in pinball. Making one is, I think I've even heard Gomez saying it, like making one is easy, making thousand of them is hard. But I just find it interesting where I'm like, I'm confused at what's happening in the current landscape. Because in one hand, we're getting all these new manufacturers, which is awesome. You know, competition in any market is good what's happening is like me as an operator and my business partner roadsy like we just won't buy a boutique game like it's just not worth it because the prices are more expensive than a stern and they've proven to be less reliable and these people are passionate about pinball getting themes they're getting cool art they're doing all the right things and i think when the games play there's an audience there but i'm just concerned about reliability of handmade games and what i think is interesting about what you did is a game that could be put on location and is reasonably reliable as a single person yeah like i think just think it's very impressive overall like the game itself is impressive the layout looks like it's a blast to shoot you got an awesome art package by pinball artist Jonathan Bergeron Johnny Kraft we haven't really talked about the game much because I me and Alan are just in shock that this like is actually reliable I'm interested in like the nuts and bolts of it right like because I like I'm excited to see cool new pinball I'm also excited to see pinball everyone knows if you're into pinball the worst thing about pinball is when a pinball machine doesn't work that's the worst part about pinball or something is broken on it I've seen you know a couple looney tunes and I haven't been able to play them and I've seen 8 Ball Beyond twice and I've been able to play it both times. So, you know, it's a pretty good track record. It helps that not only are the board sets that are available, like, really high quality. I mean, the Case of Fast and Multimorphic, they're both used in production games. But also the parts that are now available on, like, M-Ball Life and Marco, like, they're super high quality, too. Sometimes they're the ones that are actually used in production games. And so it's great that you can buy those off the shelf. And I tried to do that wherever I could in 8 Ball Beyond. That is a big point, I guess, too, is that all of the hardware you're putting into the game is about as nice as this shit gets. Whereas when you're mass producing stuff, you start looking for ways to, you know, get the bill of materials cheaper. It is one thing is, again, going back to building one versus building thousands and having to actually do it at that scale. Speaking of cost, do you have a general idea of what it costs to build 8 Ball Beyond, or do you not want to talk about it? I would talk about it if I had an exact number for you, but I couldn't tell you. I have a folder full of all the receipts that I had after the first five months of working on it. I was like, I'm going to keep track of everything. And I just gave up after a while because it's expensive. It takes a long time. They probably could have bought a new Stern. That's what I figured. It seems like if you're doing it, you basically end up in a Stern Pro ballpark. Yeah. That seems that's what I went to the presentation at this last the Tacoma show from. I cannot remember his name, the guy that's building that Led Zeppelin, which is a very impressive polished homebrew. And he was saying in his presentation, it's probably more than a Stern Pro. Oh, yeah. And you're like, yeah, I can see that. And that's not taking into account like all the tools you buy and stuff along the way. yeah for anyone listening that's like oh yeah it would be fun to build a like this might be a cheaper way it's not it's not like the johnny cash cadillac there's not a cheap way to build a home brew there's things you can do to skip corners my project in the garage right now it's like i sourced a free em and so it's like okay it's sitting in that cabinet the time will come where i have to replace that cabinet and it's like everything like that there's always more stuff i think it'd be cool if we just leave it weathered as hell dude and it just looks like some like lost game like could you imagine if like we took the play field and like weathered it like i'm yeah we'll we'll see what that one i could give you old like pop bumper caps and stuff like we could do all that kind of shit people like where's this game it's the rarest game i've ever seen it's not even on ipdb like that's one on one so sean what was the most fun part so first of all is eight ball beyond do you consider it finished at this point yeah yeah i there's a few things that I would need to do, like code in the wizard mode, and I think it needs cabinet art too, but I don't think I'm going to get around to doing that.
    24:58
    I'm kind of, even though I love the game, but I am completely out of motivation to do anything else on it. Once you said you've been playing it every day in your living room for three years, I was like, yeah, I think I would be probably ready for the next project regardless. Now that it's done, I guess, looking back on it, What was the most fun part about it? What was the most fun stage of the build? And what was the worst part past that? What are you looking forward to and dreading on your next project that we can kind of get into? Most fun part? Anything having to do with modeling. That was something I never did before I started this project. 3D modeling? Yeah, 3D modeling. So people approach homebrew like designing it in different ways. Some people start with a blank piece of wood and just start drilling. You know, I kind of wanted to make something that would be reproducible. So I learned a CAD tool called Fusion 360. It's comparable to what they use in the industry in SolidWorks. But I spent about a month or two kind of spending a few hours every day learning Fusion 360 and being able to model some mech all the way down to the nuts and bolts and really helped me visualize how everything would come together. And it was almost like my own kind of like making my own like project management tool while doing it, just because I could I could start to think about like everything that I would need to make something work. Interesting. Did you use CAD before? Like, do you do CAD for your day job at all? The first job I had out of college, I used CAD a little bit, 2D CAD. but okay yeah I do a little I do a little bit of drafting and I hate doing anything 3d but I've not ever been like I've never had to do it except for work and so I'm always like I could see myself enjoying it maybe but I'm shocked that you think that's the fun part well now what do you think is the worst part the worst part there are some unpleasant things like writing a light show is not fun at all I never look forward to doing that I think what I found to be difficult about the project was uh not really understanding how motivation like transforms over the course of very long like multi-year project because yeah in the beginning you're like you're super excited and you may have the juice to work on it like non-stop for three months six months maybe even a year but eventually like that goes away and it shifts to a different kind of feeling it's it's like now obligation? I wouldn't say obligation, a little bit obligation, but you're not just totally fueled by motivation anymore. You're kind of out of new things to learn. Maybe you don't have like a big milestone coming up. You just have to chip at it every day. It feels more like work until you can get to that next milestone that may be, I don't know, the Translight artwork or the Playfield artwork where you get really excited about the game again. How do you push past that plateau stage of motivation? Like what did you find that worked for you to break you out of it? Like how do you motivate yourself when you don't have motivation? This is more than like a pinball discussion at this point. I was like, this is just like real life dealing with problems. Yeah. It's hanging on, forcing yourself to do something every day if you can and to think about or to try and plan out some events or milestone in the future that you can look forward to. You just have to endure it. And that's why it was difficult for me because I didn't really realize that's what was going on. And there were long stretches, maybe like several months long, where I wasn't doing anything on the project. And I just had this kind of ugly whitewood that wasn't even on a cabinet. It was just in some test rig that I built in my apartment. And it's like, I've been working on this for this long, and this is all I have to show for it. The hours aren't always apparent, right? Like sometimes you spend a lot of hours and the progress hasn't advanced. That's like that on any big project. I just find it super. I mean, we built a bar, my business partner and I, and we did everything ourselves too. I mean, we learned lots of skills and then we work on a pinball business every day. So it's always something. Something's always breaking. My favorite parts about the job are that I have different things to do all the time. I like the variety. I could see how building a homebrew would be very interesting. I do not have the time to do it. I think it'd be super cool. I think what you accomplish is really cool. Can you tell us? This shouldn't be a secret because you've posted it on your social media, but you started work on your second homebrew. So clearly you like the process enough to do it again. Yeah, yeah. I am super excited for this next one So I going to do a Speed Racer homebrew themed after the cartoon a little bit not so much film that i haven seen yet not the live action movie none of us have heard good things but yeah uh it's i i just started with this idea of making a before i even had the idea for speed racer i was i wanted to make a plunger rod that could sense rotation and you can put like english on it it's more like so you can just any plunger rod you can twist continuously right i wanted to somehow find a way to put a sensor on there that could you know detect like when you were turning left or right so after i got a prototype working i started thinking about like how can i make a cool pinball machine from this and so i thought a driving game would be cool yeah speed racer makes sense it has pretty broad appeal and and i can see all of those uh steering wheel gadgets This could tie into a lot of cool mechanical features on the game. That's sick. Do you have a layout in mind for that yet? Or are you really early in the process?
    31:01
    Yeah, I have the lower third done. Nice, that's multiple power in third. Yeah, so I have magnets in between the in lane and out lane on each side with a little gate. And so if you're going down an out lane, you can twist the plunger rod and save it. I'm going to call it the Magna Swerve. Nice, nice. Yeah, I have a few other ideas for the play field, but I haven't drawn anything out yet. It's in my head. That's really cool. What's your process for laying out the play field? Do you start in the physical or do you do it in the digital? Or is it like a combination of back and forth? I tend to use the digital tools as much as I can early on and then get away from it as quickly as possible. So a really good tool for that is visual pinball. It has its issues, but you can lay out a play field there and get a good idea for how the ball tends to rebound and if shots are where they should be. It doesn't really give you good simulation of how, I don't know, a ball might travel around a ball guide. I think things like upper loops, things like that tend to be really friendly in visual pinball and the physics don't really translate to real life. yep yeah you can you can totally uh use a tool like that once you start laying it out when you're iterating like a ball guide and a ball not rolling smooth like how do you approach that and how do you handle that like i'm assuming you're using like say metal rail guides right i remember for trying to tweak one shot on eight ball beyond uh like the the left loop that kind of wraps around the pop bumpers and goes up top one of the things i did was i i was having like a rattling sort of issue there. And so I used the slow-mo camera on my iPhone. I took lots of videos of me shooting that shot over and over and over again. And on that play field, I had set up grid paper. So I could replay those videos later and see how the ball was traveling across that grid paper and have a good idea of the path that it tended to take. And so I could use those videos as a guide to help me determine where to move the ball guide and how much. What a smart solution. What a smart, practical, testable rig. Slow-mo camera. That's the best.
    33:29
    That's awesome. You know, like we've been talking for a while. I just want you to talk some more about you've built a machine. You're building your second one. A lot of the listeners out there, I'm sure, are building their own or in the thought process of doing it. Do you have any like advice, things you wish you would have known when you started that you learn now? Things like the slow motion camera that anything else you can impart for people embarking on this foolish adventure?
    33:57
    Foolish but fun, I imagine. I wish I could think of all the things. It's a lot. I would say definitely lean on the communities that are out there. So there's the Fast Pinball Slack channel. There's a multi-morphic Slack channel. There's also a Discord called Trident Inball. And those are all pretty active. And if you're stuck, lean on to the community for help. I would suggest trying to come up with as much of a plan as possible before you start making a game. Don't start without a theme. Maybe that works for you. I don't know. But it didn't work for me. I think that seems important. At least from the little bit of my experience. Try and get your game out in front of people as soon as possible. Like we were talking about bringing it to shows. Like you can, it's an opportunity to meet other folks in the community. You can get some free testing and figure out, you know, what's not working, watching other people play it. And I'm sure you got lots of feedback, hopefully mostly positive. But you ask 100 people their opinion, you're going to get 100 different answers. So how do you deal with parsing constructive criticism that you find helpful and just sort of like, man, I put in hundreds of hours of work on this thing and somebody's like, why isn't there a ramp? How do you deal with that with yourself and any advice for anyone making their own home brew? Because I think there's some people out there. I've worked in the service industry my whole life, so I'm used to that. I'm used to people kind of shitting on everything you do or second guessing everything you do. So I've developed a thick skin, let's say. Oh, man. Well, I think most people are really considerate when it comes to criticism. I think for the most part, you're really not going to get much constructive criticism out of people unless you specifically ask for it. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. That's kind of good. That makes sense. It seems like they're trying to be polite. And, yeah, I think people should give more constructive criticism. I'd certainly like to hear some more. They will tell you some interesting things that you wouldn't have noticed. One of the comments I got about the game when I put it at Ataball was, you shouldn't make the whole game change its color depending on what round you're on. And so first round that you start the game at, it's like this bright blue color. And someone told me that you should change that color because it makes people look like ghouls. And if you change it to, like, something warmer, like yellow or red, it would make their faces look better. I just thought, like, I would have never thought that, but it's a very good comment. Something I'll consider next time. That's great. Like, noted. Okay. Keep warm colors. Hey, man, I've been talking about this for years. Warm white is the best color. Warm white on everything, pinball, yeah. I'm a simpleton, though. That's what I like. Warm White GI. But yeah, Sean, I think this has been a fun kind of foray into building a homebrew machine, kind of some of what it takes. You've been very gracious with your time to join us. For anyone that's listening to the show and wants to play this game, Sean is part of our local Northwest Pinball community. He puts it on location at Atta Ball. He has it at his apartment, and he's been dragging it to a lot of shows, which I think you're going to stop doing here pretty soon, right? Am I right about that, Sean? yeah i uh i might bring it to this uh upcoming expo in chicago for the 40th anniversary but other than that yeah i don't have any other plans to take it to shows nice he's run it all around the country so i'm sure lots of you gotten to play it for anyone else he's got a whole thread on pin side for you to watch there's videos of the gameplay and if you get a chance if you're in the seattle area go out play this game for everyone else go out and play one of the other eight ball games one of the other awesome george christian games that we talk about on the show quite a bit first one eight ball eight ball deluxe then eight ball champ they're all really cool they're all designed by a international man of mystery george christian who the whole community doesn't seem to know much about ourselves included i guess i'll just announce this on this show since it seems timely and right but we've been trying to hunt down information on this guy and there's not a lot out there i've been reaching out to people that should have worked with them in the era and not many people want to talk about it. So if you know anything about George Christian or any way to get him in touch with me, I want to talk to him. Alex and I, we love this dude. He designed the eight ball games, the original ones, and now Sean's carrying on the tradition. And I think you did an admirable job. Until we can get a hold of George, Sean is the best we can do. Yeah, you're the eight ball expert. That is the next best eight ball beyond. Pretty cool. I want to thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. Until next time, good luck. Don't suck.
    39:23
    He's busy revving up the powerful Mach 5. And when the odds are against him and there's dangerous work to do, he's got your life's eraser. Come and see it through.
    39:40
    Go Speed Racer. Go. He's often flying as he guns a car around the track. He's jamming down the pedal like he's never coming back. Adventures waiting just ahead Go Speed Racer Go