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Eric Bartels - The Making of Magic Girl - Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2022

Pinball News (Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2022)·video·24m 7s·analyzed·Nov 14, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Eric Bartels details three-year restoration of Magic Girl homebrew from parts box to working machine.

Summary

Eric Bartels presents a detailed technical restoration of Magic Girl, an abandoned homebrew pinball machine by John Papaduke that was acquired in a non-functional state. Working with programmer Jim, Bartels spent three years systematically diagnosing and fixing dozens of design flaws including non-functional magnets, software incompatibility, playfield ergonomics issues, and mechanical problems. The restoration required creative engineering solutions while maintaining the original design vision.

Key Claims

  • Magic Girl was originally a John Papaduke homebrew project that became a financial disaster with buyers receiving non-functional machines that were later condemned.

    high confidence · Opening introduction by moderator and Bartels acknowledging the troubled history

  • The machine was found as essentially a box of parts with incomplete/unsuitable software programmed remotely by an English programmer without access to the actual playfield.

    high confidence · Bartels explains the software programmer worked via Skype/Zoom without examples and programmed based on instructions rather than actual machine specifications

  • Jim, one of the original FIG programmers who was also scammed by Papaduke, initially refused to help but was convinced and became instrumental to the restoration.

    high confidence · Direct statement about Jim's involvement and initial resistance due to being scammed

  • Over 67 documented changes were made to the playfield to make it functional while preserving the magical aesthetic and original design intent.

    high confidence · Bartels explicitly states 'more than 67 changes to the playfield without noticing it' as a restoration goal

  • The levitating magnet mechanism was fundamentally flawed in John Papaduke's original design and could not achieve the intended ball suspension effect.

    high confidence · Detailed technical explanation of why the original magnet concept was 'impossible' and required a new ramp/lighting solution

  • Seven magnets were originally installed but only one functioned; the others were removed because connecting them caused burning and smoking issues.

    high confidence · Direct technical description of magnet removal due to electrical safety problems

  • The mini-playfield ball transfer mechanism used an untested iron core with magnet design that lacked a detection switch, requiring Bartels to engineer an optical sensor solution based on xerox copy machine technology.

    high confidence · Detailed explanation of magnetic ball capture system modification including optical sensor implementation

Notable Quotes

  • “And I had five minutes to decide if it was possible or not. I said yes. I still don't know why I said yes, but I said yes and I did it.”

    Eric Bartels@ 1:27 — Captures the impulsive decision that led to a three-year restoration project; sets tone for the magnitude of the undertaking

  • “You could see it on the machine that the paintball just took all the parts, put it in the machine, tried to make it work, but it didn't succeed because the software was not complete.”

    Eric Bartels@ 2:22 — Describes the fundamental problem: hastily assembled hardware with incompatible software

  • “Jim was one of the original programmers of FIG who also got scammed. So at first he didn't want to help, but we convinced him and he became one of my best friends.”

    Eric Bartels@ 3:12 — Highlights the personal stakes and trust required to work on a project from a designer known for financial failures

  • “The software guy who lived in England had to use Skype and Zoom to program the machine, but he didn't have an example. So he just programmed it as how it was told to do. And later we found out that the machine was nothing like what he had thought it was.”

    Eric Bartels@ 2:47 — Identifies a critical failure mode: remote programming without physical reference creating fundamental incompatibility

  • “It's impossible. Whatever you do, whatever you're going to try, it's impossible. That's why American Pinball also decided to put a target underneath, under 45 degrees, for the ball to bounce up. But that even didn't work.”

    Eric Bartels@ 7:55 — Shows how a flawed original design persisted through attempted fixes, requiring complete rethinking

Entities

Eric BartelspersonJohn PapadukepersonJimpersonMaxpersonMagic GirlgameMagic Girl (prototype)productFIG (pinball game)gameAmerican Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Theater of Magic post mechanism (tribute to John Papaduke's original game design) had to be renamed due to community complaints, indicating sensitivity around Papaduke's legacy

    medium · Bartels included theater of magic posts in original restoration but had to remove feature due to community complaint about naming

  • ?

    community_signal: Magic Girl restoration represents significant homebrew/abandoned machine preservation effort, highlighting community capability to salvage failed projects

    high · Three-year restoration of non-functional machine to working condition through systematic engineering and problem-solving

  • ?

    design_philosophy: John Papaduke's original Magic Girl design contained fundamental flaws across multiple systems: non-functional magnets, impossible levitating mechanism, software incompatibility, and playfield ball routing issues

    high · Detailed technical breakdown of 67+ changes needed to make machine functional; seven magnets removed due to electrical safety hazards; levitating mechanism physically impossible to implement as designed

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Restoration prioritized preservation of original magical aesthetic and design intent over pure technical optimization; 67+ changes made while minimizing visible alterations

    high · Bartels states goal was to keep machine working while maintaining magical feel; changes focused on functionality rather than redesign; resisted drilling new holes

  • ?

    leak_detection: Multiple online discussions about Magic Girl mechanisms (e.g., internet speculation about inverter for mini-playfield wall transfer) reveal community reverse-engineering attempts

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.072

0:00
... about the resurrection of Ziggler's Magic Girl. It was a game that was originally started off as a sort of homebrew project, turned into, well, basically a disaster. The people paid a lot of money for games that they eventually got condemned didn't work. Eric can tell you more about that. So please give it up for Eric Barkels. Hello. Good afternoon. I was asked to do an English German language and some others. And Jonathan just arranged that in Dutch. So, you may follow. Where do I start? In 2019, someone came to us and said, I know a magical moment.
0:59
And it was Roger. And he wanted to convince Max to buy it. It's a short story. At that moment, Max went to the place where it was supposed to be. And he went to some garage. There was one magical.
1:18
And Max was interested. At a later point he asked me to look at it with the simple question, can you fix it? And I had five minutes to decide if it was possible or not. I said yes. I still don't know why I said yes, but I said yes and I did it, together with Jim. I'll talk about Jim later. And so we found this in the gallops, took it to our place, a secret attic, some small workshop in Holland. And then we started to investigate what's wrong with this machine. And you could better ask yourself what's not wrong with this machine. Because you had wood, you had parts, there is Max, big applause, he made it in time. Oh my god. And then we started to investigate what was wrong with it. And we were very quickly convinced that it was just a box of parts. You could see it on the machine that the paintball just took all the parts, put it in the machine, tried to make it work, but it didn't succeed because the software was not, was complete. please, because that's a difficult thing. The software guy who lived in England had to use Skype and Zoom to program the machine, but he didn't have an example. So he just programmed it as how it was told to do. And later we found out that the machine was nothing like what he had thought it was. So the software was not suitable for this play field. And at that moment we knew he was a software programmer. So that's why we also involved Jim. Jim was one of the original programmers of FIG who also got scammed. So at first he didn't want to help, but we convinced him and he became one of my best friends. Here you see the magic world. There is another photo of him. My USB stick is broken. I have not arrived. The side arm. This is why we fell in love with the machine. This is the right side of the cabinet and it's even not the same as the left side. Each side is different. There is no pin here that has the same hardware quality. Well, another photo. Ah, that's not the interesting one. One of the things we saw in the magic world is this is the second machine where John Puppetute decided to use a moving tiger blade, or saw blade. Saw blade. And also in the theater of magic there is one not turning of course. And this machine also, what surprised you, you not turning, not moving, just staying. That's one of the things we said, we cannot let that happen. We mounted a small motor underneath the feet, and our hope on this one is working, turning. If you play the game and you hit the target H-E-X, then it will start moving slowly. The Magic Post. One of the original playthroughs, John designed the Theatre of Magic. And in your prototype there is a ghost between the figures. The Theatre of Magic Post. But they took it out. It was too expensive. And he was so mad about it that in the Magic World we made a theatre of magic posts. But somebody complained about the name and they had to take it out. So now we have the magic post. It's a nice detail.

  • There are four known prototype Magic Girl cabinets in the world; Bartels and Max each own one, with identical original artwork to the prototypes.

    high confidence · Bartels discusses why John Papaduke changed the artwork despite limited resources

  • “If you make this machine work, you can do everything about it, but it has to stay magical, otherwise it won't be a magic world. It will change too much.”

    Eric Bartels@ 18:53 — Captures the core challenge: functional restoration while preserving the original designer's magical aesthetic intent

  • “More than seven pages of rules. If you want to have some explanation about the rules, you have to take an hour.”

    Eric Bartels@ 19:55 — Indicates the machine's rule complexity despite (or because of) its troubled development history

  • “We originally wanted to have magnets that didn't work like a tunnel. And then we saw that underneath, on the ramp, there was mounted a plastic by the shape of a hand, left and right hand. And then we came to the idea that if you could move the hand, then you can grab a ball.”

    Eric Bartels@ 15:17 — Shows creative problem-solving: discovering existing design elements and repurposing them for new functionality

    • Theater of Magic
    game
    Black Knight 2000game
    Twilight Zonegame
    Cirque du Soleilorganization
    Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2022event
    Zidwarecompany

    medium · Bartels references 'On the internet there was a lot of discussions about how do I get on the internet' regarding mini-playfield transfer mechanisms

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jim (original FIG programmer scammed by Papaduke) became key collaborator on Magic Girl restoration despite initial resistance, indicating community willingness to move past conflicts for restoration work

    high · Bartels convinced Jim to participate despite him being scammed; Jim became 'one of my best friends'

  • ?

    product_concern: Magic Girl buyers received condemned machines that required complete restoration, representing significant financial loss and community damage to Papaduke's credibility

    high · Moderator's opening statement about machines being condemned and buyers losing significant money; Jim's initial refusal to help due to being scammed

  • ?

    technology_signal: Remote software development for hardware without physical reference led to complete incompatibility; programmer worked via Skype/Zoom following specifications but created unsuitable code

    high · English programmer worked remotely without machine examples; software was completely unsuitable for actual playfield layout

    • 5:21
    Also a small... We took some photos from Martin, so there is no order. This is one of the things we changed. In the right and left in lane, there are letters. L-O-C-K. You must make those letters to get a lock for the wall. But you couldn't see the insert. So we made new plastics, small holes in it. Now you can see if the light is lit or not. So you can look through the plastics.
    5:54
    Next. Ah this is the art here One of the things is in the original playfield there are translucent of white clear plastics The idea was to give every letter a different color. And so it was also programmed. But in later versions all playfields had dark blue inserts. So now we have the difference between light blue, dark blue, sun blue, or whatever blue. So we took out in the program the function of it because it didn't want to see the light.
    6:39
    These are the ramps. On the left and on the right side you have a curvy ramp. At first moment they had to take the ramps straight and on the end of it the magnets, the strong loss magnets. And they wanted to keep the ball locked on the magnets. But we also tried it but the ramp became hot and started dipping or reforming. So that's why we didn't go for a magnetism lock. And the way there are curves now, it was to get the speed of the ball was to high. And now it's moving slowly to the place where the lock has to be.
    7:24
    Now you can see here the curve here, red on the left and on the right. And the famous levitating magnets.
    7:32
    This magnet was supposed to be... Now, I don't know where John went to school, but his idea was that when the ball goes underneath,
    7:42
    at the back of the target on the playfield, it will hit the target and roll back. And at that moment, you may have to suck the ball out of the playfield.
    7:52
    It's impossible. Whatever you do, whatever you're going to try, it's impossible. That's why American Pinball also decided to put a target underneath, under 45 degrees, for the ball to bounce up. But that even didn't work because it only would bounce if it was steady and firm content from a moving target. So we put a little ramp underneath with lights behind it. So now the ball goes into the magnets and each fourth time that we spin the magnets the ball will start holding the ball like levitating. Maybe if John had more time, he would bounce it up and then down. That was his first idea. But it was too much work and didn't happen. He said, okay, it holds the ball. The main goal for this machine was to get it ready, get it working. We are not responsible for the design. Some design things are not good. ball gets stuck. Even this little owl. You can order it on the internet. It's from some nature program. Six bars. We mount it in here. Nobody knows why. But we had to keep it that way. It's a famous place to get the ball stuck if it comes up when you play the field. One of the also interesting things is the spinner. Everybody's looking at the player field. see the floating spinner. It's a really nice concept. Designing? Yeah, he can do that. He's a master in designing. He's not a master in techniques. The screen, yes. One of the things that was a real problem is that the screen was very big. But it was from the play until this point. So I raised the play field as high as possible to see as much as possible from the screen and we changed the scores and other interesting things to the top of the screen so you could see what's happening. There was not something they thought about. On the internet there was a lot of discussions about how do I get on the internet. Some guy told someone that there had to be an inverter here at the back and that the wall could come from the back to the mini playfield. The mini playfield is an exact copy of the Twilight Zone version. With this one, it has an original exit from the left to the right.
    10:44
    It was a big hole. And that didn't work also. So, first thing we had to solve is how do we get on the main playfield? And it became that on the playfield, there was originally designed a hole, an eject hole, with a vertical object. And if the ball could get in that hole, there had to be a golfer. Because it's impossible. No, he took holes in the hole waste in front of the target or something, but not in the middle of the playfield. So that's why they decided to convert the pitball, put an iron core in it, and put a magnet around it like the ringmaster of Cirque du Sauterre. It would grab the ball. But as far as they got with designing it, they forgot to put a switch in it. So the ball comes in the neighborhood and the machine doesn't see the ball so the magnet doesn't do anything. There was originally seven magnets in the machine and only one was working for the magnet side. And the other ones were all cut because if you connect those things are starting burning, smoking, there's a lot of problems. So at that moment I asked him to fix the problem We had to find a way to get a switch in it It was polished on the iron core right in the middle of the plate but doing nothing And that was the problem. We couldn't use optoes because there was no room left for optoes. And I stole some ideas from a sharp copy machine, a Xerox machine. It was an optical switch that could detect objects 10 to 30 centimeters from the piece of meat. And we mounted here in the top corner a little sensor that looked at the core. You can see it here underneath, on the pavement. And it was constantly looking like an edge switch. Maybe you know the age which is an optical age which we made.
    12:57
    And at that moment the bar was detected, it was grabbed by the magnet. But if the magnet was too strong, the effect load cover came up because the core of the magnet, the mount, glued together. So they had to take that apart, invent a completely new bracket, so that the magnet wouldn't take the up kicker to the up position so that the ball wouldn't go off. And at that moment we saw for the first time that the ball was going through all those play fields into this air movement. Then it floats here, then it will drop down to this hole and goes here. And then you have used the magnets for things like try-bites. One of the things that I really did wrong is that a magnet tries to get the ball to the center. So if you want to move the ball upwards from here, you have to wait until the ball is here, then give a pulse, and then it goes up. But 99 out of 100 times the ball dropped down in the playfield. So that's why we decided to close these holes, make the playfield one inch longer, and do the exit here. and now it's doable. It's not easy like Max knows. He had a lot of complaints and I told him that he couldn't play because he's not good enough. The technique worked and I didn't watch the accident and I said, now a good player. But now he's successful. He's better in the league. That's the main play. Oh yeah, the exit is on the back. You can see here a little iron ramp. It goes underneath to the magic mirror part. And you have to reach the main play a few times to get one of the elements to compete for the end game. This is the skill shot, not very interesting. And the other photo. Oh yeah, the rocks. What you cannot see on the photos, the rocks. There were no rocks in the mechanisms in the whole play field. We originally wanted to have magnets that didn't work like a tunnel. And then we saw that underneath, on the ramp, there was mounted a plastic by the shape of a hand, left and right hand. And then we came to the idea that if you could move the hand, then you can grab a ball, take the ball. Like you see that the playfield has a face from the vision from the top, two hands. So you can see if you have some imagination that the two arms with hands. And now, because the hand is moving, it will grab the ball and hold it in the rim. If I say it, it looks simple, but for programmers it's a real difficult thing, because the balls keep coming into the rim, so they have to change the balls from locked to playable balls. But if you play it, it works fine. We also installed some extra lens to show if the ball is locked or not locked. Like I said, the T-throw matching post is one of the prototype We have one mesh, one prototype matching bone. If you look at that machine, it's almost the same, but a completely different artwork. And we are still not convinced, or we don't know why they changed the artwork. Because if you have not that much money and you develop a pinball machine, you have a perfect art, why do you change it? I'll squeeze it in a photo, John. I'll squeeze it in a photo of my art. This is the other Magical, this is the prototype. This is the game room of Max. And here you have the original cabinet artwork of Magical Prototype. There are well known four of these cabinets in the world. We have one, Max has one. And my opinion is it's good enough for a Magical. So we really don't know why they changed it. It must have cost a lot of money. And he was not rich, so why he did it, I don't know. This is the head of the magical. Other artworks are the same. And this is so beautiful. It's the right side of the head. You can always make an appointment and see it there in the night Just the other side You can see also that the left and the right side are not the same It unbelievable So beautiful. And the playfield. This is the playfield of... No, you can't see it. This is the prototype. You can even see that the blue lightning bolts are here still clear. These are the original hairs, but you saw the other. Here is the sea in the cave, but if you as a player you look, you can't see the sea, that's why we turned this into a little hole so you can see the... There are more than 67 changes to the playfield without noticing it. That was one of the goals, eh? If you make this machine work, you can do everything about it, but it has to stay magical, otherwise it won't be a magic world. It will change too much. So the rod mechanisms, I think that's the most,
    19:13
    that's the thing that has the most impact on the machine. And all the other things are really, really small changes, but it made it work. Like those plastics, of course, but also we didn't want to drill extra holes. We wanted to do this completely the same as it was designed. Another photo?
    19:34
    I think for this moment that's all the thought of the rest of the panel. Does someone have any questions? No? That's good. If you want to play it, be my guest. If you want to have some explanation about the rules, You have to take an hour. More than seven pages of rules. Oh yeah, this is also nice. This black disc is duct tape. It's originally designed by Mr. John Papaduke himself, duct tape. They want to have a spinning disc as some kind of skill. At the right side you have the Magna safe, like they stole from the Black Knight 2000. And on the left side they had a spinning disk that always turned clockwise. And the idea was that the ball would drag the ball out of the drain. That didn't succeed. And we had another problem. On the left side of the cabinet, like on the right, there are two flipper buttons. But on the left side there was no wiring. Just a folding button. Didn't do anything. Just was there. So what we did is put some wiring on it and made a new PCB so you can change the direction of the disc. So if you're convinced that it's going to get going to the drain, you can change the direction and take it out of the drain. And we put some on the newer type, we have some new decals on it. And I copy it from the mini-playfield, there's a service for that, so it will stay the same. Same idea, the bus black duct tape. It's made by American Pinball. It doesn't look really good. The ride side, the ride machine, we have one of the first. I put a white triangle on it. You can see it on the video, for left and for right. And on the later models we have a small picture of the mini plane.
    21:51
    Now that's the magic mirror where you come from the mini playfield and drop down on this playfield. And you get battlefield to field. I didn't know there was a battlefield but that's fine.
    22:04
    The ramp diverter, yeah, another story. On top of the ramp, they made a coil and it was supposed to divert the ball to the left or to the right ramp, but it didn't work. The ball always went underneath it. The movement of the flag was too short. So the ball always got underneath. And it always was in the view of the monitor. It was a big coil. So that's why we decided to put it underneath the ramp with a spring and just a wire gate for better looks.
    22:42
    The prototype, a nice photo, is from the score cards, the instruction cards. The prototype had these plastics on it. One of our wishes is to copy those from the prototype to this machine, because the engraving is shot with a ball and the little lightning bolts, but that's for later on. Because the machine is never finished, you can always go further, and better and better. This is done from the original machines like here, just an instruction card. It's printed on canvas and they screw it onto the metal so you cannot change it normally. Exactly. And this is done the patient.
    23:37
    That's what we did in three years. And of course with Jim. Jim is not here at this moment. No questions? Then we're going to start to drink the beer. Okay.
    23:55
    Come on, be a chicken now.