Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Ep 157: Stern's D&D with Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 24m·analyzed·Jan 2, 2025
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Brian Eddy & Dwight Sullivan discuss D&D pinball design, mechanics, and Insider Connected progression system.

Summary

Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan discuss Stern Pinball's Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye, revealing design philosophy that blends D&D lore with pinball mechanics. The game features a complex dragon toy, three-flipper layout, character progression via Insider Connected, and weekly randomized dungeons. Pro/Premium/LE variants differentiate the dragon toy complexity, with the Premium version featuring full articulation and ball-spitting capability.

Key Claims

  • Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye is available now in Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition variants

    high confidence · Josh Roop opening segment discussing release day and LE/Premium/Pro availability through Flipping Out Pinball

  • The game uses Insider Connected to allow players to pick up where they left off across games, with character progression saved (levels, gold, accomplishments)

    high confidence · Dwight Sullivan explaining the two-part gameplay model (one-shot vs. campaign mode)

  • The story 'The Tyrant's Eye' was written by Zach Gross and Dwight Sullivan and is an original Stern creation, not based on an existing D&D campaign

    high confidence · Brian Eddy clarifying that The Tyrant's Eye is Stern's custom campaign using D&D universe elements (Faeron, monsters)

  • The game features three flippers, with the upper flipper positioned above the gelatinous cube mechanic to allow soft feeds

    high confidence · Brian Eddy discussing layout philosophy and the three-flipper design inherited from Shadow

  • The dragon toy on Premium/LE can move up/down and left/right via two stepper motors, spit balls from its mouth, and block shots; Pro version dragon is up/down only, non-spitting

    high confidence · Brian Eddy detailing dragon specs across tiers; Pro dragon is 'bash toy,' Premium dragon is fully articulated

  • Weekly dungeon layouts are generated server-side on Sundays and distributed via Insider Connected to all machines globally, using a random seed system

    high confidence · Dwight Sullivan explaining dungeon crawl feature: 'everybody everywhere will play the exact same dungeon for that week. And then it changes on Sunday.'

  • The game supports local co-op play for two human players on the same machine, with a four-person party (two human-controlled, two AI-assigned)

    high confidence · Dwight Sullivan: 'Josh could come play his paladin... and the two of you could play together. The game would assign two more characters'

Notable Quotes

  • “We just made a pinball machine like we've done a thousand times where we draw from that story and make modes and multiballs and so forth, make a regular pinball machine.”

    Brian Eddy — Core design philosophy: traditional pinball rules underpinned by custom D&D narrative framework

  • “It's pinball and it doesn't have to make sense... the rule of cool. Because you're 100% right. In real D&D, you wouldn't battle a dragon for a long time.”

    Dwight Sullivan / Brian Eddy — Acknowledges tension between D&D lore (long campaigns) and pinball brevity; prioritizes fun/gameplay over thematic accuracy

  • “For me and Dwight's side, we want every game to be fun to play, right? They may have a slightly different feel, right? But we want them all to be fun to play.”

    Brian Eddy — Design philosophy for Pro vs. Premium variance: functional parity in fun despite mechanical differences

  • “Everybody everywhere will play the exact same dungeon for that week. And then it changes on Sunday.”

    Dwight Sullivan — Reveals shared global progression mechanic; weekly server-side seed distribution creates common experience for all players worldwide

  • “It's essentially just the thing goes out on Sunday via Insider Connected and says, hey, this is the new seed we're doing, and it presents that in the game.”

    Dwight Sullivan — Clarifies technical implementation: automatic seed generation built into code, not manual updates

  • “I really wanted the player to be able to get into using it a lot [the upper flipper]. So to me, we have all the flow of like the lower flippers that can lead to various shots smoothly.”

    Brian Eddy — Explains design intent for three-flipper layout with soft feeds to make upper flipper accessible and rewarding

  • “He can go all the way to the play field level and block two shots or block the three bank in front of him from you hitting it. And that happens from time to time.”

    Brian Eddy — Premium dragon actively interferes with playfield shots; dynamic obstacle mechanic adds complexity absent in Pro

Entities

Brian EddypersonDwight SullivanpersonZach GrosspersonJosh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonDungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eyegame

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: D&D: The Tyrant's Eye released in Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition (740 units) variants with differentiated features (dragon toy complexity, dungeon pop-up, ball-spitting capability).

    high · Josh Roop opening: 'it is new pinball release day we've got some amazing guests on and we're going to talk about dungeons and dragons... LE a premium pro uh they'll be able to work that out'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Game integrates Insider Connected for save-game persistence, character progression tracking (levels, gold, stats), and multi-session campaign mode alongside traditional one-shot play.

    high · Dwight Sullivan: 'because of insider connected, because you can be logged in, you can pick up where you left off... on your next game you're going to start wherever you left off on that map and your accomplishments...will still be there and your level if your character went up a level he's still up a level'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Weekly server-side seed generation distributes randomized dungeon layouts globally to all machines on Sundays, creating shared experience for worldwide player base.

    high · Dwight Sullivan: 'a dungeon is pre-generated. It's generated on Sunday for all the games all over the world. Everyone will play the exact same. And there's actually five levels to the dungeon. So everybody everywhere will play the exact same dungeon for that week. And then it changes on Sunday.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Premium/LE dragon features dual stepper motors for independent 2D movement (up/down, left/right), ball-spitting capability from mouth, shot-blocking AI, and dynamic positioning awareness.

    high · Brian Eddy: 'He can move up and down, left and right. He can spit pinballs out at any point. And he also knows his position in the world, so he can target and aim things or stop by a ramp to block it'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.252

0:00
thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 157 i am josh roop with me my co-captain scott larson and scott it is an epic day it is new pinball release day we've got some amazing guests on and we're going to talk about dunsons and dragons i know your eyeball on that dunsons and dragons who you buying yours from scott so i kind of die zach and nicole many at flipping out pinball they are always great including all the accessories and so if you want to get in on le a premium pro uh they'll be able to work that out and we are excited about this game because we are exploring different directions in pinball um but that that is 100 just reach out to them flipping out pinball definitely and if you're looking for some sweet swag because you know you're watching us on youtube right now i know you are loser kid pinball this attack for Mars shirt. It's an Attack from Loser Kid shirt.
0:59
Loser Kid Attack. It's the font. It's the Attack from Mars font and it says Loser Kid Pinball, which is pretty boss. But go to silverballswag.com slash Loser Kid. You can pick up all your gear there. We got shoes. We got shirts. Anything your heart desires. You can deck out from head to toe in Loser Kid. We got new swag coming soon, too. Also, if you're watching via YouTube, hit like, subscribe, all that jazz. You know that and uh one last thing that the twippies are back so they just announced you can start voting today go hit up their website twippies.com uh and vote for your favorites uh now scott would you like to introduce our guests that we have i would love to introduce our guests so we have a team up of epic proportions so first off we have the game designer who has is legendary industry industry because for the longest time ever since I got into the industry, he held the number one, number two spot on the Pinside 100, which is Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness. He also designed the Shadow and then took a little break for a while, and then Stern was able to bring him back in. And so it's great to have Brian Eddy back in the game. I own multiple of his games, and you just picked up a Cherry Shadow that's home use only. It's one of the few in existence that you could find that nice. Now, teaming up with him is legendary man Dwight Sullivan, who is by far one of the most entertaining people that you'll ever talk to who works at Stern.

The dragon mechanic was not responsible for the delay that led X-Men to ship before D&D

medium confidence · Brian Eddy responding to Josh's question about Gomez interview re: D&D delays: 'I don't know if it's particularly because of that' and 'there was no point in time when the dragon slowed us down'

  • Different character classes have distinct mechanical bonuses: Wizard (longer shield time), Dragonborn Paladin (dragon effectiveness), Rogue (more luck), Cleric (anti-undead)

    high confidence · Dwight Sullivan: 'The wizard... has longer shield time... The dragonborn paladin, he's better against dragons... The rogue has more luck'

  • The game contains 30+ monsters, some undead, and player class choice affects effectiveness against monster types

    high confidence · Dwight Sullivan: 'We have like about over 30 monsters in the game... if you're playing a cleric, he's going to help you. He's going to be more powerful against all the undead monsters'

  • “We have lots of excuses why he might fly away or whatever but right now it's so much fun we don't care much about that.”

    Dwight Sullivan / Brian Eddy — Candid acknowledgment of thematic inconsistency (frequent dragon encounters vs. lore); prioritizes gameplay enjoyment

    • Stern Pinball
    company
    Insider Connectedproduct
    Flipping Out Pinballcompany
    Keith Elwinperson
    Gary Sternperson
    Gomezperson
    Blakeperson
    Faeronproduct
    Attack from Marsgame
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Shadowgame
    Lord of the Ringsgame
    Venomgame
    X-Mengame
    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesgame
    LoserKid Pinball Podcastorganization
    Pinside 100product
    Twippiesevent
  • ?

    product_strategy: Pro tier removes ball-spitting, underground trough, dungeon pop-up toy, and directional movement (up/down only), maintaining gameplay core while reducing mechanical complexity and cost.

    high · Brian Eddy: 'On the pro, the balls just shoot out of the trough... So you don't get the pop-up dungeon... You still get the dungeon crawl mode that's attached to it on the Vuck, but you don't get the physical toy'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Designers explicitly prioritize gameplay fun and 'rule of cool' over strict D&D thematic consistency (e.g., frequent dragon battles despite lore suggesting end-game encounters).

    high · Dwight Sullivan / Brian Eddy: 'we just go well it's pinball and it doesn't have to make sense... right now it's so much fun we don't care much about that... The rule of cool. Because you're 100% right. In real D&D, you wouldn't battle a dragon for a long time.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Game implements player-activated shield mechanics (duration varies by character class/level) and soft-feed design via gelatinous cube to mitigate dragon battle difficulty and improve accessibility for newer players.

    high · Brian Eddy: 'there's a shield a player activated shield that pops up between the middle of the flippers and whenever it's lit the player can activate it just tap the action button really quick and it pops up and it'll stay up for different amounts of time depending on what character you're playing'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Character classes provide distinct mechanical bonuses affecting gameplay: Wizard (shield duration), Paladin (dragon effectiveness), Rogue (luck/treasure), Cleric (anti-undead effectiveness).

    high · Dwight Sullivan: 'The wizard has longer shield time... The dragonborn paladin, he's better against dragons... The rogue has more luck... The cleric is good against undead monsters'

  • ?

    community_signal: LoserKid Pinball Podcast (major community media) dedicated full episode 157 to D&D with designer interviews; integrated promotional partnerships (Flipping Out Pinball distributor, Silverball Swag merchandise).

    high · Josh Roop: 'we are on episode 157... we are excited about this game... go to silverballswag.com slash Loser Kid... Flipping Out Pinball they are always great'

  • $

    market_signal: Pro tier positioned for location/operator market with simplified mechanics, reduced toy complexity, and lower manufacturing cost while maintaining rule set parity and gameplay core.

    high · Brian Eddy: 'I would argue you guys have done a good job about modifying the pro for typically a location type thing to simplify it, but while maintaining the essence of what the game experience is'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Dragon toy development consumed significant engineering resources; designers clarify it did not cause D&D vs. X-Men shipping delay, but represents considerable mechanical complexity requiring iterative refinement.

    medium · Brian Eddy: 'we did spend a lot of time working on the dragon because he's pretty complex, right? He can move up and down, left and right. He can spit pinballs out at any point... there was no point in time when the dragon slowed us down'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Game supports local two-player co-op on single machine with four-character party (two human-controlled, two AI-assigned), enabling cross-household character imports via Insider Connected.

    high · Dwight Sullivan: 'Josh could come play his paladin... and the two of you could play together. The game would assign two more characters to be part of your party. Every party has four characters in it.'

    • 2:32
    By far the nicest, too, man. Absolutely. And his expo, like the Family Feud, we had the win-loser or what was it? Let's Make a Deal last time. So, Dwight, we know that Dwight is passionate not only about rules, but also about gaming, which makes this a perfect mix. So we have Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan teaming up to bring us Dungeons & Dragons, which is pretty iconic. So I'm going to start off with the first thing. So the theme, Dungeons & Dragons. So I know that at Stern, typically they put out a possible themes and you're not going to get on a theme unless you're interested in it. And so here's my question. What drew both of you to the theme of Dungeons and Dragons?
    3:25
    Yeah, I know for me, I think it's such an iconic brand that's been around for like, what, 40 years, 50 years or so. So it's very well known. I played back in high school. Dwight can tell you some even more in-depth things about his experience in D&D. And it's just such a rich theme. It's got so many different monsters and locations. There's so much you can do with it. We're super excited once we got the chance to be able to do it. And, you know, with its rise in interest, too, Stranger Things, I think, helped pump up D&D, too. And there's more people playing today than there's ever been. So we were super excited. Yeah, I started a D&D club in the 80s. I was like 18, 19 years old, and I formed a little club in my small town where I grew up. And I've been into board games before that and ever since. And D&D has always been part of that, like on and off throughout the decades. Now, the one thing about Dungeons & Dragons is there's been a lot of ways that this theme has been implemented. so back in the in the 70s when it came out a lot of these were kind of a a role-playing game so it used your imagination you you would have a dungeon master who would come and they would know this rule set so you'd have a book that actually led you through okay you had and people know about these a little more yep yep those things so people know about a little more with character development. So back before video games, you would do this on paper. You would say, okay, my strength is going to be this. My charisma is going to be this. And so it really hinged on someone being able to be a compelling storyteller to be the dungeon master. And you get people. Now, the one thing I, the question I have though, is that is the basis from this. And even the teaser, you had a 20-sided die rolling, which anybody who's played Dungeons & Dragons knows that's, you know, it's a D20-based system. Now, here's my question. I've been familiar with Dungeons & Dragons forever, and I've also been familiar with pinball forever. Now, help me align that Venn diagram. How are you going to overlap that? Because especially in pinball, your game times typically tend to be like maybe three to 10 minutes and you know, 10 minutes is if you're having a really good game and if you have an epic game, you have 30 minutes. Well some of these campaigns can go on for years literally. So how are you going to implement that philosophy into a pinball machine? So that's, that's a good question. You want me to take that Brian or? Yeah, go ahead. So it's a two-part question. The first part is how did we integrate pinball and D&D? And the first thing we did was we – so back in the beginning, Zach Fros and I – Zach Fros is our writer. He and I – so we decided – let me start at the beginning. So we knew that we wanted to make, you know, a game about a normal pinball machine, right, where you play modes and you play multiballs and so forth. Well, where are you going to draw all that from? Because we don't have a movie. We don't have, like, a TV series or anything. So in order to draw from something, we needed to make a story first. So we decided that the first thing we needed to do is make a story. So Zach Gross and I, our writer, we, for months, we wrote a story called, that finally eventually was called The Tyrant's Eye. And then basically we just made a pinball machine like we've done a thousand times where we draw from that story and make modes and multiballs and so forth, make a regular pinball machine. That was the first half of your question. The second half of your question is, is sort of taps into, um, how are you going to compare it to a campaign? Well, we have insider connected, right? So, so we have, because of insider connected, because you can be logged in, you can pick up where you left off. You can play a little bit and then listen. And we have a map on the, on the, on the play field and you, you wander around the map and you play modes and multiballs just like normal pinball but then on your next game you're going to start wherever you left off on that map and your accomplishments and the things you did in the past will still be there and your level if your character went up a level he's still up a level and if you had you know a thousand gold you still have a thousand gold and so on so across so we made a game that you can play at what we call a one shot where you just play it from the beginning and you play it again like a normal pinball machine, and it's extremely deep, like lots of pinball machines are, and if you're good enough, you can get to the end in one game. No mortal person I know can do it, but maybe like immortals like Keith Elwin and so forth, right, those guys, they can probably get to the end maybe in one game. But with the help of Insider Connected and picking up where you left off, everyone eventually will get to the end. Yeah, and from my standpoint, it's similar. I wanted to bring the classic elements of D&D from a mechanical standpoint onto the play field. So the things that fans would recognize, but also if you're not really deep in the D&D, you're going to see a big dragon. You're going to want to fight that dragon. So it was a balance between all of those and then tying that in with the deep story that Dwight and Zach put together. I think it makes for a compelling product for whether you're really into D&D. There's going to be tons of details. Or if you just want to fight dragons, get stuck in a gelatinous cube, go into a multi-ball and go into a dungeon crawl. We have the elements there, I think, for everybody who are going to have a good time.
    9:11
    Definitely. And really, I mean, you're taking something that can be super complex but also trying to bring it down to a simplistic level is what it sounds like you're trying to do. So that way, it's still a person walks up to it and they're intrigued. they see the giant dragon head and they're like oh i want to see what that does or what is that big cube in the back i want to try that out it sounds like you're you're aiming for all audiences across this whole thing with the thought of dnd in mind dnd players those are into the lore and the casual pinball player the question i have is this is called the tyrant's eye and if i'm correct that is an actual campaign so is this a stern story or is this the tyrant eye or is it a combination kind of like the tyrant's eye is not an actual campaign it's something we made up oh okay it's it's we we it's a story that we wrote and and then we just use that story to make all to make the whole make everything we needed in the game so like when when you know as i'm directing artists and so forth you know well this looks like this because it's you know it came from this part of the story and so forth so the entire course it does it does take place in the D&D universe, right? So the map is Faeron, which is in the D&D universe. The monsters from D&D are in the game, but it's our story.
    10:27
    Very cool. So it's Stern's version of D&D while using all of Dungeons and Dragons' assets. That's amazing. I love it. It's a custom campaign. If you're playing D&D, we've made the campaign. Just like all D&D anywhere is. Yeah, all D&Ds are custom campaign depending on your storyteller or your dungeon master. So, okay, Brian, I want to get into the layout so when you're looking at the layout now you have some iconic layouts of pinball especially medieval madness and attack from mars the shadow is it's what it's one of those outliers where you have that that upper play field and now you this time you have what is it it's three flippers in the game right right now how did you engineer the flow on this game because now walk me through it really quickly because it's hard to find an overhead shot right now of of the play field but you have a dragon on the left and the gelatinous cube on the right which by the way i love if if uh i'm a big fan of onward and the fact that uh in onward the gelatinous cube came out in that one it's it's an awesome thing so lead me through what is the philosophy on the shots of this game hold on just two seconds if if you want to follow along with what brian's talking about you can hit up nap arcade.org and on there he has posted the top down views all the art everything for Dungeons and Dragons the Tyrant's Eye so if you'd like to head there now while Brian's all explaining this okay yeah so to me most games are about flow there has to be some flow that feels good for you to make combination shots that go in a pattern and it just feels great when you can complete two, three, four in a row, right? And I haven't done a three-flipper game since Shadow, so it's been a while. So I thought this would be an interesting theme to expand upon that, just because it's such a rich universe, right, to have lots of different shots that can lead to different things, I think makes complete sense for this game.
    12:31
    And the third flipper, for a lot of, like, newer players, even average players, having a third flipper upper, sometimes they don't even pay attention, right? They forget it's there. They miss it. and they don't always take full advantage of it. So one of the things that I did in this game that I really like is the fact that we have the gelatinous cube right above that flipper, and the ball can be frozen inside the gelatinous cube, and it can also be frozen unside in the right orbit lane. So there's a number of shots in the game where we will freeze the ball under the gelatinous cube so that we can do a soft feed to the upper flipper. So the player gets a second, a pause to catch their breath, knowing the ball is going to come at the right speed and they can make the upper flipper shots, which is pretty varied, right? We have two shots that are kind of exclusive to the upper flipper, but you can also hit the captive ball. You can hit the buck. You can hit the dungeon when it's up. You can hit the dragon. You can even hit the three bank at times with the upper flipper. So there's a lot of options with the upper flipper. So I really wanted the player to be able to get into using it a lot. So to me, we have all the flow of like the lower flippers that can lead to various shots smoothly.
    13:43
    And then when you combine that with the upper flipper, that's what I think when it takes on another level.
    13:50
    So now the question I have for you, Oh, go ahead, go ahead, Josh. Oh, I was just going to say, speaking of all this flow and whatnot, just one thing that comes to my mind is when you're looking at this, I mean, the dragon is very predominant kind of front left. I guess one concern for someone that is not as well seasoned into playing pinball is it's a pretty close shot and it can be kind of intimidating especially with the dragon spitting balls at you uh is there like a ball save to kind of accommodate for the brutality of where this is located there's something even better than a ball save there's a shield a player activated shield that pops up between the middle of the flippers and whenever it's lit the player can activate it just tap the action button really quick and it pops up and it'll stay up for different amounts of time depending on what character you're playing what class you're playing and that can change throughout the game as you level up and such. Well, and also. Yeah, go ahead. Finish.
    14:45
    So that's there to help you because we really wanted the dragon battles to feel like a battle, to be an intense fight against you, against the dragon. So that's one of your defenses against it.
    14:57
    Go ahead. Yeah, so the other thing is during dragon multiball, during dragon battles, the boss save is running the entire time. during the battle he's spitting balls out at you constantly balls are coming back into play as you drain them and going back into the dragon and he spits them back out at you and the whole battle is about how many times can you hit him in the jaw before you drain 10 balls or before you drain 15 balls before the dragon makes you drain right so he's trying to shoot them down the middle he's trying to shoot them out of out lanes he's shooting balls all over the place meanwhile up your side. Meanwhile, if you hit his three bank, or if he comes down, if you hit his three bank, he comes down and tries to protect the three bank. And then you can hit him in the jaw. Or he comes down to shoot out another ball. Either way, when he's down, hit him in the jaw from any of the three flippers. And if you hit him in the jaw like six times, depending on the settings, then you win. You go into talent celebration mode. and if you drain X number balls, like right now it's 15 then you lose and the ball stays running the entire time You're trying to get his gold The three bank is gold so you're trying to steal from his horde so he's not happy about that So it's not really a ball, it's a ball counter really It's a little bit like some of these challenge modes that you guys have had in other games where it's like you can drain it so many times But after that, it's, you know, the mode's over.
    16:32
    But so with the dragon now, it's always been like I keep thinking about the same story back in the day when Lord of the Rings came out and you have the Balrog. And, you know, Gary always like if you're going to put a big thing in a game, it needs to come out fairly regularly in the game. And so how are you going to balance that? Because typically a dragon battle in a Dungeons and Dragons, that's like more of an end goal type thing. And so how are you going to incorporate a regular dragon battle in with the casual player, the guy who's chimp flipping with both hands? So we're not that concerned about that. We're concerned about having a blast while playing against the dragon, the dragon toy. and when we come across things like that we just go well it's pinball and it doesn't have to make sense yeah we actually had this discussion with me and Blake quite a bit at the beginning so you know like we have lots of excuses why he might fly away or whatever but right now it's so much fun we don't care much about that like you walk up and he's the first thing you want to do, well, the first multi-ball you want to do, the one that's closest to the start button, and it's a blast. So I think fun wins. It's the rule of cool.
    18:01
    Because you're 100% right. In real D&D, you wouldn't battle a dragon for a long time. This may be a year-long campaign until you level up high enough to even have a chance at battling a dragon. Right. Now we have, so that's the dragon battle, that's the dragon feature. We have, you face the toy in the story, in the Tyrant's Eye story, like deep in the game, and your whole party is going to be higher level then. Sure. And it might make more sense. I'm assuming there's entry-level dragons and bigger dragons. So as you level up with your party, the dragon's going to be harder and harder. Is that on the philosophy? No, he won't. So the dragon multiball kind of lives outside that realm. Okay. And it doesn't really matter what your party level, your character level. All that really matters is can you hit him in the jaw X number of times before you drain 10 balls or whatever. And then there are – it's more of a pinball thing than it is a D&D thing. Okay. Yeah, the battles do get more intense, obviously, as you play. Level one, level two, level three. But like I said, if you're going to face that toy – the toy is used for multiple things. And the thing that we're talking about is just a normal multiball that's close to the start button, that every person can walk up and just dash on the three bank and eventually start a multiball. But he has unique modes within the storyline, within the dungeon crawl, various areas too.
    19:29
    Yeah. There's a couple of climaxes in the story where the red dragon shows up and he's involved, and what level your party is does matter at that point. so one question i have is pertaining to the dragon i know that gomez said in a recent interview that like dungeons and dragons was to play because of some technical issues and that's why kind of x-men was bumped ahead and whatnot is that because of this dragon mech because this is a pretty cool mech it looks like it's very well done i just didn't know if you guys could speak to that yeah i don't know if it's particularly because of that right because we started this after venom so it hasn't been a tremendous amount of time. But we did spend a lot of time working on the dragon because he's pretty complex, right? He can move up and down, left and right. He can spit pinballs out at any point. And he also knows his position in the world, so he can target and aim things or stop by a ramp to block it and such. So we put a lot of time and effort into the dragon. So I don't know if it necessarily delayed us. Yeah, there was no point in time when the dragon slowed us down or something. Yeah. Okay, when the dragon is... Now, are the pinballs the dragon is spitting out, are they virtual, or are they coming at you from some sort of part of the play field? They're coming out of his mouth. Endless balls will come out of his mouth in all different directions all over the game Really Okay He breathes spin balls Okay Okay Because that was a question That was unsure to me when I was watching your little teaser, your six-minute reel thing. We can auto-fill the dragon from the shooter. So we can shoot as many balls in him as we have. Wow. When the game's at rest, it has eight balls in it, five are in the lower trough and three are in the dragon trough. Okay. Now tell me, because this is an advanced mech, how are you going to modify that for a pro?
    21:35
    Okay. So a pro, we still obviously have the big dragon. He looks very similar, the sculpt and the cave that he lives in and such, but he does not spit balls. So he is mainly a bash toy, and he's either up or down. Okay. So when he comes down, that's the battle. You have to hit him X number of times, and we'll balance it for the pro so it's a little bit different.
    21:58
    And he can also go up and down at different times to make it a little harder and to ramp up the battles and such so he can't just hit all the time easily. So we'll play with that on the pro, but he doesn't spit balls. He doesn't have the diverter in the back that feeds the dragon, and he can't move up, down, left, or right, just up or down. Okay. Right. On the premium, he's two stepper motors, so he can move left, right, up, and down. asynchronously of each other. And so he's just very smooth movement in all directions. Yeah, and he'll look around the play field where you're shooting and make comments. And he's a big character in the game too. And he can block shots. He can go all the way to the play field level and block two shots or block the three bank in front of him from you hitting it. And that happens from time to time. So a lot of driving. On the pro, the balls just shoot out of the trough and come around the orbit that come around the left-hand side like they do normal. So I was actually looking, because the Pro is pretty packed for what you guys have done, and I know that the Dragon's articulating up and down, but you've still got the shield, you've still got the magnet and the darkness cube that I can tell. What is different? Because I almost feel like the Pro's just as good as the Premium, besides, I mean, that articulating head is amazing. I don't want to discount that. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's a pretty sophisticated toy. Well, it doesn't spit out balls or hold balls. So like that whole underground trough and the diverter in the back, all of that's gone. Yeah. Is the dungeon still there that pops up to grab the ball and stuff? That's gone too. So you don't get the pop-up dungeon and that timed, you know,
    23:34
    task to try to get in the dungeon before it falls back down. So we use that in various modes within the game too. So you don't get that. You still get the dungeon crawl mode that's attached to it on the Vuck, but you don't get the physical toy that goes with it. Yeah, I would argue you guys have done a good job about modifying the pro for typically a location type thing to simplify it, but while maintaining the essence of what the game experience is and what the rule set is. And I'm assuming that's what you're trying to do with this too. Absolutely. For me and Dwight's side, we want every game to be fun to play, right? They may have a slightly different feel, right? But we want them all to be fun to play. So absolutely. I gotta say this game looks amazing I think people are like Dungeons and Dragons Really but honestly like Dwight with your background like seriously Like Venom and Ninja Turtles and it just it's Games of Thrones you're I feel like this theme was made for you I mean this code is amazing And I know that you talked about like The map changes every Sunday Can you kind of explain like The map doesn't change So the random numbers in the game change every Sunday. And anything that's affected by the random numbers change every Sunday. What's the random numbers? What do they do? Well, anything in the game that would be random, like would normally be random. You're touching a Venom cabinet, but I'm assuming you have a Okay. You have a D&D playfield in there. Okay, alright, alright. Just making sure on there. So when you say map, I'm just wanting to be clear. The playfield has a map in the middle And the story of the game, the Tyrant's Eye, is you wandering around that map sort of freely and playing modes that are related to the Tyrant's Eye story. None of that changes every week. What changes every week are things like the dungeon crawl. So the dungeon crawl feature is sort of this pinball feature that's part video mode, part pinball, but mostly pinball. and what it is is you make shots and go down hallways and turn corners and go through doors and every time you come to a decision point, the ball is held and you've got like three seconds to decide are you going to go left, are you going to go right, are you going to go straight and then the ball is released and you're making more shots again. Sometimes you come across a room with monsters in it and sometimes you come across a room which is like an award room or stairs or a trap and that dungeon is pre-generated. It's generated on Sunday for all the games all over the world.
    26:12
    Everyone will play the exact same. And there's actually five levels to the dungeon. So everybody everywhere will play the exact same dungeon for that week. And then it changes on Sunday. Stuff like that. The things that are more virtual that can change do change on Sundays. Okay. Now speak to that because I will say just from an owner perspective, I own games for a long time. I tend to be a legacy owner. If you look at the games behind me and the games I buy, I tend to own games for like five, ten years. So how long is Stern going to continue to do this type of thing? Like every Sunday for the next ten years? It's automatic. It's built into the game. Okay.
    27:04
    I generate a new seed, and then that's the seed. That's the random seed I use for that week. And everybody, all the games everywhere use that exact same seed for that week. So it's already in the code. It's essentially just the thing goes out on Sunday via Insider Connected and says, hey, this is the new seed we're doing, and it presents that in the game, right?
    27:29
    Right. Okay. And that bases the dungeon layouts and, you know, where the extra ball is that week. Somebody will find it, talk to their friends and say, hey, go left, left, left, right, and you'll find the extra ball. But then next week it will change again. So everything that can be affected by it has changed. So, like, if you play new characters, you know, all the time instead of playing save characters, which is completely fine, then your character stats and stuff are going to change every week for all your all the characters you have unlocked and you get four in the beginning and then you get three more after every time you finish a campaign you can unlock another so so speaking of stats i know one of the stats because you guys talked about it in the video is like a longer shield time what are some of the other stats you can actually build up with your character that are an advantage to you in the game so the other characters so all the characters have a bonus Like, that's the wizard. The wizard has longer shield time.
    28:32
    The dragonborn paladin, he's better against dragons. And, like, each of the classes has a different boon like that. The rogue has more luck. We have luck as one of the things you can have. And he gets more luck. And luck affects how much treasure you get when you get treasure. And so on. So the cleric is good against undead monsters. We have like, right now we have like about over 30 monsters in the game, and we're getting more all the time. So some of them are undead, and so if you're playing a cleric, he's going to help you. He's going to be more powerful against all the undead monsters in the game.
    29:12
    Now with Dungeons & Dragons, it typically is a cooperative game. I mean, by essence, you typically have, you know, some sort of, you know, a paladin, a healer, a wizard, you know, roguer or whatever.
    29:27
    How is it possible? Now, you have made hints at progressing things like that. Is there a way, say, I have a Dungeons & Dragons game and Josh has a Dungeons & Dragons game. is there a way for us to do a cooperative campaign or play like that? Is that in the, in the cards?
    29:49
    Not currently. Um, not, I'm assuming you mean like you playing at your basement and Josh in his basement. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. That's currently not in the cards. Um, um, what's what, I mean like, like all the past games I've done is like both of you are in the same basement. You could, you could log in, both of you could log in and Josh could bring all of his characters and play any one of them he wants to alongside you and any one of your characters that you want to play and the two of you can play together on a campaign that starts from the beginning yeah then you'll progress together and your success is really shared and all that so we'd love to obviously do online play but yeah we're not we're not there yet that's not that would be crazy complex that that's why i'm asking because i'm like that would be interesting thing but you are saying that say josh comes over to my house i have a Dungeons & Dragons, we both log in, and we both bring our shared achievements. Yep, your characters. So Josh could come play his paladin, and maybe his fifth level, and you guys have chosen co-op from the gameplay menu, right? So now you could play your seventh level wizard, and the two of you could play together. The game would assign two more characters to be part of your party. Every party has four characters in it. So then you'd have two other characters that wasn't the two of you, and then the four of you would play throughout both games, you know, as both of you played.
    31:14
    And if you had four players, obviously, all the spots would be filled by real-life players, whatever their characters are.
    31:21
    So, Eddie, you took a break from pinball for a little bit and you came back, you've done Stranger Things, Mando, Venom, now we're doing Dungeons & Dragons. How has it changed making pinball at Stern versus the days at Bally Williams? That's what I want to know. Well, every company's different in the way they do things, right? So it takes a while to learn, you know, what are they good at and how's the whole process work? So there's a little bit of a learning curve there. But I think probably the biggest thing, to tell you the truth, is the world has changed and social media is now here. And it's kind of grouped players together and they can find other players and they can meet up and all the leagues and the shows and stuff that are going on. And the number of people who buy games for the homes. Right. I think those are the things that probably have changed the most since the 90s when I did pinball before. And it's only propelled the whole industry, right, and the fan base out there. It's really exciting to bring everybody together like that. Do you feel like there's been kind of a learning curve coming into this modern era of pinball? A little bit. I mean, games are deeper now, right? They're much more involved and a lot of games go into homes. So we want to have a lot of depth and a lot of variety of different ways to play. And I think that's great. Right. I love the ability to add all that stuff to a game. So to me, that's a big plus. It's a lot more work than we had before in the 90s. And we also have three different models now. Right. We have the pro premium and L.E. So that's more things to do. And now we have insider connected. So that's more things we can add to the game. So from my standpoint, it's all positive. It's obviously a lot more work, but there's a lot more things we can put in the game that are fun and interesting to play. what uh what enticed you to come back to pinball um you know george reached out to me a couple of times on those years saying hey you know pinball's starting to come back it would be great to have you back in the game and and i absolutely love doing pinballs in the 90s right if pinball wouldn't have taken the dive it kind of did toward the end i would have loved to continue making pinball but But, you know, I have to eat and, you know, have to have a house, you know, things like that. So I took – I moved over to video, which I love all types of games. You know, I think just like Dwight, we both of us are – whether it's board games or video games or pinball, we love all types of games. But I got to say pinball was kind of my first love, right? I spent 10 years making pinballs, and they're so fun to make because they have a little bit of everything, right? We have video. We have physical elements. We have all different materials on the play field. We have different rules we can make. We have sound and music and even sometimes video from the actual theme that we're doing versus making up brand new art for the display. So there's such a variety of cool things to work on. They're just amazing to do, and I absolutely love it. It's a blast.
    34:13
    Is there any ideas that you tried with D&D and it just didn't work and you guys had to abandon it? I think at the beginning, Dwight and I had a lot of talks. And I think it was at some point it was getting too complex, right? Because D&D can be pretty complex and understanding all the rules, but this has to be a fun pinball experience. And which it was great that the Wizards of the Coast guys, they wanted us to make a pinball version of D&D, right? That's what they pushed us to do. We didn't want an exact duplicate of all the rules and exactly. We had to make a fun experience in our medium, you know, which like you had mentioned is only a few minutes a game for most people. so I think we spent a lot of time talking about that up front and we've simplified as we've gone down to the core elements that we think would be fun in a pinball to me Dwight I don't know what you think but I think that's one of the big things that we did yeah there was a learning curve there we started remember the flowchart like that was massive so Zach Prost we had him so he had all these ideas and he didn't really understand pinball but he understood D&D and he's our writer and I said, listen, like, I'm not quite following you. Start making a flow chart. And then I kind of ignored him for a day or two. And then I went back to the whiteboard. We were doing this on like a virtual whiteboard that I love to use. And, and, and after like, I went back a day later and it was just this monster flow chart that, that just had all of the story plots and all of the different twists and everything. I'm like, that's awesome, but we need to back it down a bit.
    35:43
    It was really impressive. Someday we'll show that. Yeah, we'll show that at some point. So it was a learning process on trying to figure out how to make our own story, our own campaign, and make pinball at the same time. Keep that flavor of D&D in it, but not overwhelm the player, right? And keep those core elements that are fun, that we can make fun in pinball.
    36:09
    So you have quite the cast of people in here for voice talent, too. You've got the critical role people with Matt Mercer, Laura Bailey, and Marshall Ray.
    36:18
    The one that caught my eye was Kevin Smith, a.k.a. Silent Bob. I mean, how do you write a script for these people? And then on top of that, do they improv at all? Is there every time they're like, we're going to say this? Okay, you're leaving out Michael Dorn. I'm sorry, Michael Dorn, man. Yeah.
    36:35
    The list goes on. Well, you're going to miss some people because there's like 10 different voice actors in this game. It's insane. It's cool. it's really insane amazing cast it was a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun we wrote we spent a few days writing script Ryan right? plus we had writers helping write oh right so Chris Pranowski he helped write a lot of scripts we created all of the buckets all of the places in the game where we want speech the different events that happen. And we're like, okay, this mode is happening, and during this mode we're going to need speech here, here, and here when you get an award and when you make this shot and whatever. And so we create this huge spreadsheet of all the buckets. And then, so that's one axes. And then the other axes is all the different characters we have in the game and who might talk during these different events. And we ended up having a lot of characters. We have 18 characters or, I think. Thousands of lines of speech. The one thing unique, I think, about D&D is that there's this whole Hollywood consortium, too, that play D&D, and they all kind of know each other, and they get together. So a lot of the people who are doing speech are doing it because they're just fans of D&D, and they think it would be cool to be in a D&D pinball. We have a lot of other names come out of, you know, like people came forward and wanted to be part of this project, But then their schedules didn't allow them to get it done when we needed it done. I know one of the biggest D&D – proclaimed D&D nerds that has been very profound, you know, pushing this in Hollywood is Joe Manganiello. And I'm like – I'm kind of surprised he didn't throw his hat in the ring too just because – Wait, is he the Magic Mike guy? The Magic Mike guy loves D&D. He is obsessed with – it's funny because like someone had posted like a picture of themselves. that cut at the gym and they're like, yeah, I don't play Dungeons and Dragons. And Joe posted a picture where like, cut man of the year. And it's like, but I do. So ladies, hit me up or something like that.
    38:46
    The demographic has definitely changed over the last 50 years. Let's put it that way. Yes, absolutely. And that's great to see, right? There's so many people enjoying it now.
    38:56
    And it's about storytelling. So it totally makes sense that all these Hollywood people- Yeah, actors, absolutely. That they're into it because it's an experience that they're creating. And it's co-op, right? So there's no pressure. So all you need is one person who's really into it. He's the game master, and he's worked out all the details, and he knows the story. But all the other friends that are like friends of friends in Hollywood, they can just show up and play and have fun and role play. We have one of the best DMs out there as our DM voice, Matt Mercer. Yeah, and he was incredible. And DM Dungeon Master for those who don't speak Dungeons and Dragons.
    39:38
    So you asked also about improv. Yeah. Some of the VO guys, the talents, especially like Marisha Ray and Micah Burton and others, they were great at just giving us different inflexes. They would say a line and then say the exact same line again, but add on a little laugh at the end or something. and it made it completely different. And that was great. And then so that we, you know, they had 600 lines or so, but we ended up getting, you know, 1,200 WAV files, you know, or 1,500 WAV files from them. It's just more variety for the player. I think it's cool to hear different takes. And I told them all, I said, just have fun with it, right? Just, like, if you think your character, this character wouldn't say this, then change the words. Rewrite the script. And they did. they would often just change it and roll with it. So speaking of the community out there, so just randomly over Christmas Eve, I was talking to some friends. I was at their house, and I said, yeah, there's a game coming out, and it's rumored to be Dungeons & Dragons. And they said, oh, well, you should follow just someone I grew up with. Their son has a fan page, and I pulled it up. It's called MyDND. It has 274,000 followers.
    41:06
    Okay. So tell me about how has the community reacted to this and how is it, you know, how, how have they seen this? Because I know some people, I told the story before, they always have three questions when they get exposed to pinball. The first question is, they still make that every time. That's the first one. Second time, there's like, can I come play it? And then the third question is, can I buy one of these?
    41:37
    So it's interesting. How has the reception from the D&D community been? I don't think we completely know. Do we, Dwight? I mean, it just launched today. It launched like minutes ago.
    41:52
    Oh, okay. But, okay, I get it. This is the official launch However there always buzz out there about possible future themes and D has been a buzz future theme for a while I've heard every... Right, so I've been watching sort of the rumored threads on different forums, and it's all been pretty positive. And everyone has ideas about what the ball could do and what the toys should be, and some of them were close to the mark and some of them were not. most of those I think are pinball people right so we're hoping to bring in the people who play D&D but like you were saying right they haven't really been aware of pinball or played it and there is a crossover between them like a lot of the board game shows I mean Dwight goes to a number of them they have a rose of pinball there so that world is aware of it those people who play D&D and play other types of board games, they enjoy pinball too. So we think we're going to bring in some new players, which is awesome.
    42:56
    So one question I have, I know that licensors can sometimes just be notoriously hard to work with. It sounds like with all the assets you guys have gained, the freedom of the store you were able to make, it sounds like the licensor was pretty flexible to work with and actually pretty great to work with, especially with the world that you're kind of making up yourself. Can you kind of speak to how the licensor was to you guys? Yeah, they were great. I mean, they make games. So it's a leap we don't have to make when it's a big Hollywood studio where you have to kind of teach them a little about pinball. They understand games and they know what our craft is and they know they can't do what we do, bring D&D to pinball. So they were a great support all along the way. There are certain things right in their universe they want to be right. right? The red dragon has this number of scales on his body, right? It needs to be that way. But they were things that were pretty straightforward for us to be able to implement.
    43:56
    You had to white count the scales on the dragon to make sure it was all correct. Right. They had certain... Since dragons are used in lots of different places, games and TV shows and movies and whatnot, they have very strict rules about how their dragons look. And, you know, but other than that, they were very, very great. In fact, we would give them tons and tons of stuff and, you know, like storyboards and story and whatnot. And they would, like, I thought I was great at crossing my T's and dotting my I's and making it all very D&D and perfect. And then they would come back with dozens of ideas and notes. And I'm like, wow, they're spot on here. They're spot on here. this is awesome. We're going to, you know, they, they helped improve the product at every step. So I love working with them. Yeah. And that's what you want in a partnership with a licensor. Yeah. I got to ask too, real quick on the Gendlatinus cube and the very front top, right? There is a sigh. Is that a throwback to the TMNT since you worked on that, Dwight? The scythe? Yeah.
    45:06
    Um, no, I don't think so. Okay. Oh, the scythe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. from turtles um no i i oh come on just say yes just say yes come on the gelatinous cube ate a turtle just exactly ate a turtle and that's where they that's where they that's where he does there are nunchucks in the gelatinous cube confirm or deny yeah okay okay i do have to ask I promise. The one thing that is so important to Dungeons and Dragons is the art. When I that was the thing that sold the the the kids of the 70s and 80s because we didn't have the great visual graphics on the video game to sell us. So it was the art that sold us on the book cover, on the video game, even though it was like an 8-bit video game. It was terrible. Tell me about getting the right artist to draw this.
    46:14
    Yeah, so as soon as I heard that we had the chance to do D&D, the first person I thought of was Vince Prose. I had worked with Vince on video games in the 2000s and he was just an incredible artist and over the years he honed his ability and he's gotten out into Hollywood and he's done creature development and design for all sorts of big Hollywood movies It 2 and Smile 2 and so he's really made a name for himself in developing monsters in these dark worlds and stuff and he's Also, within that time frame, he's done work for D&D. He's a D&D artist, and he's done tons of things for D&D and Magic the Gathering. So it's like there couldn't be a more perfect guy, right? We know this guy, worked with him before. We all get along really well, and he totally gets it. And that's part of somebody doing art for a theme is do they understand it? Do they understand the feel and what we're trying to achieve? And Vince just gets it. And the guy is so talented, he can draw anything. He's just amazing. He's fast. He's great. and we were so happy that he was able to do the project too because he's a busy guy and he was excited about it it's his first pinball that he's done the art package for um he has done a little bit of work for stern in the past i think he worked a little on aerosmith on the display stuff and animations but this is the first full pinball he's done and i think he knocked it out of the park oh yeah this thing looks amazing i'm loving it just there's sometimes you look at the work and you go yeah i can see the universe there but it just everything on the screams dnd and it just it works so well together it looks great and there's one of those play fields you keep looking at it and you'll see different things every time you look at it which is fun like if you just look at look at the all of the troops at the bottom of the play field they're all different and like george would say that like vince probably named them all right and they all have a backstory and the bio and the history. There's like 200 of them.
    48:18
    So is Stern going to get their own manual now for D&D, just for this game? We wish. That was something we would have loved to have. That's the trade-off. Does the LE come with a Stern D20? Because that would be awesome. It would be. Okay. One of our listeners did want to ask, So I know you can't really tell us what the topper is going to be, but can you tell us, will it or will it not have fog attached to it?
    48:49
    Laser lights? We're thinking more flames. Yeah, flames. Okay, that would be awesome. You know how people did a whirlwind? They hooked up a leaf blower. Can you imagine having a fireball blower on top of a game? That would be so great. That would be dangerous. okay but in seriousness I'm assuming you guys have started developing a like the accessories because at some point the accessories will come out and so are they close far somewhere in the middle pending release tomorrow what they are in development they're moving along we'd like them as soon as we can after the launch of the game so we're trying hard to get that as close as we can it's above my pay grade yeah like I haven't we haven't released the Venom Topper yet you can release them simultaneously why can't they be the same thing that would be awesome I gotta say I do like that you guys went unique with the shield when I think of a pop up between the flippers you think of just the round like Champions Pub I know you're aware of that one Dwight you may have worked on that one but like This looks like a legit shield. Was that part of the beginning process? We got to incorporate this into the theme?
    50:15
    Yeah, absolutely. It moved a bit on the play field. I think really early on, it was a huge shield that was way up front, but that was just way too complicated.
    50:26
    And I think where it ended up is a perfect place because it has a few other benefits, too. well the nice thing about it is it's rounded and so the problem with a lot of those pop-up things is it's just like a post that sits in the middle between the flippers and so it really sets up shots poorly yeah sometimes those annoy me that they mess me up more than they actually right yeah they're not helping yeah so this one really helps yeah so with the rounded it actually moves it over to an actual good shooting position. Exactly.
    51:01
    It was part of Brian's original dream. He brought tons of ideas to the original like right in the beginning and most of them aren't there anymore. But the dragon moving and articulating and spitting out balls and breathing balls at you and the shield being there and it being a battle, that was part of Brian's original. Yeah, gelatinous cube. I think was there too.
    51:25
    Tell me about the lighting of the game, because there's the one thing that has significantly evolved in Stern over the last, I would say even five years is how they've illuminated games and, and used lights to emphasize and to be thematically immersive in the game. So tell me how you use the lights in Dungeons and Dragons. so i think is that me so we have two different color gi we have white gi and blue gi and then we have four orange big domes big flasher domes and i use those as gi as well so like when you're in the dungeon crawl you know i have those sort of flickering those four those four links and i have the other gi kind of turned down a bit you know and i try to pull you in to be as merciful as I can, depending on what's going on and what you're doing.
    52:25
    Plus, we do have a lot of RGB lights on this game, too. That allows us more flexibility, too. So, I gotta know, you've got the Beholder, that giant flying eye Medusa thing. The eye thing, yeah. Is that, is the Beholder in the game as well? I mean, he's obviously in the artwork, but have you tied him into the game as well? No, that's Xanathar. That's one of the big bads in the D&D world. so that's one of our three endings so the game, like you have four different places you can start on your campaign and as you work through the different modes and you work your way toward the end of the campaign he's that's Xanathar, he's a known character and he's one of the three main endings of the game so the three main bad guys is a Lich Xanathar and Balanor which is like an evil paladin yeah one of the cool things that we did do is that all the artwork you see on the cabinets and the back glasses and the play field they're all in the game somewhere and they're usually one of the big story elements are tied to right like everything everything you could see is points to somewhere in the story somewhere in the game yep and it was great at this because it was a collaboration between the writer and the artist too and since one was the father and what was the son right they talked together all the time to make sure that the two lined up and that the elements from the story made it into the the big moments on the back glass in the cabinet in the play field so it was really cool collaboration so are you telling me there's multiple optional endings kind of a choose your own adventure depending okay so you just kind of snuck that in there because most games have a wizard mode which means that ultimately regardless of which path you choose you're all going to end up at the same point but you are saying that you are developing a game that has multiple different options for the boss level there's three nulls yeah yeah yeah depending on your choices in the game what mode you decide to play and where you go what you decide to finish first you're going to get one of three different endings and the great thing about that too is if If you succeed at those endings, you unlock a new class of character. No, even. Oh, yeah.
    54:45
    You're going to come to a decision point where in the story, in the story, it's like, do I. I don't want to spoil it, but do I stay and fight this threat that just happened, that just arrived? Or do I go save my friend over there and I have a choice? And then you're prompted, you know, to do this or do that. You got like three seconds, make a choice, and then that determines your path on which ending you're going to do.
    55:12
    Wait, do you get a play? So for those of you who are not familiar, I'm going to briefly explain character generation. So you typically have good, neutral, evil. And then in each of those areas, you have lawful or chaotic. Yeah, or neutral. Or neutral, yeah. So it's basically a grid of nine. Does that factor into the storyline at all? It does not, no. Oh, man. Because if you could be an evil wizard, oh, man. We explored that for a while. We did. We didn't know how to make it work in the time we have and the resources we have. Yeah, that's the complexity side, I think, one of the things that kind of whittled down. It would be pretty hard. I totally agree. I was just curious to see if you were able to find a way of implementing that. As it is, this game has turned out to be the most ambitious game I've ever been a part of. Like, by far. Oh, yeah. There's more content in it than any game I've ever done.
    56:12
    So I've got to ask, I know code is just a number. Tell me, Dwight, what is already in the game at shipping? I know it's probably like 0.81 or whatever it is. When we ship tomorrow, it's not really tomorrow, but it's going to feel like tomorrow, it'll be 0.8 code. Okay, and what does point A include? Does that include many wizard modes? Like, what are we going with? Is there any end point currently in the game?
    56:41
    Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the game, the map, like, when you wander around, like, so we're getting now down into the nitty-gritty, but, you know, you asked. so when you as you wander around the map the map itself has like 12 modes and and six wizard modes six dungeons i call them like so you you play these you play these quests that there's quest givers in each town and they're giving you quests and things to do and then when you complete all the modes around the town you can play the dungeon of that town and then you can do that six times and then that eventually leads to one of the three final wizard modes, which, you know, one of the three final endings of the story.
    57:26
    So several, four, right now four of the lower wizard modes are all complete and we're working on the others above them.
    57:34
    So it sounds like you have a lot to chew on here. It doesn't sound like you, I mean, it sounds like at the door you're going to be pretty well busy with what you have. There's more content in the game now than some of the games I've completely released.
    57:48
    Nice. There's going to be a lot of variety. There's a lot more coming. And realize that, right, we have the save system, pin save system, and you pick up where you left off. So we want the adventure to be longer, to be more interesting. And there's three different endings to that, so you're going to want to play it three times. So this game has so much content to keep you occupied. You're going to want to win it three times. Yeah, win, too. Yeah, you have to win it three times. So in order to lock a character, you have to win that final boss.
    58:19
    And you might not be high enough level. You might not. Maybe you drain too many times. This is hints of what you started exploring with Venom. And so what I want to know is what lessons have you learned from the Venom experience that you are bringing to Dungeons & Dragons to take it up a level. Yeah. So one thing I really want to communicate is one thing we've learned in Venom is like Venom has two great ways to play it. It has I can play save mode or I can play not save. And both are fun and both have different things to do. You can go after Null and then you can just keep hammering and hammering until eventually you beat Null. or you can play from the beginning every single time and just see how much you can get done. This has that too. This has one-shot mode, we call it.
    59:14
    So that was one thing we learned is in Venom, because the save progress was such a new shiny thing, we played that up early on. And in this game, we're like, well, let's make sure everybody understands right from the beginning there's two ways to play this game. One is you can use your save characters and play through the game and try to unlock more characters. And another is just play one shot right from the beginning and see how far you can get without a save character. And I think both are extremely fun.
    59:48
    What else did we learn, Brian? I think you touched upon it. I think once you got to, like, Grendel Dragon and Null, it became, I got to just keep building up my level until I get strong enough to where my skill level can beat them. and you kind of were locked into that for a while, doing that pattern. I think with D&D, it is more of an adventure because you're going to be doing new stuff every time you come back. And if you have one character who's in that final level, you're going to face that final boss, and then if you win or lose right then, you're done. You start the campaign over. Your character doesn't go away or anything. I think it stays. You're now like 17th level or 15th level or 12th level or whatever. But, you know, win or lose, you're not stuck in that final battle forever. Yeah, and then your second time through, you can make different choices and decide which way you want to go. Or play with a new character. Yeah, or play with a new character. Start another campaign with a new character. Well, and you both have kind of alluded to this. This is the – I mean, you flat out said it. This is the most ambitious game that you guys have done, and I feel like each game has been upping the ante. Every time you guys have started a new game, like with Venom and Mando, and now D&D, it seems like you're upping the ante more and more. I don't know how you're going to do it on the next go-around because you guys have been at this a couple of years and it seems like you've deserved quite the vacation from this.
    61:20
    Do you already have plans on how to up the ante for going forward after this? I cannot confirm or deny. I don't know. So right now my mind is so full of this game I don't have any thoughts. It's hard to think past it. But, yeah, somehow we always do. We get into a new theme and we come up with new ideas and we're excited and we want to implement them, and the thing just grows. We can't help it. We're game makers at heart, and we want everybody to have that different but kind of the same experience and mix it up and give you something new. So, yeah, I'm not sure either. I will do that, but somehow we'll find a way.
    62:03
    I think the game will tell us, like the theme will tell us, like this game just allowed us to do all this stuff. But when we went to Mando, Mando wasn't, you didn't choose a character at the beginning of Mando because it didn't make sense. Right? So, you know, the player was Mando. Well, you were. You were Pedro Pascal. So it always begins with who am I, who's the player, and should they have choices in the beginning of the game or not, and where does that go from there?
    62:30
    The theme really helps point us in the right direction. If the next theme doesn't, then we won't go that way.
    62:38
    Tell me about the LE. How many numbers and what are the special things that people get if they up for the LE? Yeah, and what's the 740 number? That's what I want to know. Yeah.
    62:52
    In 1974 was when the game came out. I think that's what – So Seth was torn on several different numbers And 1974 I think is when the game first was invented So he picked on you know 74 740 I think that's where that comes from. I think that's where it comes from.
    63:13
    Yeah. Okay, tell me about the Art Blades. You have custom armor on this. You have... Custom Iron Blades, you get the fire side armor on it. And then you get all the special things, upgraded speakers and the no-glare. glass and you get the you get a stunning back glass it's got mirror on it and it has sparkle it was the first time we've done a sparkle so the dungeons and dragons has a sparkle uh to it that's actually really cool to see in person it really catches your eye and of course it's a custom art package that's only available on the le for the cabinet and the side art and the back glass yeah Yeah, that is – now, usually I think – sometimes I actually like the premium or the pro bar. Okay, my eye really goes toward this back glass because I'm assuming those green lightning arcs are going to look really great in person. Yeah, it's hard to really – until you actually see the mirror and the sparkle and back glass, you picture just – even a footage film doesn't really show it off. you have to see it in person and yeah it looks stunning is there is there anything we haven't asked that you guys are just excited to talk about this game and just say hey what are we missing i think we covered the big things right dwight do we got dragon what's been your favorite thing about working on this game well then well one thing i'll say we didn't really talk too much about the gelatinous cube because i think it does have that unique function function we touched upon the gelatinous cube multi-ball which actually turned out to be really fun to start um so you first you keep making uh left loops and then the up down rant comes down and making shots that go through the gelatinous cube eventually the gelatinous cube will grab the ball and hold it and freeze it and then kick out another ball and then you have a chance to try to get another ball locked underneath the cube and if you manage to do that within the time frame another ball kicks out and you have a choice of either getting another ball on the bottom or another ball inside the cube and it'll basically, or it times out and you can get a two, three, or four ball multi-ball. It's actually a really fun task to do once it starts up.
    65:31
    And then that's where like some of the blue lights are used and the lighting is, you know, dims down and it's, the graphics are really fun, the sounds are really fun. So I just keep on calling. Yeah. Yeah, this thing looks so epic. And, I mean, like Scott was saying earlier, Gelatinous Cube is so iconic. It is funny. Because the bottom line is there are things about pinball that make you want to play again. And a lot of it's humor. Like, you know, there are just call-outs that you find hilarious that you're like, I just want to hear all those call-outs again. And I would say an element of the Gelatinous Cube because it's so ridiculous. it really the storyline is so ridiculous but it's hilarious at the same time um love that element um i i am i'm excited to get to try this game out it because of the complexity of it it is one that i think would probably really shine in a home collection because you really do want to explore all the different options um yeah there's a lot of depth for a homeowner and that's what i think Dwight now in all our games, we really try to provide that for him. But we also, like this game, I think is great if you just walk up to it and you're going to see the big dragon, you're going to fight in this intense battle, and you're going to have a great time. So I think we're covering both worlds, at least that's what we're aiming for. And that was very important to us. You don't need to know anything about D&D. You could just walk up and you choose a character, and the right-hand side is very clean of when you're choosing a character and it just says, you know, like Paladin, good against dragons. and you're like, oh, I'll choose that. He's cool looking and I want to fight dragons and I'm going to choose a paladin. You don't have to know anything about anything else. Well, you're also giving the option with the pin save system that even if you can't afford to have one of these at home, you can still achieve the same amount by going on location and playing it. Right. You can play anywhere in the world. And you can even move around. Your characters come with you. Now, on the teaser. Go ahead. If you met up with a friend every week to play pinball and you played co-op together and every week you just continue your campaign along the way. Well, that is in keeping with Dungeons & Dragons. That's what people do. They get together once a week to play. So this plays into it. Now, you did have the 20-sided die in the teaser. Does that play into the rule set at all?
    68:00
    Yeah, there's dice. So when you're in a battle. Yeah. So battle is something we didn't really talk about. Like there's lots of monsters in the game.
    68:09
    You're often fighting a monster when you're in a mode. Modes are often about like there's a monster that you have to fight.
    68:17
    There's a monster you have to fight and then maybe some other goal you have to do. And sometimes there's just a monster or two or three or four monsters or more.
    68:25
    So when there's a battle going on, shots are lighting up red. and what was the question? The 20-sided die. How does that play into your coding?
    68:43
    It's pinball, so you don't have to roll to hit like you would in D&D. You have to make a shot. If you shoot one of the red shots, you hit automatically that monster that's associated with that shot. But your party shoots automatically you're automatically spotted like three more shots. So every time you make a shot, you really make four shots against the, against the head guns. And, and then those, and then on the screen, they roll dice and then if they hit or miss, it shows you right there whether or not they hit or miss and then it shows you how much damage is done on the monsters. Okay. So is co-op already in the game too?
    69:17
    Co-op is in the game. You, every co-op game starts from level, you know, starts from the beginning of the game. But you can, but like I can bring whatever character I want and whatever level he is. You can bring your saved characters to the co-op game. Yeah, I just know with Ninja Turtles, you added it later. So this is out the door. You're getting co-op, so you can already start your own D&D stuff. When we go into box, yes. Awesome. It works now, but I have to finish testing some things. Do some tweaks. This is one, actually, aspect that I don't think you get enough credit for, Dwight, in adding things like challenges into games or being able to do co-ops or things like that that is actually huge and i tell people about that i say it's kind of fun well it's a lot of fun when you have someone over you're like okay us two against you two or yeah a lot of times there's one person who's really good at pinball uh you know in the family like you know it's it's like you know if i'm playing against my three kids i'm like okay i get one you get three let's see who who does it and that that's a cool aspect of being able to do a teamwork approach where it doesn't just feel like I'm watching the, the really good player play forever. And then three people drain balls. Well, not only that, like the, the accessing the wizard modes from the main menu and playing those as a, it's great. Yeah. Challenge. Yeah. I mean, you did that first with, with ghostbusters. It just, are you a God? Yeah. Somebody asked you, would somebody ask you if you're a God, You say yes.
    70:56
    But I want to thank both of you because you both have driven innovation in both your own ways over pinball over these years. And we are at where we are now because of you two, driving and trailblazing stuff like this. Well, thanks. I mean, we're having a blast doing it. So we want every game to be something new and unique, and hopefully we do that. Yeah, and we certainly – we've had Dwight on. We know he's a great talker. We are so excited that, Brian, we're so thankful that you came on, too. This is our first interview with you, but it's always fun to meet the people who create the stuff that you love and consume all the time. And so we certainly appreciate you letting us talk about your game and being able to share it with everybody who listens to us. Yeah, it was awesome. I had a great time. So anytime you guys want to talk, I'm here. Actually, I have one final question, and you can tell me no. this i've got to give a little history because i was listening to eclectic gamers pinball podcast uh a week or two ago and they stole a game from slam test tilt pinball i know that eddie's been on there before but they have this game called make it pro so they take a bally williams game and if it were made at stern today what would they take out of it to make it pro and since i've got a game designer and a game coder that does this for a living i have to ask so the game they did on Eclectic Gamers last time was Twilight Zone. So give me just your 30 second, what would you do, Eddie, to turn it into a pro? What would you take out of Twilight Zone to make it pro? Same with you, Dwight.
    72:36
    That's hard. Yeah, that's hard. My very first thought is the gumball machine, but you don't want to get rid of the Powerball because that's quintessential Twilight Zone. So I think you'd have to diminish everything but the Powerball and the things the Powerball needed. Yeah, that was pretty unique. The little guy that pulls it down from the center, I'd probably pull that. I mean, it's a clever device, but it's not forward-threatening. So, like, the clock wouldn't move. Yeah, the clock wouldn't move. Right.
    73:08
    You're talking about the lever. So when you shoot up to the power play field, it grabs it and drops it back on the play field if you're not ready for power. So maybe that whole play field goes off. It could be. Yeah, if we really had to make a pro and we had to make a street piece, yeah. And then the Rams just return the ball to the flipper.
    73:28
    I don't know. That upper play field, though, is pretty iconic to that game. That's the thing about a pro versus a premium. You get something more. Yeah, and we have to make those choices all the time, and it's tough on our side, too. Okay, Josh. It's going to be great. I'm going to take it to the next level, though, And I'm going to take it to a game that Brian and Dwight are very familiar with. Okay. I'm going to give you a challenge of make it pro, premium, and LE. And I'm going to give you medieval madness. It's been 25 years. What would you do to make it a current release? What are the epic things you would do? What are the things you would do to make it a pro level game? Go. Wow. that's a tough one. So I think, go ahead, Dwight. I think, I think the nineties pins, I think we put some more stuff in games now then. Yeah, you do. Absolutely. Yeah. It's a pro game. It's a pro game by default. Right. Well, it's somewhere in between, right? In order to make a premium, you'd have to add things to the medieval evidence. Yeah. So what would you add, Brian? Yeah. Good God.
    74:40
    That's, that's like 20 some years ago. You're really stretched in the memory. Cause I'm sure, like most of my games there's like two or three mechs that don't make it for some reason right either they're not as fun as you think or they're too expensive or okay well wasn't there a different multi-ball that you guys were experimenting with like i i think that was from attack mars because you you originally talked about the the spaceship actually articulating out kind of thing but i think there's also even like a different multi-ball from uh from medieval madness i've heard the the stories before but you know who knows yeah i don't know if i remember that like we built upon the rules of attack from mars doing that right because it's the same shot a number of times but then we had the stacking uh that kind of added a twist to it so but they're very similar so i don't know if i would change that much about the rule set other than making the game deeper like dwight was saying because i think they probably have half as much content as it's probably a third of what like dnd has of content. Plus, you have all those different ways of playing. I'd love to make challenge modes in those games and focus on certain elements that you have to do. Those would be a lot of fun. We didn't have anything like that back then.
    75:52
    But as far as mechs and stuff, I mean, Medieval Madness is pretty packed on the playfield as far as square inches of things. You have the catapult, you got the right ramp, you have the peasant ramp, you have the castle lock shot. Yeah, maybe it only does one function up and down the gate. Yeah, no motor. You'd probably have to take the motor out of it coming down. It would just be the gate that goes up. Maybe the catapult goes away, you know, and something, something like that kicks out. But, yeah, that's tough. I don't want to think about that. That's horrible. No, no, no. Hey, that's why I gave you the option of making it LE. Make it better. make it make it more blingified right yeah yeah um i'm sure we'd come up with a ton of interesting things to add to it maybe we'll do a remake one day who knows there you go yeah well i got i do gotta ask did medieval madness like play into dungeons and dragons at all was there any anything you took from that and put in this i mean i think there's always gained experience from doing certain things and it kind of fits in that world of themes at medieval time and stuff at D&D. It's not really the same exact world, but it's kind of in that fantasy genre.
    77:13
    So I think you take things from it, but I won't say there's anything like directly, oh, we did this in medieval. We got to put this in D&D. I think Dwight and I, we always start from scratch.
    77:24
    Brian, we added some speech. There is some speech. We added some speech from lots of different games that people are going to recognize. We couldn't resist. Did you get Tina Fey to voice anything for Dungeons & Dragons? We would have loved to have Tina Fey.
    77:43
    Because I always say, without pinball, she would have had no career. 100%. That is what launched her career. It is irrefutable that she did that and then her career took off. Right straight up, right? I think it's obvious. Yes. Used pinball as a stepping stone. She must have been busy, I think. I don't know. It's crazy.
    78:05
    Okay, Josh. Before we wrap it up, though, I got one thing. Okay, go ahead, Dwight. So I want to shout out to Paul Chemotkin and the entire LCD team. That's something we didn't really talk about.
    78:18
    So there's way too many people to name, and they're all stellar, and they're all stars. I could name off. So Paul Chemotkin is the lead, is sort of my counterpart. He's the guy that I heavily work with to get all the LCD assets done in the game for this very, very challenging game we've done. And eventually this project has soaked up and vacuumed up, like, the entire LCD art team of Stern Pinball. And we got, in addition to that, we got, like, five or seven outside artists working on the game, even as we speak, right this second. So, you know, a big shout-out to the entire LCD team led by Paul Shemotkin and of course Chuck Ernst is the director of LCD team yeah great call they went over and above and I really want to do a book that's just the art of Dungeons and Dragons the Tyrant's Eye and just highlight it's just a picture book full of all of their art that made the game because there's an amazing amount of content we have dozens of places that you can fight monsters and then we have all of the monsters had a pipeline. There were several artists that worked on every monster, right? So some of them did a sketch, and then some of them colored the sketch, and then some of them animated the sketch, and then some of them took the animated sketch and made it into something that programmers could use. And then Corey, so then shout out to my software team that led, you know, like with me and Corey Stoop and Elizabeth Gieske, she's doing all my modes. And then David Sullivan is my, this is his first game, my son, and this is his first game as a full-time Stern employee, you know, so that's all pretty awesome. Anyway, back to art. Then, like, then Corey has taken all of the monsters and put them in the game so that you can fight them, and that's been a lot of work. And that's just the monsters. You know, not counting all the pinball stuff, all of the jackpots and multiball starts and all that stuff and bonus and, you know, all the normal pinball things. it's just been an amazing amount of LCD art work. Yeah.
    80:34
    Absolutely right. They did an incredible job, that whole team. And, I mean, in the same way, we should shout out to the mechanical guys, Tom Malcolm and John Rothermel. And even I think everybody at some point played some part in the game mechanically at Stern Harrison and Elliot even. They gave their input. They worked on some mechs. And we wanted to make sure this game was solid. So the whole team was there to help make sure. And the mechanical engineers were always so excited. Like every time the dragon would do something new or they had some problem with the dragon or something, they would – like five mechanical engineers would descend upon my room and then they would work it out.
    81:10
    And then they would go off and they would fix it and they would – it was pretty awesome. Okay. The dragon shooting the ball out of the mouth, that is – that's pretty epic. And the up-down, left-right ability of it to shoot it, that's – visually that is awesome you have to play it to really experience it yeah definitely and we can't forget Jerry Thompson who always does an insanely incredible job on all the music and sound effects in the game and he got to work with Chris Velasco who's another guy that I worked with in the past on video games and he did this epic soundtrack to the game that just fits D&D so perfectly we were really honored to have him on the project too it sounds like it was all hands on deck for this game team effort yeah we and Brian and I first started thinking about this project in August of 22 we were neck deep in Venom and working on Venom but then it came down the pipe and we're like yeah we're on board yeah we'll do that and we've been thinking about it and are working on it since then awesome well if you want someone to get a hold of you Dwight or Eddie or you don't at all you can tell us now but if you do want them to get a hold of you how do they get a hold of you oh feel free to write me at dwight.sullivan at pinball at sternpinball.com yep and i'm similar brian.eddie at sternpinball.com thanks be happy to answer questions i i'm gonna do the the feature at shout out uh so this this is just a content creator uh focus if you guys are into dnd or uh live action role playing there is a hilarious um youtube channel called Viva La Dirt. And if you go in there, they make a lot of hilarious funny commentary about basically action games or action role playing or anything like that. And so definitely just go check them out.
    83:09
    If you check them out and you find one that's really funny, send it to me because there's a lot. That's my focus of the day. So if you want to get a hold of us, we are LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com or like Scott was alluding to, you can hit us up on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram. I guess it's X. Sorry. YouTube, all that stuff. Hit us up. All at Loser Kid Pinball. Also, like I said, we got our Silver Ball Swag stuff, silverballswag.com slash Loser Kid. Scott, give us our last words. You know what? Go and play Dungeons & Dragons and definitely level up.
    83:51
    Bye.