Drive our ships to new land. Fight the horde. Sing and cry. Valhalla, I am coming. It's time now for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teels. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. I love the innovators. I love people who take a risk and try to make something brand new, and that's what our next guest has done not just once but a few times. Scott Gullix from Riot Pinball joins us. Hi, Scott. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for having me on your podcast, Jeff. I'm excited by the pictures we saw last week of Legends of Valhalla, the latest from Riot Pinball. So before we get into this latest game, let's talk about some of the things you've done in the past. It kind of, I guess, began with you maybe even back when you were in school. You're a mechanical engineer, and obviously you love things like toys. You told me before you're a big Transformers guy, and I guess maybe seeing that pinball machine in your dorm made you think, okay, pinball might be where I want to try tackling some new projects. Yeah, absolutely. I've always been passionate about pinball. For me, they're not just a pinball machine, but I see them as complete works of art. So with my background in mechanical engineering as well as art, I just had a desire to try to create my own pinball machine with my own ideas, my own concepts, my own artwork, and try to come up with something new and unique. And that's something I think I pulled off with Wrath of Olympus, along with the help of a few other very brilliant and talented people. Wrath of Olympus, there are six out in the wild right now. Some people may have seen it before at Allentown. and you kind of got lucky when you built that because, you know, today with what people do, you know, they use the P-ROC system and the new P3 technology. You kind of had all the graphics done, had the whitewood done. Everything was done without having some kind of software, and you got lucky on the shots, didn't you? Yeah, yeah. You know, Rathalimpus, I think, turned out great. We did develop a virtual pin before we actually went into the real model. That virtual pin was based on a standard body game. When I started getting into the layouts on a real scale, I quickly learned that to really have it be fun and satisfying, I think you need to be able to make the shots most of the time with a relative level of skill. So we did jump into the wide body design almost right off the bat and just had a couple of tweaks here and there. But overall, we did get a little lucky and it played well. The design seemed to work nicely. And at the time, Jerry Stallenberg had his P-Rock electronics coming up to speed, and those were fantastic for turning a game into something that could actually be flippable and have decent level of rules and code to it. When you're designing a game, do you have in mind, okay, I don't know what I'm going to put in here. I know some of the things I want. I know where the flippers are going to be, maybe some of the ramps. Do you know before you start, okay, let's try to squeeze this all in a standard, or let's have fun and put everything in a wide body? Do you have a preference, or what was the thought process with all of the games that you're making? Good question. Yeah, so in Wrath of Olympus, the initial design, I wanted to stick to a standard body just because I was initially doing it in VP, and it just seemed to work better in that fashion. And then when I, again, started doing the real layout, I quickly realized that to get all the features that I wanted in there from my original design intent, I really needed to switch over to a wide-body design to get a quarter-inch wider ramp entrance so that when I am shooting it, I can make these shots and feel good about it. When I look at, for instance, Legends of Valhalla, however, I had a different design intent on that. One of the challenges, I think, in getting Rathalimpus really off the ground was the fact that it was a wide-body, and a lot of the current manufacturers today don't really have the setup to handle wide-body machines. So when I was starting out with Legends of Valhalla, I did have a specific goal in mind, which was to keep it a standard body where in the event that this does become popular and people really are excited about it, I'll have more options as far as moving into manufacturing. When you think of some great wide-body games, and I'm a fan, and I've said that before on Pinball Profile, what are some of the ones that you think are just, they really encapture what a wide-body should be? It's not floaty, it's got flow. What do you like in certain wide-body games? Which ones are your favorites? You know, I've owned a Judge Dredd for a long time. I ended up selling it a few years ago when I was getting ready to do my move. But I honestly, I love Judge Dredd. I love the shot from Judge Dredd. It's got a lot of fun loops. It's got those four flippers that all have specific shots associated to them. To me, that one's pretty dang fast and furious. I see that being a great example of the type of wide body that I like. I've always really enjoyed Indiana Jones as well, although that one sometimes can feel a little floaty, and maybe I love it so much because of the theme and the nostalgia there. But yeah, definitely I think Judge Dredd is the layout on that. If you look at similar layouts that I've had with Rathalimpus and Legends of Valhalla, I think you'll see some similarities there. Before we get to Legends of Valhalla, let's talk a little bit about Dead Man's Hand, something you can find on the VP Cabs with what Brad's doing. I think there's over 50 at least out there. Tell us about Dead Man's Hand. Okay, yeah, so Dead Man's Hand, again, I like to be busy, I like to be creative, and after Rathalimpus was done, I started looking at, okay, you know, is there a way I can make something that is pinball-related but doesn't have to actually be plugged in? And incidentally, I was at a friend's house who had a game, I believe it was called Twin Joker. And it was just a simple game where you plunge a ball and you try to get it in a hole and build the best poker hand you could have. And I was just amazed at the level of fun of something as simple as that. We had kids there that were five years old up to the grandmas playing the game. And everybody was having a blast and everybody was able to compete. It just was a really fun thing. And I was looking at the design and thinking, you know, there really isn't any reason this thing needs to weigh 350 pounds and have all these electromechanical details to it when at the end of the day you're just literally plunging a ball into a hole. So I decided to come up with a concept that could be a pure mechanical table that was something that was portable, that you could bring with you wherever you wanted to go or put it in the closet and pull it out. And you could have that fun feature where you've got five-year-olds playing against 30-year-olds and everybody's having a good time and has a chance to win or lose. So that really where the Dead Man Hand stemmed from And the fact that it was card I wanted to make it a little bit more mature and obviously with Rathalimpus Legends of Valhalla you know the fact that it was card themed i wanted to make it a little little bit more mature and obviously with uh rath olympus and legends of alhalla you know myths and legends have always been something that's been really interesting to me as well as history and you know wild bill hickok and all those gunslingers of the west i figured that might be a good tie-in with the uh the card theme and that type of game and it's also a passion too with what you've done from an art standpoint i just have always loved to draw ever since i was a little kid you know when i when i grew up we didn't have cell phones and I didn't have access to a lot of other media so when I wanted to see something cool like a viking zombie for instance you know without the internet I'd have to draw the viking zombie myself so it was just a passion from when I was little and wanting to be creative and draw cool stuff and it's just kind of continued through my life when I graduated high school I wasn't sure if I wanted to be an artist or an engineer and I chose a path that had a little bit more guarantee on a healthy living that would support a family-type lifestyle. But in the meantime, I still maintained my art and took a lot of classes in college and continue to do that kind of as a hobby and just continue to develop practice. And we've seen some of the early pictures from Legends of Alhalla of some of the Vikings, and you've seen them on Pinside. We'll post them on our Facebook page on Pinball Profile, too. Legends of Alhalla, we've seen what the layout's going to look like. Very, very impressive. three flippers and just looking at it and the possible shots the one thing i see is a lot of flow something you must love yeah absolutely i think i even made a post on pin side about it but i like flow i like shots where the ball actually travels through a pathway i like when the ball can return back to the flipper and you can get combos i like when there's interesting loops that will feed one flipper to another flipper i just like fast curious games i know some people like more target-style games with stop-and-go. But for me, if you look at my current pinball collection, I own Spider-Man, Tron, Star Wars. Iron Maiden, I think, is a fantastic game that just came out that has incredible flow as well. I just love seeing that ball whipping around and giving players multiple options for multiple shots, multiple flippers. Just the mechanics of that, I love that type of pinball. I love the center-ramp shot that you see in Legends of Valhalla. And tell us about how you collect these eight Viking tasks. There are 16 legends, and tell us, I know you've got Frank Gelati doing a lot of the software, and he's been a big part of Legends of Valhalla and Riot Pinball. What can you tell us about the tasks at hand? Sure. Yeah, and just again, for Frank Gelati, this guy is just amazing. I mean, seriously, he works so hard and is so passionate about pinball, and he's done so much for me and Riot Pinball and Rath Olympus, and especially for Legends of Valhalla. I think he's almost got 1,000 hours already into the code. And again, a lot of the stuff that we work on, I give him a general idea of the rules, and then he takes that and runs and polishes it and adds extra features, and he's done a fantastic job. But in Legends of Ohala specifically, we've got a number of different things that you can do during the game. So it's not really, I'm going to attack it one way every time. There's going to be multiple ways to attack the game. But at the end of the day, we have basically like eight main Viking traits or characteristics that we're trying to have the players as they play collect throughout the game to try to get to these wizard modes that are called Valhalla and Ragnarok. And some of those A characteristics are things like combos, where you need to collect a certain number of combos in order to get to the wizard modes. Or we have the 16 legends, where I've gone in and done a bunch of research on the Vikings legends, and those associate directly to 16 modes in the game. So you get a lot of variety in the type of modes, but you're also going to be exposed to a lot of the cool history and features and mythology of the Vikings. We also have a couple other character traits are associated with specific events, like getting to the War at Sea, which is locking three balls in the ship and then starting that multiball. We have another characteristic where you have to collect a certain number of weapons in order to get there. Incidentally, collecting weapons is also what helps unlock more of the 16 Viking legends. So as you're going through, there's a lot of these different things that you're trying to collect and go for, and choosing whether to play for advancing through the game or points really is going to give the player a lot of options on how they want to attack the game when they step up to it. Scott, you mentioned some of these toys. You mentioned the Viking ship. I see that there's a Thor hammer. You've got the Kraken magnet. And something on the upper left flipper, it's kind of a hidden subway shot. And I know you've been playing on the Whitewood. How's that working? You know, fantastic. It works out sweet. I always like when you've got a couple of different options to get to a different shot. So, for instance, the upper left flipper, you can get that shot by doing a right orbit, or you can do this inner orbit just to the right of the left ramp. That upper flipper also, like I said, if you open it up, allows a shot behind it similar to the shot that's on the right side in Spider-Man, Star Trek, and Big Bang Bar. But if you do make that shot, what I think is interesting is it falls through the play field into a subway and then feeds the Vuk that's just off to the left right down by the swing. So it gives the player an extra chance to go for that Vuk. The Vuk is one way that you start a mode. Another way would obviously be through behind the upper flipper. And we have another shot on the right-hand side that actually feeds to the shooter lane where the ball can be paused, so you can start a mode there as well. Incidentally, we're actually exploring a code rules where if you do hit the scoop on the left side through an alley pass, it's going to be worth three times whatever that normal shot would be because of the difficulty level. Wow. And if you hit the scoop behind the upper flipper, because it's a more challenging shot, it'll be worth, let's say, 2x. and then if you just go for the scoop directly, it'll just be whatever value. So, you know, for those very strategic players that are trying to maximize the game and points, you know, there's going to be options all along the way on how you can, you know, really get it to pay off if you want to take the risk. It's always been something really, I think, fun about pinball and people are doing a really good job today is giving players options on risk versus reward and how do you stack modes or bring the right things in to really make the big payoffs. but again having that risk where if I do this it might mean I'm going to lose the ball but I really want to do it so I can get the huge 5x payout versus the 1x. You do love flow look at you, you're rewarding flow Absolutely, yeah keep that ball moving So these toys that we mentioned how are you coming to get these toys? Are you making them individually Are they being 3D printed or have you found an outsourced place Good question So far for the first whitewood that I built they all been 3D printed So the ship, I've got a nice big 3D printed ship right now. That right ramp actually feeds that ship and the balls are locked physically in there. There's a down post release that allows the balls to be released from the ship and brought back to the play field. So if your locks aren't lit, for instance, when you hit that upper ramp shot, the post drops right away and the ball immediately comes right back to the play field. So it still keeps that ball moving fast. But if you do have your locks lit, it gets locked up in there. But yeah, that part in particular was 3D printed. The Thor's hammer, that's another 3D printed part that I designed and had printed. That part actually could be honestly 3D printed probably in production because we're just simulating the way that it actually hammers down on the ball and stops it. It doesn't actually come in contact with it. We've got another post that comes up out of the bottom of the play field that's kind of hidden that the ball actually comes in contact with. So yeah, so far for the first round, we've just used 3D printed parts. I assume if this ever gets off the ground that we would end up, you know, getting them probably manufactured through, you know, a cast process of some sort. Oh, you can't say if it gets produced because the layout looks great. We want to see this out and about. And I know you've got the white wood. When you tease us like that, you've got to get it out there no pressure you know i really hope so and you know i want about this design a little different than wrath olympus building wrath olympus a lot of the stock parts that you would think are just readily available everywhere weren't um and because of that we had some sourcing issues and you know being able to guarantee that i could have a complete bill of materials for even 10 games was something that i couldn't guarantee and that ultimately is why we kind of ended up at six. But since then, Pinball Life and Terry there, I can't thank him enough either for what he's done for the homebrew community. He's gone in and generated a lot of these standard pinball parts that you would expect to find and been able to make them where they're readily available and there shouldn't be any source of supply issues. So specific things like drop targets, for instance. I had a heck of a time making sure I could get even six drop targets back when I built Rath Olympus. So, you know, knowing now that parts are more readily available, I've got a standard body game design for Legend of Valhalla. I do have a little higher confidence that, you know, if people really like this game, that there'll be a higher likelihood of success in moving it forward. Scott, you've got Frank doing the software. You're doing all the design, the artwork, the layout. And as you're flipping this right now, I've always wondered, you've got a lot of flow here. You've got some orbits. You've got some ramps. strength of flippers, that's a real fine balance, isn't it, too? Because you want to be able to, with the example of Legends of Valhalla, maybe backhand that left ramp, certainly be able to hit the center ramp from both shots. But if the flippers are too strong, you want to avoid things like air balls and whatnot. So have you found the perfect balance? You know, I think so. I'm still working through that. That is honestly something I've learned through Rath Olympus as well with the position of the stand-up targets, especially where the the captive ball is that you know dialing in that flipper strength and making sure that you know you're not getting a bunch of air balls off those targets is important the nice thing about the legends of alhalla the the ramps i have right now aren't incredibly steep so there's probably not going to be a need for super high strength flippers with the flow we're already going to naturally get i think faster ball speeds that way but just in general with this design too. For the most part, I see a lot of air balls happening from targets that are kind of in the middle and the sweet spot where the flippers are hitting super hard. And in this design, a lot of those targets are actually off to the side where they're more backhand shots or just at the tip of the flipper shots. So I haven't seen a lot of air balls in the whitewood I've built and I don't expect to see a lot of those in production game if we get there. I'm looking right at the picture right now. That's a good point because everything in the center is kind of far back and, you know, the closer it gets to the flippers, you see more on the side. So, okay, that's really interesting that you've done that. You know, I learned a lot from the Rath Olympus build. I mean, there's so many things that you kind of take for granted that these guys have been doing fabulous pinball design for 20, 30, 40 years. You know, they've learned through 20, 30 pinball designs, right? And I'm just glad I was able to build Rath Olympus and learn a lot from that. And, you know, I'm glad you brought up air balls because that was one thing that I discovered in the Rathalimpus build that I wanted to improve on in future builds. So that experience is definitely incredibly valuable in this hobby and this profession. How many people have played the legends of Valhalla Whitewood? Just me, my wife, and my 5-year-old. So the next question is, you're right there on the Minnesota and Wisconsin border. There's a pretty big show coming up in Minnesota. Is that maybe a possibility? We'll see it flip there? Right now it's actually flipping just out of its history. I don't have a cabinet yet that's still in the works. What I'd like to do is have the next version of the Whitewood where I actually have inserts in place. So what I didn't want to have is just bring this to a show and people are just aimlessly shooting at shots and there's no inserts giving them instruction or direction on where to go. What I'd like to do before people actually get a chance to flip it and play it is to have a Whitewood in place that actually does have inserts and lights so that the thousand hours of code that Frank's already put into the game, that they can actually enjoy that and play that as well. Ideally, I kind of wanted to have a complete package with full artwork and a finished thing to show people, but we were just so excited about this and wanted to let some people know about it that we made the announcement last week and started moving. My plan, honestly, is hopefully Expo this year to have at least that white wood with inserts ready and available for people to play at Expo in October. Well, that's good, and I respect your decision to get it to a certain level, and it must be hard to button your lip. I know you put these pictures out because of the excitement, and it sounds like Frank's really advanced as far as the software is going, so we can be patient. We're not patient. We can be patient, and I think it will all pay off once we see this at Expo or wherever you decide to launch this. Thank you. I appreciate the patience. Yeah, and this isn't my first rodeo, and I well aware of how products when they shown and they not really complete that can kind of burn you a little bit So I been in the mindset lately on Legends of Valhalla that you know before we really get something out for people to play I'd like it to be a little more polished and a little more ready for them, just to, you know, avoid speculation, et cetera. You and I talked before we started this interview, and one of the reasons you got into doing these games, whether it's Wrath of Olympus, Dead Man's Hand, or Legends of Valhalla, is there was a time when you thought there weren't a lot of original games out there. and kind of real cookie-cutter stuff, not very deep games. That's not the case now, but there was that period, and that's kind of what pushed you forward to create some of these games. Yeah, absolutely. When I did Wrath of Olympus, I don't know that I could name a single manufacturer that was making a game with original artwork. That wasn't some sort of Photoshop blend, et cetera, and there certainly weren't any original themes. They all seemed to be licensed themes. So, you know, Rathalimpus really stemmed from a need for me to see an original theme with original artwork. And since then, it's been awesome for pinball with all the original themes coming out of these other manufacturers. And the artwork that a lot of these people are putting out now is just really, to me, taking pinball back to what I loved about it, which is, you know, I see pinball not just as a toy that I play with, but, you know, they're a work of art. they're almost like a piece of furniture. And to see the quality level of the whole package come to where it is now through all these other manufacturers is just fantastic. Scott, I'm always impressed by people like yourself, whether it's Keith Elwin making Archer, which is now Iron Maiden, whether it's Scott Denisey doing the Whitewood, and that's now TNA, Ed Owens and his Ghost in the Shell, and Mark and City doing his Nightmare Before Christmas, all of you people that are creating pinball, and who knows where it leads. It's a great labor of love, and you've got a lot of the pinball community excited, and we need more people like you, but it's not easy to do, and I can only imagine how many hours you and your team, Frank, and everyone else has put into this. Any idea? Wow, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, sometimes I don't want to know. Your wife might know. Yeah, yeah. I'm up late almost every night doing artwork and doing the build and up early to go to my day job, But Rav Olympus, I bet between me and Frank and the other guys, we probably put 10,000 hours into that development. And, you know, right now in Legends of Valhalla, I think Frank's got about 1,000 hours of code, and I've probably easily got about that in the CAD layout and the artwork and the build and testing and shooting the whitewood, etc. So, you know, we're going on thousands of hours already, and we just have a whitewood on a rotisserie right now. So it's definitely time-consuming, and it's a labor of love. And, you know, again, I'm doing this because I love it and I want to have another game. And Frank wanted another project and we just wanted to do something cool again. And, you know, if it goes somewhere, great. If not, that's fine, too. We're doing it just for the love of it. So 1,000 hours of software code for Frank and you're paying him $20 an hour. Let me just do a quick calculation here. You owe him a life debt. Yeah, yeah. $20 an hour, I think, would be super cheap. for somebody of Frank's caliber. I had to see him charging out $100, $200 an hour for his work. A friend discount. You got the friend discount. That's what it was. Yeah. He knows he's going to be guaranteed at least get one game out of this. So at least there will be two legends of a haul at the end of it. But, yeah, Frank's a fantastic guy, and he puts all his time in, just like I'm putting it in, because he loves it and wants to see something cool that he did and that other people get to enjoy too. Well, we love it too, Scott. Thank you very much. All the best to you at Riot Pinball. Looking forward to seeing Legends of Valhalla, hopefully, at Expo and flipping that whitewood. We enjoy the progress we're seeing on Pinside, and I do wish you the best. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you having me on and kind words and everything else. So we'll continue to post on Pinside updates, and we also copy those samples over to our Facebook page for people that are following on Facebook. So stay tuned. Lots of exciting stuff. We're going to continue to show little snippets of the art as well as information on the code and specifics on that. So when people do finally get to show up in Expo in October, if they've done their homework, they'll have a good idea of what to expect in the game and know how to go for modes and go for points and really have some fun with the game. Sounds like a great idea. I'm looking forward to it. I just want to thank my friend Frank again. I wouldn't be able to do this without him, 100%. And he's just got a passion for this. And I kind of asked for a better person to be working on this with me. Again, the P-Rock crew, Jerry Stallenberg and his boards, I mean, they've been stable. They've been awesome. He personally and the rest of the people in the development groups have just been invaluable in answering questions and helping me personally get through this. Rathalimpus was built on the original P-Rock. I had a good basis for getting through that. The new one, we're operating through the P-3 Rock. So I had a low learning curve there. But, again, the community was just fantastic for answering questions. And I'm sure a lot of them seemed like they were pretty stupid questions coming from me. But, you know, I'm not an electrical engineer. But, you know, they did their best to help me and have just been, you know, truly a great resource to be able to get off the ground. There's a bunch of other individuals that I'm sure Frank could like to talk about and how they've helped him through the co-development as well. So, yeah, and again, I would like to thank Terry from Pinball Life for getting all those parts available. Without them, the ability to actually get this game off the ground would be severely reduced. So, again, thanks to Pinball Life. And lastly, I also really want to thank Brad Baker from VP Caps and Greg Butcher. Those two have been just awesome in helping me actually get the physical whitewoods and the breads going out on a limb and helping me get a cabinet made as well. So I look forward to see what our business relationship can be in the future with him also. Thanks, Scott. Excellent. Well, thanks again, sir. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. I'm Jeff Teolas. Thank you.