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Ep 37: Talkin' Turtles with Dwight Sullivan

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 16m·analyzed·Jun 3, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

Dwight Sullivan details TMNT pinball design: turtle mechanics, Nickelodeon collab, and balancing casual vs tournament play.

Summary

Loser Kid Pinball Podcast interviews Dwight Sullivan, code designer for Stern's new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball machine. Sullivan discusses the collaborative design process with mechanical engineer John Borg and animator Elliot Eastman, the development of turtle-specific rule variations, the decision-making between Pro/Premium/LE feature sets, voice acting and licensing with Nickelodeon, and the philosophy behind balancing tournament-ready gameplay with casual appeal. The episode covers gameplay mechanics including the spinning disc multiball, turtle selection system, episode progression tied to storyline unlocks, and April O'Neill's modernized portrayal as a story-driven character rather than a damsel-in-distress trope.

Key Claims

  • The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game features 17 characters total, with 12 of 17 having full rule coding

    high confidence · Dwight states: 'So in the code, I have 17 different ingredients, but only 12 of which actually have rules.' He also later clarifies '17 characters in this game' regarding voice acting.

  • Nickelodeon required the game use a specific theme song (not the original 1987 series theme) and had approval authority over all art, display, sound, music, and speech

    high confidence · Dwight: 'Nickelodeon insisted that we have the tune that's in there now' and 'they wanted to hear it...every art we did or in the display or every piece of sound or music or speech that we did'

  • The LE spinning disc features bi-directional spin (alternating directions with pauses), while Pro version spins unidirectionally for 2 seconds continuously

    high confidence · Dwight explains disc mechanic differences in detail, describing LE behavior as spinning one direction for half second, pausing, reversing for half second, pausing, and repeating.

  • Pro and Premium/LE differ in ball count (6 vs 8 balls) and toy features: Pro lacks the Kring toy (substituted for earlier left ramp toy design), and the van holds different ball counts

    high confidence · Dwight: 'the eight ball versus the six ball' and 'the Kring toy can't be there, and the van isn't going to hold three balls' on Pro models.

  • Game features 6 initial episodes with 2 locked episodes unlocked through progression based on storyline dependencies (Baxter→Baxter Fly; Crane without body→Crane with body)

    high confidence · Dwight describes episode structure: 'one episode where Baxter is sort of forced to make these mousers...at the end of the episode Shredder...turns him into a fly...you can't face Baxter Fly first'

  • Four playable turtles (Leo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello) have meaningful mechanical differences affecting multipliers, ball save, timers, and mode access (e.g., Leo lights Training from start)

    high confidence · Dwight details turtle-specific mechanics: 'Leo lights training...if you want to get your multiplier going right off the bat, you can spell layer' and discusses Michelangelo's April bank enhancement.

Notable Quotes

  • “My office is an unfinished basement down here in my secret laboratory, my secret lair.”

    Dwight Sullivan @ ~2:00 — Humanizing comment about working conditions; sets casual tone for interview.

  • “I'm still waiting for something bad to happen and maybe never happen. But you know, just you have to plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

    Dwight Sullivan @ ~3:30 — Reflects designer anxiety about game reception post-release; common concern in pinball development.

  • “From watching the Turtles episodes, I just wrote down all the things that they were putting on their pizza, and we picked out 12 that we liked and that's what we stuck rules to.”

    Dwight Sullivan @ ~8:00 — Demonstrates design philosophy of source material fidelity; explains gummy bears on pizza detail referenced by players.

  • “Softwareically I flip that upper left flipper. Softwareically, that's a word we invented.”

    Dwight Sullivan @ ~22:00 — Casual humor; explains software-controlled flipper mechanic using playful neologism.

  • “The spinning disc is going to blow them away...it's more for casual players, then the spinning disc is going to blow them away.”

    Dwight Sullivan @ ~24:00 — Design rationale for Pro/Premium feature differentiation: entertainment value vs. strategic depth.

  • “I'm not a tournament player, so I always try to lean on whoever I can to help me with, well, is this stupid or should this be less random and so on?”

    Dwight Sullivan @ ~35:00 — Transparency about design limitations; indicates collaborative approach to competitive balance.

  • “Nickelodeon has been a dream to work with. They've wanted us to say in every single thing we did...but they were really easy to work with.”

    Dwight Sullivan @ ~43:00 — Positive licensing partnership commentary; contrasts with typical IP holder reputation in industry.

  • “We wanted her...she's a story. We leaned into the fact that she's a news reporter...April Hurry Up is can be stacked with anything else going on.”

Entities

Dwight SullivanpersonJohn BorgpersonElliot EastmanpersonTeenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesgameKeith ElwinpersonJosh SharppersonRaymond Davidsonperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Dwight mentions recent Expo attendance and prior email communications with Mark Silk (voice actor), indicating direct community interaction and talent recruitment from pinball community

    medium · Dwight: 'you know i met him at expo you know last expo um and before that we were talking on you know email and stuff'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Single major complaint category mentioned: voice acting quality/casting decisions, which Dwight frames as necessary budgetary compromise to retain mechanical features (glider) over original actor budget

    medium · Josh notes: 'the only complaint I've honestly heard is some of the voice stuff' and Dwight explains voice budget tradeoffs with mechanical features

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Community criticized LE spinning disc bidirectional mechanic as gimmicky before release; Dwight defends it as creating interesting ball physics and spectacle; confidence in design validated by post-release reception

    medium · Dwight: 'a lot of people kind of scoffed at the fact that the LE spins in two directions, and I think it's actually pretty nice because...the disc will spin for half a second in one direction, then pause'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: April O'Neill character redesigned from 1987 damsel-in-distress trope to active news reporter pursuing story-gathering; gameplay mechanic (stackable hurry-up) reflects modern character agency rather than rescue narrative

    high · Dwight: 'We don't want her all helpless and tied up and kind of ditzy...We leaned into the fact that she's a news reporter...April Hurry Up...can be stacked with anything else going on in the game'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.229

0:00
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We are on episode number 37. With me, my co-captain as always, Scott Larson. And Scott, it's been a wonderful, wonderful past week, hasn't it? And it certainly has brought us new things to wake up our Corona virus hangover. And Stern, the pinball fairies dropped us off some news. And so we actually have something to look forward to other than just watching our tokens collect dust. Who do we have today, Josh? Well, let's hurry and introduce the friends of our show really quick. We want to talk about Brad Hunter. If you haven't checked out his lit frames, go to litframes.com. He's got some wonderful product there. I know Scott has one of his frames along with the Monster Bash Brian Allen Translite. And that looks fantastic. And then also friends of the show, Zach and Nicole Menny with Flippin' Out Pinball. If you're looking for new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Stern, that is the guy to get it. He will beg, borrow, and steal. Beg, borrow, and steal. Yeah, that's the word. He'll do that to get your business. He is happy to help you out. He helped me out. I've already got my pro on lockdown. Didn't he help you out, Scott? He did. I am ordered. I have to wait a little bit longer because I wanted to wait for the premium, but absolutely, he's great to work with. Boom. So there it is. We're both RA customers of Flippin' Out. We're happy with his service so far. Zach, if you're listening, don't screw it up.
1:40
All right. I'm joking. So, well, I'm going to introduce our guest, if you don't mind, Scott. Go ahead. We have got, if you've already read the title, I've already probably put his name in it, but we have a master software designer. This man has so many hits under his belt, it is ridiculous. We've got Terminator 2, The Getaway, Star Trek The Next Generation, Game of Thrones. I mean, this man is amazing. And he's also brought us a brand new game that looks absolutely fantastic with us, Dwight Sullivan. How are you doing, Dwight? I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. I'm really glad to be here.
2:17
So how has the reception been so far? You've got nothing but roses in your office and everyone just giving you praise?

  • Voice acting for 17 characters required hiring multiple voice actors; original cast from 1987 series was not affordable alongside desired mechanical features

    high confidence · Dwight: 'we would have had to take the glider out of the game to afford the original cast for all 17 characters' and mentions hiring Mark Silk, Brothers Kizzabat, and Art Crang.

  • Dwight consulted with tournament players Josh Sharp, Tim Sexton, Keith Elwin, and Raymond Davidson for rule balance feedback due to not being a competitive player himself

    high confidence · Dwight: 'I would invite Josh Sharp to my office...I'm not a tournament player, so I always try to lean on whoever I can' and mentions Elwin and Davidson as current consultants.

  • The game was developed collaboratively starting with Nickelodeon approaching Stern, then Dwight pitching to John Borg, with core team of John Borg (mechanical), Elliot Eastman (mechanical engineer), and Dwight (code)

    high confidence · Dwight: 'Nickelodeon people...came to work, and they're like, hey, you guys should do a Turtles game...I said John, we should do that Turtles game...John and Elliot Eastman, the mechanical engineer, and myself, we were the core team'

  • April O'Neill character design intentionally modernized to portray her as a news reporter pursuing stories rather than a damsel-in-distress, with her hurry-up stackable with other modes

    high confidence · Dwight: 'We don't want her all helpless and tied up and kind of ditzy...she's a news reporter...April Hurry Up...can be stacked with anything else going on in the game'

    • Dwight Sullivan @ ~62:00 — Shows modernization of character design to avoid 1980s damsel-in-distress tropes; integrates into gameplay mechanics.

    Nickelodeon
    organization
    Mark Silkperson
    Brothers Kizzabatperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Loser Kid Pinball Podcastmedia
    Game of Thronesgame
    Star Warsgame
    Deadpoolgame
    Gary Sternperson
    Zach Mennyperson
    Brad Hunterperson

    design_philosophy: Story-driven episode progression mechanic (Baxter→Baxter Fly, Crane body transformation) tied to narrative dependencies from 1987 series; intentional design to give pinball progression feel of narrative progression

    high · Dwight: 'The show itself has some storylines that build on previous storylines, and I wanted to capture that...Shredder says...he turns him into a fly...you can't face Baxter Fly first if he hasn't been turned into a fly yet'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dwight deliberately designs games with multiple viable turtle/character selections to serve different player skill levels and preferences (beginners prefer Raph; competitive players prefer Martel/Leo multipliers; casual prefer visual spectacle)

    high · Dwight explains turtle selection design rationale: 'I like making rule sets...where maybe Martel isn't the best choice for the beginner or the medium player...But I would go for Baratheon on Game of Thrones. And on Turtles, I pick Raph because Raph has got some easy things going on.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Nickelodeon exerted significant creative control over TMNT audio/visual assets (theme song mandatory, required approval on all art/sound/speech, Shredder voice redone after first rejection) but was characteristically collaborative compared to other licensors

    high · Dwight: 'Nickelodeon insisted that we have the tune that's in there now' and 'they would say...we think Raphael should be more like this...they wanted to hear it...every art we did or in the display or every piece of sound or music or speech'

  • ?

    community_signal: Dwight Sullivan demonstrates collaborative, consensus-driven design approach: credits mechanical team (Borg, Eastman) for concept decisions, relies on external tournament players (Sharp, Elwin, Davidson) for competitive balance feedback to compensate for his own skill gaps

    high · Dwight: 'all three of us decided...John goes, well, let's put it on the top left...I'm not a tournament player, so I always try to lean on whoever I can to help me'

  • ?

    product_strategy: TMNT employs three-tier feature strategy: Pro loses Kring toy and glider; Premium/LE adds spinning disc with bidirectional spin; LE has 8 balls vs Pro's 6 balls. Glider removed from Pro (not LE) to maintain visual spectacle for casual field placement vs. strategic depth for home collectors.

    high · Dwight walks through tier decision: 'became clear that if we were going to lose the glider or the spinning disc on the pro, it had to be the glider...the spinning disc is going to blow them away...for casual players'

  • ?

    product_concern: Dwight expresses post-release anxiety about discovering latent issues ('still waiting for something bad to happen'), suggesting either perfectionism or awareness of recent Stern quality control issues in field

    medium · Dwight: 'I'm still waiting for something bad to happen and maybe never happen. But you know, just you have to plan for the worst and hope for the best.'

    • 2:25
    Well, my office is an unfinished basement down here in my secret laboratory, my secret lair. But the reception's been great. You're always nervous. It's like going into the release, you're like, you're, you know, chewing your fingernails and you're trying to make the best of what you can and you're wanting everything to go well. You don't want, like, the Death Star not to work, you know. So, but this time it went really, really well, despite the fact that we had to do it through Zoom and we had to, you know, Jack had to be my hands and whatnot. It went off really well. And then people seemed to really like what they saw. So I'm happy so far. So just waiting for the, you know, I'm still waiting for something bad to happen and maybe never happen. But, you know, just you have to plan for the worst and hope for the best. Exactly. So, Dwight, when you got brought into the project, how long does it typically take to orchestrate a rule set? And what do you do when you're approaching a rule set to say this is what I'm trying to do in this game? Okay, that's a hard question. So in this particular case, the Nickelodeon people, they came to work, and they're like, hey, you guys should do a Turtles game. And I was skeptical, and then we saw their presentation, and then afterwards I went to John and I said, John, we should do that Turtles game. And John said, sure. And so we held up our hands, and George and the team said, sure, go for it. And from that moment we started working on it. And this was when I was still working on, you know, when I was still working on monsters of it. And so the first thing we do is we start meeting once or twice a week or more than that, you know, whenever you have a cool idea or three in the morning, you know, or during the shower or the drive to work or the commute, you know, you're thinking of ideas. And then you, you know, share them with each other. This game was very collaborative. John or Elliot Eastman, the mechanical engineer, and myself, we were the core team at the very beginning. and we you know so every time we got a cool idea we would bring each other into the room and we would draw things on the whiteboard and we said what if we did this and what if we did that and we had lots of ideas that we've thrown out but and then also at that time we started reviewing all of the early episodes we got DVDs of the 1987 Turtles and we started watching them all and that started giving us great ideas about well you know maybe we should do this maybe we should have episodes like that or maybe we should have modes like this and so on and one thing leads to another, and here we are.
    4:59
    I got to say, I love that you guys actually review the material. I noticed a couple things people had said is like, why gummy bears on pizza? And if you ever watch those original episodes, you don't even have to go past the first episode. They're putting cereal, they're putting gummy bears, they're putting whipped cream on their pizzas. And so I love that you put that into the game, because that is true to the show, and people are like, what the heck is this? Yeah, yeah. So we have, so in the code, I have 17 different ingredients, but only 12 of which actually have rules. So, because like from watching the, from watching the Turtles episodes, I just wrote down all the things that they were putting on their pizza, you know, and we picked out 12 that we liked and that's what we stuck rules to. That's pretty awesome. So you also have all four turtles, and this is one of those games where you actually get to pick a turtle.
    5:56
    So if you're playing a four-player game, you have all four turtles. What are the different things that each turtle brings to the table?
    6:04
    Right, that's a good question, and that sort of goes back to that first question is right off the bat, one of the things we were throwing on the whiteboard is like, well, it's obvious that we want to be able to pick a turtle because everybody has a favorite turtle, so that's going to be something fun and obvious to do right off the bat. And I did something similar on Star Wars and Game of Thrones, and I love giving the players choices. So then as soon as you decide that you're going to have everyone pick a different turtle, well, then you're like, well, you need meaning behind that. You need some sort of, you know, you need to make a difference. Like you need a reason why they would pick this turtle over that turtle and what does it mean deeper in the game and so on. And then that's a lens that you hold all future rules through. You're like, well, what if I'm playing Donatello and I'm in this mode and I want to do that? What does that mean?
    6:53
    So that's, you know, it's really fun like that. Some of the different things that you can do is one of them, they add more time to timers. They add more time to ball save. They add plus one multipliers. They give you plus one to your playfield multiplier. or sometimes they just straight out give you 2 or 3x on a particular area of the play field or a particular area of the game. Like they might give you 2x scoring or 3x scoring on episodes and stuff like that. So if I am first player and I pick Raphael, can anybody else pick Raphael or are they forced to pick the other three?
    7:32
    In normal play, everybody could pick Raphael. in co-op play, everyone has to pick a different turtle.
    7:40
    And I'm thinking about making that an adjustment so that, I mean, by default, that's going to be what I just said, but I might add an adjustment so that you could just make everyone beat different turtles every single game. But the problem is I want people to walk up and go, okay, all of us are going to be Donatello. Let's see who can be the best Donatello. Or all of us is going to be Leo today. Let's see who can be the best Leo. So I want that possibility. So I noticed you talked about on the stream that there are six available episodes when you start, and you can unlock two more. Is that because of progression of the story through the pinball machine, or is it just it makes more sense that way? What made you determined to do that?
    8:18
    Well, right. So every once in a while they sort of had, you know, like the show itself. The show itself has some storylines that build on previous storylines, and I wanted to capture that in some fashion. and so in the game we have one episode where Baxter is sort of forced to make these mousers to go after the turtles and attack them but then at the end of the episode Shredder says well I'm done with you and he turns him into a fly so then later on it's Baxter Fly that you face as a villain and you can't face Baxter Fly first if he hasn't been turned into a fly yet so that's one of our two-parters. And then the other one is Crane wants a body, and so there's an episode where he wants a body and at the end of the episode, he gets a body, and then, so then, that unlocks an episode down the road where he has a body and he's attacking you with his big, giant, you know, his full body.
    9:24
    And of course, he can't do that in the reverse order, right? You know, I just think that made sense. Yeah, that totally makes sense. That's awesome that you guys are thinking out of the box in that way, in that regard, too. It kind of reminded me when you talked about this kind of thing, Deadpool, where you had to kind of do some things up front to unlock the T-Rex and the shark, but it's cool that you've molded it into the episodes and that it follows the storyline, and so it kind of gives more depth to the game as well. Right, right. We heavily pulled our stories from the early 87 episodes, but they're not one for one, we had to take the square peg and put it to the round hole of pinball.
    10:07
    Mostly pinball is about shots and goals and speech calls. So we had to distill a lot of those stories down to simple little thoughts.
    10:21
    But it was pretty fun to do that. Is there a secret mode where you get to play Shredder? no there's no secret mode when you get to play Shredder I'm sorry no that's going to be a flipper code exactly that's a flipper code I want to play Shredder so the 1987 play as Shredder so I'm fighting the turtles so I know that the was the 1989 Konami arcade game influencing at all under the pinball machine because I know that has a lot of following to the original arcade stuff?
    11:00
    No, I don't actually even know much about that one. So we pretty much stuck to, all of my research was the 1987 DVDs and in particular, like the first five episodes. Most of our stuff comes from the first five episodes in the 1987 series. So tell me about the different variations on the Pro versus the Premium because there are certainly different things that are going to affect. One thing that led me to buy the premium is I really liked that the disc spun both ways. And so how do you incorporate that into code? My problem is I have an X-Men and one of the challenges I have is that spinner, I swear it just, it launches that sucker just right to the left out lane every time. And I like the variation on the disc. And so when you're, I guess when you're coding for a pro versus a premium, exactly what type of, I don't want to say compromises, but what sort of decisions allow you to go, okay, this would be a great thing to fit into all of it, and we should do this one down in the premium or the LE. So we'll talk about the disc. The disc is a lot of fun. So a lot of people kind of scoffed at the fact that the LE spins in two directions, and I think it's actually pretty nice because on the LE, well in both games when the disc spins, when the ball kind of hits the targets nearby, because that's when the ball, I know the ball is nearby and it's going kind of slow. And so the disc might affect it. And so, but what happens on the L.E. in preview is the disc will spin for half a second in one direction, then pause for a brief moment, and then spin the other direction for half a second, and then pause for a brief moment, and then it'll repeat that again one more time.
    12:48
    But on the Pro, it just spins for two seconds straight, you know, ball can do. And it's very, very different. Like the ball, the ball will actually hit a target, roll backwards onto the disc, start going around the disc in one way, then come back the other way and then go out the drain. And that, you know, that of course is funny, but that sucks. But, you know, hopefully, you know, you, you've had a good ball before that. But the other part of your question was, what, you know, speak to some of the differences, right? For the pro and the LE? yes yeah yeah so um we we generally well this game particularly we started with all everything we wanted to put in the game and and that you know and that was going to be the le and so we wanted a glider we wanted a spinning disc and we wanted a van that held up you know that held you know three balls and eight balls total in the game and we you know and then we we had another toy on the ramp for a while on the left ramp but that um we couldn't make that quite work so that that money van became the Kring toy, which I think is very, very cool. And I'm glad that we have the Kring toy.
    13:54
    And then we start thinking about, well, what would we remove to get into the budget of a pro? And then we go, okay, well, the Kring toy can't be there, and the van isn't going to hold three balls. In fact, that's a nice distinction between the premium and LE. I mean, the premium and the pro is, you know, the eight ball versus the six ball. and so then we pull off that and we go, okay, well then what are we left with? And we were left with either the glider and the spinning disc. And that was really difficult because the glider's pretty fun. The glider, you're like, well, I want the ball to come here or I want the ball to go there and then the glider has its own feature and so if we lost that, then the pro wouldn't get that. But then the spinning disc is pretty fun to watch because the balls come out and softwareically I flip that upper left flipper.
    14:49
    Softwareically, that's a word we invented. So softwareically I flip that upper left flipper. The balls bounce off the upper left flipper over to the spinning disc and get caught on the magnet, and then I spin them off. And that's pretty fun to watch. And when new people would come into my office and see that their eyes would bug out, they would be like, oh, that's pretty cool. So, you know, after thinking about it, it became clear that if we were going to lose the glider or the spinning disc on the pro, it had to be the glider. Because the glider is more highbrow. It's more people that really understand, oh, I want to shoot the left shot coming up soon, so I'm going to put the glider so that it comes back to my right flipper. You know, it's people thinking ahead on your home buyers, your basement games, and so on. And the pro, which also does go to the basements. But sometimes the pro goes out in the field more and is more for casual players, then the spinning disc is going to blow them away. So that's how that decision process all came about. Does that answer your question? Yeah, I would actually agree. I think that the spinning disc is the more wow factor. I've always said that one of the best multi-ball starts in pinball has been the Twister or the X-Men and now Turtles with the balls being trapped on the magnet and then flung around. I think it's one of the coolest features I've ever seen.
    16:12
    Right, and it doesn't get old. You see it, and I still like it. Because in our game, the way the geometry is set up, we just sort of accidentally lucked into the fact that the balls sort of spin off, but I keep that magnet going, and then the balls sort of bounce around and then come back, and then one or two balls will catch on the magnet again, and that's very, very entertaining. So I noticed when you guys did the Pro and the Premium and whatnot, This game seems to be kind of a fast game, and if you're not paying attention, it can really take you to town. Was that a decision that you made, or was that something John Borg made, or was it something you guys kind of came together and said, hey, we need something fun but kind of fast? So early on, we started talking about high-level concepts. Like all three of us decided we wanted a third flipper. And then John goes, well, let's put it on the top left because I've done top right recently, and I just want to change it up a bit. So John starts working out things and then we start going, we start, all three of us will meet and look at drawings and thinking about things. And quickly it became clear that, yeah, this is going to be a flowing game. It's going to be a fast game. It's going to be a combos game. And so that's when I, so then I go and I start writing down, figuring out on the whiteboard, you know, rules for combos. And, but we all liked it. So to answer your question, you know, John said he wanted to do it as long as, you know, it was going to be fast and smooth. And we're like, yeah, we're on board. We're good.
    17:39
    Nothing wrong with a fast and smooth game. So about how many, how do you play test this code at the Stern building? Like, do you start a code? You actually have people come in and play it and give you ideas and lead me through that process? Sure. so at some point John decides John and Elliot and I decide that we like what we have and we want to build it up and start flipping it and we make what we call a white wood and the white wood sometimes it doesn't have the right lamps or it doesn't have any lamps it just has kinetics and flippers and maybe one or two toys and we build that up and we start flipping it so then as soon as we can that whiteboard shows up in my office next to my desk and I start writing code for it and we start testing out different things and turning on lights and seeing what's fun and what's not fun and then eventually we go to whiteboard 2 and whiteboard 3 and so on and then later we have colored playfields, full blown playfields with real artwork and that's what I have next to my desk now, I have next to my desk right now a It's a prototype, but it was built by the factory. Because we build them up the engineering team builds up White Woods and then at some point the factory builds the last set of prototypes before they going to go into production
    19:10
    But all the while I'm still working on code. Months and months are going by, I'm working on code and downloading it. And it's not just me. I'm just the face of a team of software guys, right? Right now we have like four talented guys on this project, and it's all of us working really hard you know for long hours for months so i've got to ask because i've got just a tiny bit of coding background i've done a little bit here and there how is it tedious to do pinball coding because i know that like there's stuff like you do the code and then it's not working and you find out you should have put a comma here instead of a period or you should have put a little d instead of a capital d is it kind of tedious like that or Is your program pretty easy to work with?
    19:57
    Well, C++ is particular for everything being correct. But right off the bat, you know, those type of problems won't even compile. So it's not like you're playing the game for an hour and then you go, I missed a comma or I missed a semicolon. The game won't even compile. You won't be able to, you know. So right off the bat, and then it'll show you where the problem was and you just fix it.
    20:21
    So I guess that's tedious, but that's just come from the job. That's just part of programming. So in your philosophy of building the code, what is your philosophy on rule balances? Because obviously a lot of these games, they want to – the last ability of a game really depends on their ability to be viable in tournament settings. You'll see people who – they buy a game because they want to get better at it, And they also want to make sure that there's multiple ways of approaching a game in a tournament setting versus one single way. And so how do you approach making sure that it is tournament ready?
    21:00
    That's a great question. Usually I used to get a game to like 90 percent, you know, or 80 percent done or at least planned out and mostly working or partially working. and I would invite Josh Sharp to my office and he and I would bounce around the ideas and rules and let him play it for a while.
    21:21
    I couldn't do that on this game for a couple of reasons. But fortunately, we have Tim Sexton and Keith Elwin and now we have Raymond Davidson to help bounce around those kind of ideas. Because I'm not a tournament player, so I always try to lean on whoever I can to help me with, well, is this stupid or should this be less random and so on? And how does the scoring feel here? Does anything feel exploitable? And that's how I usually do it is I try to compensate for something I'm not great at with people around me that are better.
    22:00
    That's how I do the tournament scoring. The bigger question is you have lots of different people playing your game. How do you make a game for everybody? and that's hard to do so we make a game for tournament players and home players and casual players and I'm not a tournament player and I'm not a great player I'm sort of a middle of the road I can beat anybody that has that's not been a pinball so I want everyone to have fun and that's why I like making rule sets like Turtles and Game of Thrones and Star Wars where maybe Martel isn't the best choice for the beginner or the medium player, right? Like the higher-end player, he's going to want Martel because he knows about multipliers and can manipulate that. But I would go for Baratheon on Game of Thrones. And on Turtles, I pick Raph because Raph has got some easy things going on. But like Gary Stern has a pro at his house and Gary always picks Donatello because Donatello puts you one shot from multiball. And that multiball doesn't score to keep it kind of balanced, that multiball as a score as well as some of the other stuff you could do. But Gary doesn't care about that. He's going to just play multiple.
    23:15
    So I know that Nickelodeon was kind of – what's the word I'm looking for? Because some of the complaints I've heard, the only complaint I've honestly heard is some of the voice stuff. But I know that the theme song, Nintendo required that exact theme song in there. and it's the exact same theme song they just did with the one-up arcade cabinet and whatnot. How much say did Nickelodeon have when it came to the other characters and was there a reason the original actors weren't brought in? I know that they're in their 70s now and your voices tend to change after that, but I didn't know how you guys went the direction that you did.
    23:57
    So, great question. So, yes, so that we had, we wanted the original theme from, you know, the 1987 show. In fact, you know, for a while, just playing the game before, you know, we had that theme in the game, and I thought that's what we were going to do. We were going to license that theme.
    24:17
    And we would have, but Nickelodeon insisted that we have the tune that's in there now. And so we switched, and it's not the same tune, and for a day or two, it's like, well, this isn't the same tune. What the hell? but then, you know, sorry about I swearing. You're fine. We allow hell on here. Okay, alright. So I'm like, well but then after playing it a little bit I really like the new tune. It's not even that new anymore. We've had it in the game for months but it grows on you and it fits and it's fun.
    24:53
    But other than that, Nickelodeon has been a dream to work with. They've wanted us to say in every single thing we did, like we, for, you know, like, you know, every art we did or in the display or every piece of sound or music or speech that we did, they wanted to hear it, and they had notes, but they were really, I mean, compared to other licensors, they were really easy to work with. Like, they would say, you want more, you know, we think Raphael should be more like this or more like that, and we would then get new auditions and Jerry and I would go through new auditions and then pick three more and send them to Nickelodeon and Nickelodeon would say, yeah, that sounds alright, let's do that. And that worked pretty well.
    25:40
    In general, so you asked about actors, so we have 17 characters in this game and there was no way that we could afford, we would have had to take the glider out of the game to afford the original cast for all 17 characters. So we had to figure out other ways to get that done, but it was still really important for us and Nickelodeon for it to sound great. So like Shredder was very difficult and Raphael was very difficult.
    26:12
    Crane, they passed without a single note. And Crane was done by our Tom Kizadat. It was Art Crang. The Kizibat brothers, Brothers Kizibat, I like to call them, they were Shredder and Crang and a couple of the other voices.
    26:29
    They did a great job. Shredder we had to do twice. The Nickelodeon didn't like the first pass, so we went back and did it again, and then they loved the first pass. They had no notes. Out of 17 characters, there was only one character they had no notes for, and that was Crang, and that was really good. well and mark silk did a fantastic job and he did like four or five of the characters yeah big shout out to mark silk mark so so mark so you know i met him at expo you know last expo um and before that we were talking on you know email and stuff and i've known that he wanted to do a game and i'm like well let's try to get him in the game and um and i knew we were going to have lots of characters at some point and i'm like well hopefully he can do two or three of these you and we'll see. And it turns out he did. He did Splinter, you know, like one of our main narrators, and he did a couple of the other voices, at least three or four voices.
    27:25
    And he did a great job from what I've heard. Yeah, he did great. So lead us through the different modes of the game. Like tell me, you don't have to go through the surprise ones, but say I'm walking up to the game and you're like, okay, now you can take this path, you can take this path, and these are the first three or four modes that you want to consider starting, and that will lead to this.
    27:50
    So it's not quite like Star Wars where there are clear paths, you know, through the modes. All four Turtles, you know, have all eight modes.
    28:01
    Where the Turtles differ is in how they enhance the game and how they enhance scoring and what pinball things they do, like they give you a bonus multiplier and stuff.
    28:12
    and they help you with ball save and what they start at the beginning. So, like, for example, like Leo, Leo lights training. The way you normally light training is you hit the layer bank, and then the first time you hit it, it lights training, and then the second time you hit it, it lights playfield multiplier. So since Leo lights training, it's lit when you push start. So if you want to get your multiplier going right off the bat, you can spell layer, and it'll give you a multiplier right off the bat since training is already lit. so there's stuff like that. Michelangelo is similar. Michelangelo, so the April bank, the first thing it does is lights battle again, but Michelangelo lights battle again. So if you pick Michelangelo and you have battle again lit because you picked him, or, you know, at the beginning of your ball, your first ball, then April will start one of her hurry-ups first instead. So those are subtle little paths like that, nuances like that, that are kind of interesting once you get to know the game. And one of the things that I've only heard on the Stern Insider podcast, but I'm surprised you guys really haven't been pushing anywhere else, is that you guys took into account April O'Neill and making sure she wasn't tied up or anything like that. Because even though it's a 1987 show and there are some goofy tropes from that show, you made sure that it was still time appropriate. And I think that's very impressive. Was that just something that got thrown out one day, or was it just something that was kind of leading the charge as you went into the project? No, that was – so early on, before we have a Whitewood, we started – the team is now four or five of us. There's the Brothers Kizzabat are way into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And so the Brothers Kizzabat, Tom – or John, Elliot, and I are all in a room. we're brainstorming, you know, what are the different tropes that we're going to have in this game? Like, what are the different, you know, like, clearly at some point somebody needs to be rescued, and at another point, you know, Shredder's going to try and use his mutagenry, and we're going to bring the Mausers in, and what are the different themes that are going to be in this game? And April and how April was going, what April was going to do changed several times. Like, you know, we started with, well, what she does in 1987 is not really what we want to do. We don't want her all helpless and tied up and kind of ditzy. We wanted her, you know, she's a story. We leaned into the fact that she's a news reporter. And, in fact, in the very first few episodes, she's very heavy. Like, I want to get the story. So we made her all about trying to get the story. so her April Hurry Up is can be stacked with anything else going on in the game so if you have an episode or a multi-ball or both going on she's worth more depending on what else you have going on because there's more for her to report on and that I thought was pretty unique and pretty fun So one thing I noticed in the layout and some people have brought this up and I wanted to get your take on it so the side targets as opposed to like four or three different individual side targets. They're big single side targets. How does that affect the way you approach the coding? Because that does make it a little different when you don't have to hit three different ones versus you can hit the same one a few times. So you guys are being nice.
    31:43
    So there's a lot of people that don't like those really wide targets, but John and I are not among them. So early, early on, on Munsters and on Turtles, John's like, hey, what do you think about big wide targets right here? Because he likes them, and so do I. I like having moments in the game when that bank is blinking for something you need to do, and all you have to do is hit anything in the bank. And I know that we could do that with stand-ups, but there are several advantages to having the big wide long target. and one of them is it's psychologically easier to hit. Even though it's not, it just seems like it's easier to hit than any one of these three stand-ups or four stand-ups. The other cool thing about it is you can put artwork all the way across it, and sometimes, like, if you want to do April, April is five letters, but there's no way we could easily fit five stand-ups in that space. So you kind of, you know, you have to go to this plan anyway. You have to do one big long target, which is fine with me. And the other half of your question was, well, how do you program for that? And I would program them very similarly. Even if I had individual targets, I don't like – I mean, I guess I've done it in the past where, you know, you hit a target and you get that light, and you hit a target and you get that light, and you've got to spell out whatever word is there. And I kind of like spelling out words in order because, like, you quickly can glance over and go, oh, I've got three of the five, and, you know, I'm working my way down. I guess maybe it's an OCD thing. but I prefer that over you know over spelling things out in the wrong order and I mean I know there's no such thing as wrong in this case but it's just in my head there is and so and it's never really bothered me like I know like I used to play pinball all growing up and I know there's spell outs on thousands of machines you know with stand ups that are like what people you know like that but it's just it doesn't bother me that that's missing well and honestly if this game's a little faster and a little more I don't want to say brutal but it's a little harder to play the side to side action a lot of people aren't going to go for so if you make that target a little bit easier for them too they might actually go for it versus just getting rid you know unless it's really really important they're like you know it's not worth my time a lot of people would ignore those just because any sort of cross action in a game You're at danger. And so you really want to get more of a vertical as opposed to a horizontal action on the ball.
    34:21
    Right. But people didn't like it on Munster, so I took that into consideration when I was planning out the rules for Turtles. So I did a couple things that I think mitigate the complaints. And one of them is I made it so that the letters time out. So, like, if you spell, you know, APR and you're on your way to spelling April, right, and if you don't keep tickling that target for, you know, every few seconds, it'll time out on you and then you're reset back to the beginning. You're also reset back to the beginning at the beginning of each wall.
    34:58
    And so you get to do it twice. Like, so you spell April and she lights battle again, and then you spell April again and she'll start to hurry up. And then she goes into a mode where the light's moving back and forth, and you can't spell April for a while until you play an episode or until you start another episode. So you have to pace them out and plan them better, and you can't just sit there and get them for all day long. And you have to stack them correctly with whatever you're wanting to do.
    35:31
    I like the single bank target. I mean, I don't know. It brings a different variance to the game than the same old, same old. So I like that you're taking all these into consideration. It's not just feedback from a person or two. You know, it's from multiple past games and stuff like that. It's awesome that you do so much back research to make each game better and better from there.
    35:56
    Thanks. now your last two games you actually had these big uh these big modifications that came out later after the game came up and famously uh ghostbusters came up but we know that wasn't your issue because it was a scheduling issue uh but you changed a lot with ghostbusters and really uh nuanced that rule set you also did the same thing with game of thrones and so how how does that come about How is the philosophy of, you know what, we need to modify these rule sets, and you saying, hey, this is what I would like to change it to. How does that work?
    36:35
    Good question. So those – what happens is I get it in my head that I want to – because you're never done designing a game. You know, just at some point they take the game away from you and they start putting it in the box. And then at some point you move on and you start working on another game. But you always have more ideas and more things you want to do, always. And so at some point you're like, well, it'd be really cool if I could do this or do that.
    37:07
    And, you know, like right now I'm working on Turtles, but I'm also working on the game after Turtles, the game that I'm going to come out with, you know, sometime down the road.
    37:19
    But so right now I don't have any time. But if I do get time, I would love to go back. I'm always wanting to go back and work on something else, enhance some other game. And luckily I got that chance last summer to work on Ghostbusters and Game of Thrones. They actually gave me Tanya for a while, so I got to do both at the same time. I was working on Game of Thrones, and Tanya was working on Ghostbusters, but I was sort of designing both.
    37:45
    If that comes up again, I'll work on past games any chance I get. It's just a matter of timing. There always priorities and as long as I getting my job done and getting my current game done and I have some time before my next game needs me to actually start typing stuff my bosses don care what I do So speaking of coding and with the coronavirus and everything happening did that help further the code along for Teenage Mutant Turtles Like how close are we to 1 We're pretty close to 1.0. It helped. So it didn't give me any more time, right? Like the amount of work that I had to do five months ago didn't change. And we've been working, you know, long hours for the last couple of months, me and the other programmers and the artists and Jerry have been working long hours for like a couple of months to try to get the game done. So it didn't change the amount of work I had to do or when I was going to be done. What changed was what the code looked like when it first goes in a box. And the stream the other day, I think people figured out that it was like 0.92, and we're pretty close. So in that stream, we had three wizard modes that were kind of rough and not really finished. And when those get finished and some are polished and score balancing happens and some more lap effects, I'm going to call it 1.0.
    39:11
    Well, and the other question with that, too, is now that software is kind of – I'm trying to think how to put this. do you think this will be like a one time thing because I know a lot of time when the games come out the code is kind of like .56 or .6 whatever you want to say do you think that will help the rest of the software be a little more closer to 1.0 on future releases yeah so it's our objective to be at 1.0 and the game first goes in a box most of the time and we've been trying really hard to get there now we got a setback here and there, like Stranger Things, you know, it didn't quite work out the way we wanted it to, but if you go back, I think you see that Monsters was pretty close to done, and most of my games have been pretty close to complete when they first go into box.
    40:02
    While we still are wanting to do updates after that and add things to the games after that, complete in 1.0 is what we're calling the same thing. So it's important to us going forward to try to have every game be at 1.0 or very close to 1.0 when it first goes in the box. And for example, we just hired Raymond Davidson to help us with that task, to help us to add the software, another software person, to our team to get things done on time.
    40:31
    Tell me a little more about the co-op mode. It seems like that's a natural with having the turtles. You have four players typically in a game, and if you're all competing for the same thing, tell me how that interacts with each other i will i will um you said it's a natural so like so co-op has become a thing since like scott denisi kind of brought it back but co-op isn't a new thing but scott you know kind of brought it back with tna and um i played tna and then and that was pretty cool and i'm like you know what we need to do that and then every about the same time i started hearing from lots of other conversations people saying co-op should come back and i'm like well i'm gonna try and bring it back and then and then i started thinking about turtles and i'm like you know what turtles you're right turtles is pretty natural you know you know it does sell really well with with co-op because there's four players four player co-op four turtles you know it it's it it works out really well um what was the other half your question uh well that was it it was just it seems like uh it's getting back to those uh those button master days where everybody you know they had like four or five different of those games where everybody had to play you know the simpsons everybody played a different thing but they're all going toward the same goal that seems to be a natural fit for the hearkening back to the old arcade games too and i know you said you didn't really look too much into it but this felt very similar to it i actually have the arcade games in my basement so i really like that approach one other question I have too is Keith put like a kind of a fast mode escape from Nublar mode or something like that would you consider doing something like that in any of your games I would absolutely consider it so like I love that Keith works for us I think Keith is amazing he's a fresh he's a breath of fresh air and rules and I try to steal things from him every day I love the Nubar thing, but I think that he sort of, I mean, while his is unique and different and cool in its own way, but Are You a God kind of started that whole thread. So I'm going to take some credit for having modes that, you know, having a way to play it in a deeper mode at the beginning of the game. And yes, so Turtles, right now when you walk up to Turtles, between games, you can hold in both flipper buttons, and that will bring a menu up on the screen, and the menu will give you several different ways to play the game. It will give you standard or co-op or competitive or co-op plus competitive. And a little side note there, I'm really hoping that someday people will play 4v4 tournaments where you and your three friends try to best you can and compare your scores versus four other guys who played co-op Turtles. But the other gameplay modes that you can do in Turtles right now is team play. You can do 2v2 team play, 2v1 and 3v1 team play. And then I'm hoping that maybe somewhere down the road after 1.0, I'll get a chance to add a Nooblar or a Are You a God type mode to Turtles as well. That is awesome. That would come up in that menu. That would be one more game mode that you could choose from that menu. That would be amazing. I know Gomez said that internet connectivity probably won't be a possibility with this game can you give us any hope at all that it might or is it it's probably not going to be on Ninja Turtles it will not be on Ninja Turtles I can't speak to that very much connectivity is a big thing that we've been working on and planning toward for quite a while and it did get put on hold because of COVID. COVID put a pin in that for now and right now we're just trying to get the factory back and going. We're just trying to get up and running. As soon as we get connectivity going,
    44:36
    pretty cool things are going to happen. So we can't ask you if it's going to retrofit to older games or if it's just going to be pretty much from when you guys unveiled? We're going to try our best to make it as cool as possible. Okay. Good enough. No, you're fine. So I have a comment and a question. This is actually from Sarah Line, Mrs. Pin.
    44:59
    She said, tell Dwight hi, and she wants to know who your favorite turtle is. Okay. Hi, Sarah. Mrs. Pin.
    45:10
    I'm a big fan of her. So my favorite turtle in the game is Raphael because Raphael, you know, and he's kind of a bruiser. I kind of like Raphael in general, I think. Even though I identify with Donatello because Donatello is a nerd and makes gadgets and he's nerdy like me and probably all programmers. But outwardly, I think I'm more like Raphael. It's probably not true, but anyway, in the game I like Raphael because Raphael lights episodes. And episodes, if you're not Raphael, you have to work to light each episode.
    45:46
    And so I like pushing start and right off the bat I can shoot into the pizza parlor. lock a ball and start an episode and I'm halfway to getting an extra ball. And that's, that's why I picked Raphael. But, but I think turtle, I think Raphael is my favorite turtle, even from the show.
    46:05
    I know that you guys kind of talked about this on the stream, but are you going to put more Casey Jones in, or is it going to be pretty much just what it is because he wasn't really much in the first three seasons? So it's the, it's the letter. so Casey Jones is a good example of stuff that was on the whiteboard so early on we're like writing down on the whiteboard everything that's cool about the turtles and of course Casey Jones takes up a quarter of the whiteboard and but then when we started doing more and more research we're like well he doesn't really play a role in all these stories I mean we can't leave him out you know so we have to because he was going to get his own target bank and maybe instead of Lair it was going to be you know, Casey Jones or Casey or whatever spelling over there. And it would be like, you know, he would be a guy that would come along and help you out. And that all kind of got cut to the cutting room floor when we, along with lots of other things, lots of other cool ideas, when we, you know, when we had to pare the game down and decide exactly what are we putting in the game. And we really wanted to stay faithful to those early episodes, those first couple seasons. so Casey so then we invented this we invented one of the wizard modes in fact the first of three wizard modes called Teema and we're like well okay so each you know instead of having you know instead of having April tied to a chair and you have to go rescue April we're going to have Shredder kidnaps you know three of the turtles the three turtles that you are not and you have to go rescue them and you know what are you going to do you're going to call up one of your friends you're going to call somebody to help you and they're going to come and help you in this wizard mode. And so each of the four turtles has a different team up that they team up with and Raphael teams up with Casey Jones.
    47:54
    That's awesome. And I love the team up mode too. I think that's very brilliant having Raphael team up with Casey Jones and Leonardo with Splinter and Donatello with Metalhead and then Mikey with the Neutrino. I know a lot of people look at that and go, who the heck is this guy? But he's like the fourth episode in and he's very prominent to most of the stories throughout all the history of Ninja Turtles. Yeah, well, the Neutrinos are badass. They drive a really cool car that flies and shoots lasers out of the front. So, like, how do you not put that in the game? I agree. By the way, Sarah said that you can continue to be friends with her because that was a test, and hers favorite is Raphael, too.
    48:36
    Oh, wow. You're talking to her right now? I texted her. She, well, okay. So through Sticker Mule or whatever, who did I order stuff from? It's the swag store.
    48:49
    Okay. So what's that? Well, it's actually, it's merchandise that you can order for your own stuff. So it's a Sticker Mule. So I got a whole bunch of stickers right before the coronavirus. So I have like 500 stickers that I can give out at shows and just hand to people or mail to them or whatever. and so there was actually a um they have little promos and one of the promos that came up this week was little uh earring things and so i said that uh she could order the earrings and she's like absolutely just mail uh email me or uh mail the loser kid logo to me and she will make them for me and so we've just been talking today about uh making swag for for everybody including everybody who wears earrings.
    49:33
    Well, you know, not for me, but I think that's a cool idea. You know, you can pierce anything. It's fine. Just put it anywhere.
    49:41
    That's some TMI right there, buddy. I didn't say I had one. I'm just saying it's possible. I'm going to be careful. If you ever see Scott piercing a person, you've got to ask him all the piercings. Yeah, exactly. Zero is That is the answer. So, okay, I actually want to talk a little more about your history in pinball. But, Josh, this is your baby, so I want to make sure you get all of your questions, your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle love in before we switch gears a little bit. I have a the coolest rule ever thing I want to talk about too. Okay, go ahead. Go for it. All right, so the coolest rule ever. And, of course, you guys, so, I mean, I probably talked about this with the insiders. and I'm telling this to everybody that will listen. But I think one of the innovative things that I made on, because like Scott Denise, he made really cool co-op mode. And I had to figure out, well, how do I improve on that? And I don't know if I did or not. I just think I did in my own head. And so here's what I did was in addition to sharing your progress, because, of course, co-op shares your progress, and it's very nice. Like, when you, you know, like, if you play, if you go first and you play an episode, and then on my turn, I've already had that episode played. I don't have to play it. I can, you know, I only need, you know, I need one less to get to the next wizard mode. And so that's, of course, you know, sharing the progress. That's like, you know, like what he did with the reactors. But I wanted to do one more thing. I wanted to figure out something I could do that was different. And what I did was this. so what I wanted to do was like when you're playing your ball you can light something or enable something on somebody else's ball you know so like on somebody you know like you could help out your teammate with something cool you did and I kept it I ended up keeping it kind of simple I had lots of really complex ideas and if I try to explain all this to you right now you're still going to think this is pretty complex but it's not if you are sitting in front of a game so what happens is when you make your skill shot, you light weapon for yourself. In co-op, you light weapon for yourself, but you also enable lighting a weapon for everybody else that follows you that fall.
    52:03
    So player one gets up, makes his skill shot, lights weapon, and then, you know, plays weapon or not, it doesn't matter, but if he plays weapon, he'll get two cascading hurry-ups, and then he's done. Player two comes up, and if he makes a skill shot, he'll light weapon for himself. But since player one made his skill shot, he'll get four hurry-ups in a row. You know, he'll get his two plus player one's two.
    52:29
    All right, are you guys following me? Yeah, yeah. All right, so that keeps following. So player three could get six, and player four could get eight. If all the moons align and the four players create a perfect storm. So that makes players, not only before the game starts are they discussing, all right, you're going to be Rafael, and I'm going to be Leo, and you're going to be Donatello, because we're each better at these different shots and so forth. But you're also going to discuss, well, who should go first, second, third, and fourth? Because whoever bats fourth might get put in the position to try to get eight straight hurry-ups.
    53:05
    Coolest rule ever. Yeah, that seems like a – it's almost like a relay race, that you have to pick the strongest guy to be your anchor. Right, right, right. So that's when you get Keith Owen to play in the practice room, and you're like, Keith, we need you to be fourth right now.
    53:20
    Well, Raymond's currently number one, so maybe you want Raymond. I'll take either one on my team. I don't care. Yeah, you can pretty fierce force him out of the employees from Stern now.
    53:33
    Right, right. But that's, like, speaking of Keith, though, that's the 3v1 mode. The 3v1 mode is three players versus Keith, or in the pin household, right, it's all the girls versus Chris. Yeah.
    53:49
    So it can go either way. I think the 3v1 is going to be just as fun as the co-op in some households.
    53:57
    I totally agree, especially I think it was on the pinball show they were talking about. A lot of us that are pinheads play a lot more, and the families get discouraged to play with us because of the long ball time. So between co-op and three versus one, it could really refresh the atmosphere of pinball in our own homes.
    54:15
    Yeah, no, it's a great way of helping out, especially a kid who gets interested in pinball. You're like, hey, you can team up with mom or dad.
    54:25
    Right, right. Or all of us versus the game. Yeah. Versus Dwight. Yeah. Heck yes. Bring it. Bring it on. I'll take everybody on. All I can say is I'm excited to get this game in my home. I've dreamt of Ninja Turtles machine that isn't the Data East one for years now and this is honestly a dream come true I know Zach Menny said it's done great for you guys already he said that within four hours all LEs were sold out and that hasn't happened since Jurassic Park it's already got a good track record it seems like it's brewing the perfect storm for you guys so yeah I'm loving it I'm glad you're loving it because that is amazing I know Scott wants to talk about some of it Let's dive into some of your older stuff now that I have all my Ninja Turtle questions out of the way.
    55:12
    Well, I wanted to hear a little more about how did you get involved in gaming? How did you get involved in pinball and exactly the twists and turns in your career to come to Stern?
    55:25
    Wow. So that's a long podcast. So I've been at this for over 30 years. in 1989 I started working at Williams and that's a story in itself like you know you should edit out all these uns and ins and outs and I'm sorry so like exactly where do you want to begin because I could go back to as a teenager I used to ride a bike up to the bowling alley to play Playboy Pinball Machine or I used to ride a bike to you know to the airport to play Gorgar and other games and then as a late team, like after I got a car,
    56:07
    my buddy and I, we would go to the arcade instead of doing anything else and play whatever they had there. But the arcade would be packed full of video games and like Dragon's Lair and stuff. And instead of playing Dragon's Lair, I was into playing Grand Lizard at high speed. And high speed is the game that then really pulled me in They made me realize that pinball has got more stuff going on than just keeping the ball alive. There's a story there. There's objectives. There's goals. And I'm like, that's really when I got hooked was when playing high speed.
    56:40
    And then at some point, then fast forward, I'm now in college, and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my life. And I interview at Williams, and I'm fortunate enough to land a job and start working on billboard machines. And and it's really it was really surreal. I really had a comment by the tail and
    57:04
    you know, it was just took off from there. So what were you studying in college and where did you go to college Like what was your proximity to Williams Because that was pre pre easy way of contacting companies That was the old phone book or mailing something away. Right. So I stumbled into it just haphazardly like I do most of my life, which is sad to say. So I was in college. I went to DeVry University. I grew up in Michigan, and I went to Eastern Michigan University for a few months, and it wasn't really for me. I was too immature for college right out of high school. So I stopped going to college for a while, and I took on like three or four jobs delivering pizzas and stuff like that. And eventually I'm like, you know what, I've got to get out of here. I've got to get out of this town. I got to go do something. So I start seeing these commercials for DeVry University, and I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do that. I'm going to take whatever money I have, and I'm going to pour it into, you know, getting a college education. And I do that. And then near the end of my DeVry, you know, college career, you know, the counselors at the school start sending me on job fairs. And, you know, like I get a suit, and I get some resumes, and I start going to job fairs. and I got a date mixed up with my counselor, and I went to the wrong job fair. And I forget the lady I talked to, but, like, I was at a job fair, but it was not for entry-level people. It was for people already established in the software world or the electronic world. My degree was a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering Technology. It's not quite the same as a double E degree, and it's sort of somewhere in between.
    58:58
    So I'm trying to get an interview for someone somewhere here in Chicago, and I show up at the wrong job fair. But I'm still in my suit, and I've got a binder full of resumes, and I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to go practice interviewing and hell with it. And everyone keeps saying, no, I'm sorry, we're not hiring entry-level people. Sorry, we're not hiring entry-level people. And finally I talked to one lady who said, you know what, you know who's looking for people all the time? And she hooked me up with Ed Sahaki's phone number. And Ed Sahaki worked for Williams, and he was the head of the software department at Williams. And I called him, and I said, hey, you know, so-and-so just gave me your number, and I'd love to come and chat with you. And he said, no problem. So we set it up. We set up a time and a date.
    59:44
    And I put my suit back on, and I go down there, and I interview with Larry DeMar, Mark Panaccio, and Bill Fitzgerald. And those are old names from the past that, you know, you may or may not know. So, and that was, and I brought with me all kinds of stuff that I've done, like programs I had wrote on my Commodore 64 and programs I wrote on my Macintosh and games I had designed and artwork that I had made. And I laid it all out on the table and they hired me. It was pretty awesome.
    60:17
    So I see on your history, I mean, going through Williams and Midway. and what was the first game you started on and when was the first time you were a lead program designer?
    60:30
    So you're a lead almost right off the bat. So you start training, right? So they threw a mouse around in my office and I started. So Larry DeMar is down the hallway from me and one of my first encounters with Larry DeMar is he's writing Apple at the time because we're about to go from System 11 to System 12 and he's writing the operating system for System 12 and it's called Apple, right? And he's trying to figure out how does, you know, what the algorithm is for leap years. And it actually turns out to be pretty interesting and it's much more involved than most people think. And so he's, because he's wanting to make sure that, you know, that when we cross over into the year 2000, that all Apple machines still, you know, do the right thing.
    61:15
    And so they put a mouse around in my room I mean, one of the first things I start doing is playing with that and start making different 16-segment display effects. So I start making cool wipes and stuff on the 16-segment displays. And then the next thing they have me training on is I help Brian Eddy make pool sharks. And pool sharks, so Brian started about six months before I did. And so then he and I start working on pool sharks, and I start doing that a little bit. But then as soon as they needed somebody to work on Riverbrook Gambler, they paired me up with Ward Pemberton, and Ward and I made Riverbrook Gambler. And from that point forward, I've been a lead in programming, just like less than a year after starting at Williams.
    62:02
    And that's a really fun game. I actually stumbled across one in my own town, and it's very unique. It's very different. I was one of the fortunate ones to actually have the diamond plate play field. I guess there wasn't very many of those made for that game. Yeah, it's when we first started figuring out Diamond Play.
    62:20
    So my question is, were you ecstatic to be on Getaway, considering that's one of the games that you played growing up at the airport and whatnot? Yeah, I was.
    62:32
    Mark Bonaccio and Steve are making Getaway, or they were getting started on it. And we also were tinkering around with doing a dot matrix. And Mark Monaccio was working on all the hardware, not the hardware, but the software to go with the underlying dot matrix work.
    62:56
    Because that's right about where we are in 1991 or so, 1990. So then Gary, or not Gary, Mark Monaccio and Steve Ritchie sort of have a fight. So several things happen all at once.
    63:12
    Mark Bonaccio and Steve are not, you know, are not on the best of terms. And then T2 falls in our lap as, you know, as a company. We were able to do T2. And then Steve and a bunch of other people go out and meet with James Cameron and learn all about T2. And they decide to shelve Getaway and do T2 instead. And then Mark Bonaccio and Steve have a huge fight. and Mark's never going to work with Steve again. So they take the new guy, me, and I'm now working on T2 as my second game with Steve Ritchie. And that's a whole story in itself. But, you know, that was a lot of fun. And we make T2, and I'm not even vaguely aware of Getaway at the time. Like, I'm not sure what the other teams are doing, you know, down the hall or around the corner from me in my office. I was still kind of, you know, not really paying attention or not, you know, not read in.
    64:13
    I didn't really know that Getaway was sort of shelved in that whole story. But then when T2 was a huge success, Steve pulled, you know, pulled some of his Getaway drawings down off the board, you know, off the shelf, and then he and I did Getaway. And I'm like, that was a dream come true because, like, high speed, you know, was the game that pulled me in, and I'm now making Getaway. We would have meetings at Steve's house. And Steve, like, so we would be over there for, like, two or three hours, you know, and it was supposed to be to figure out what to do on getaway because Steve had a high speed in his basement. And so we would go and we would look at his high speed. But we would spend 95% of the time looking at Steve's really cool stereo equipment and his giant screen TV and stuff like that. And, you know, that was that. But I ended up buying that high speed from Steve. So that was, like, that was pretty amazing, too. It was like I owned Steve Ritchie's High Speed, the game that got me into pinball, you know, somewhere about the time that we were making Getaway.
    65:13
    That is awesome. Did you end up having him sign it too? I don't know if he did sign it. Lyman Sheath now has that game.
    65:22
    So, you know, but Lyman has said that he's filled it to me. So it'll come back to me if Lyman ever, you know, kicks the bucket. it. So what was your most memorable experience of working in the, uh, the Valley Williams?
    65:39
    Wow. Um, um, so there's one memorable experience. So that, I mean, there's lots, so we went out, so we made getaway and then we went to the, to the, like, so we made getaway like six months after we made T2, we made, so it was, it was Williams, like back-to-back games. It was T2 and then Getaway, and we sold like 15,000 T2s. And then we went to the Vegas show, and almost sight unseen, you know, we sold 13,000 Getaways. It was incredible.
    66:12
    And then while we were in Vegas, Larry DeMar put me in a car and drove me over to one of the casinos. And one of the casino signs, the silver dollar, I think the name of the casino was, and the sign on the outside, like sitting in the parking lot, you could see their sign, and how the sign is constantly changing between the new features that they have and you should come into their casino and check it out. And one of the things that they were advertising was their new arcade featuring T2 Pinball. Wow.
    66:40
    Yeah, that was pretty cool. That is way cool. You're a star with your name in the lights. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's me on the Vegas trip. Oh, yeah. Right next to Siegfried and Roy, right?
    66:54
    Right, right up there. right just like like segfri and roy and then dwight sullivan no no it's t2 pinball yes right how much has it changed from those early ballet years to now when coming to software and whatnot is it more i mean i assume it's a lot more labor intensive intensive but is there a lot more collaboration as well well yeah so like collaboration comes and goes like star trek next generation had an amazing amount of collaboration like like so like t2 steve made these really cool toys and awesome kinetics and but Steve and I had a great relationship sometimes like at the end of every project I pretty much swore to myself I'm never ever working with Steve again but we made like six games so so you know we you know that that I would always forget that I was you know an idiot like I don't know so but the collaboration with Steve was always you know like like Steve would Steve the line was very clear like Steve made really cool kinetics and toys and stuff but mostly I came up with the rules and whatnot, but on Star Trek The Next Generation, he's a big fan of Star Trek The Next Generation. And so it was a huge collaborative effort. And that's a lot like Turtles too. Turtles has been a huge collaborative effort where everybody just kind of poured tons of work into it and tons of thoughts and ideas and bouncing off each other.
    68:13
    I forgot your question. I was just asking if times had kind of changed going from... Oh, right, right, right, right. Right. So the collaborative part of it hasn't changed. Like sometimes I kind of take the reins and I pretty much handle most of the rules and oversee everything that's not nailed down. And sometimes it's hugely collaborative.
    68:34
    And for different varying results, sometimes that's good, sometimes it's not. But the actual job itself has changed quite a bit. We do way more in the games. So, like, T2, you know, only has really one multiball. It only has one little set of rules and only one hurry-up, and it doesn't have any modes and so forth. And today, you know, we have, you know, you're not a game unless you have, like, eight modes and two multiballs and two hurry-ups and all these other features and stuff. It's a modern pinball machine requires many more things than it used to. And we have pros and premiums and LEs, and that all adds more complexity to everything and challenge. and the LCD screen adds quite a bit. It's very much the same game, the same thing that I used to do, but it's also very different.
    69:21
    Now, you also weathered the storm in the dark days, basically in the 2003 on until about 2010. Tell me about that time.
    69:33
    Yeah, so at Williams, well, so even before then, the storm first started in the late 90s. In the late 90s, we were, you know, like a cloud. Dark clouds are over our heads, and people are getting laid off every three of our months. And, you know, and then we had Pinball 2000, and we thought Pinball 2000 was going to save the day. And then, of course, it didn't, and they shut the doors.
    70:01
    And then I go to Stern, and I'm thinking, okay, we've got a fresh start. And for a couple of years, things were okay at Stern. but then things kind of, you know, slowly died down again and things were bad again. And clearly, you know, we're not great. And then Stern laid me off again. So I don't know if you guys know, but from 2008 to 2014, I went back to Williams and made slot machines for a few years. I was wondering why there was that gap there in your history.
    70:29
    Yeah, that's why. Gotcha. You know, like not many pinball machines at all were made. And then so I 2008, you know, I left Stern and and then George brought me back in 2000 at the end of 2014.
    70:45
    So tell me about having I would say that pinball in the last 10 years has been more fun than at any other time. That would be my guess, just because everything seems to be exponentially changing every year. And it seems like it's on a crescendo as opposed to a decrescendo. So I could be projecting, but I want to get your take.
    71:09
    I like things that are complex. So back in the 90s, I was one of the people that made games more and more complex. I mean, you know, we tried it like teacher, like Star Trek Next Generation was far more complex than T2, right? And we and all of the other teams were doing something similar. They were we were all packing more and more stuff into the games. and what we did was we took the crowd of people that were standing around the T2, like they were two, three people deep trying to wait to play T2 and we took that crowd of people and we pulled them down this path but along the way, we made the path narrower and narrower and people fell off and we really didn't notice at first but eventually it caught up with us and we made the games too complex for the time.
    71:56
    So now I'm back in a world where we are making amazingly complex games But it's much better because, you know, a lot of the big percentage of our games go to their basements and people want complex. People want depth. People want all kinds of options and choosing things and, you know, stuff that never would have flown in the second, the 90s.
    72:15
    So so I'm I'm loving that quite a bit. It probably has made a difference, too, in that there's a better way of sharing information now. And so, you know, you have streamers, you have the Internet, you have any way of saying, hey, did you guys see this and you can share it? There really wasn't that in the 90s. I mean, there was basically trade magazines or your your buddy at the cafeteria.
    72:39
    No, correct. Yeah, we that's a that's a huge, important fact that you're talking about. Like we today, you know, I have beta testers. I have people like that, that that I trust. And so the game goes out there, and we continue working on it. We get feedback instantly from people all over the world on what they like and what they don't like and what they hate about your game. And you weigh all those options, and you decide whether or not to improve it or how to fix it or how to make it better. And that's all much faster because the world's much shorter, much smaller than it used to be. And you have that feedback loop, which didn't even exist in the 90s. Well, we've taken plenty of your time, Dwight. I know that we like to keep these around an hour to an hour and a half. So we got to get wrapping it up. I got to go pick up my son from soccer practice. But is there anything else you want to share with us before we shut this down?
    73:34
    No, I had a good time. And, you know, I would do this again if you want, anytime you want. Absolutely. Thanks a lot for coming on. We certainly would be happy to help you out with any code testing since we are both getting them. and I'd be interested to see what Josh thinks of his pro and what I think of my premium. And we also want to send you out a Loser Kid hat. So send us your information, and we will definitely get one out for you. Okay. You can send it to me at work. Awesome. We will definitely do that. And I look forward to having a hat. Is this going to be like the beanie kind of hat, like I see Keith wear? Okay. Which one do you want? I have three in my possession. I have the black one. I have the beanie one with the puffy ball, and I also have the original gangster hat. I don't know what a gangster hat is. Is it a ball cap? It's just a baseball hat. Yeah, it's a ball cap. Right. I'll take the baseball hat.
    74:34
    Awesome. And I ask that you guys be brutally honest with your feedback. Definitely. Absolutely. Well, we'll be constructive. That's the – our attitude is we are trying to make sure things are positive and for change. And it doesn't necessarily have to mean that we like everything, but there has to be a method to the critique. If you like it because of this, then it's a way of changing direction.
    75:05
    I really hate the constant negativity I see with many – with much of the hobby. and I would rather it be driven to a more positive angle, I guess.
    75:18
    Yeah, so constructive criticism, brutally honest, great genuine feedback. That's great. And then at the same time, if I take in your suggestion and I say, no, I'm not going to do that, you have to not be pissed at me. Yeah, I'm not going to get pissed. Okay, all right. And I think you guys are pretty cool. You're not losers at all. well thank you we just made some shirts that say losing at life winning at pinball alright cool I like it thanks for letting me do this thanks so much
    76:10
    Bye.