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Flip N Out With Friends: Pinball Brothers' CEO Daniel Jansson (2024)

Flip n Out Pinball·video·51m 14s·analyzed·May 21, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Pinball Brothers CEO discusses evolution from Highway through ABBA, team structure, and design philosophy.

Summary

Daniel Jansson, CEO of Pinball Brothers, discusses the company's evolution from Highway Pinball through three game releases (Alien, Queen, ABBA), detailing the Razorback control system development, licensing challenges, team structure across Sweden/Italy, and ABBA's design philosophy combining music-pin mechanics with an avatar-narrative story mode inspired by ABBA Voyage.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Brothers was originally an investor group in Highway Pinball starting around 2015

    high confidence · Daniel states: 'I was obviously one of the investors in Highway back in the day. So that was the start of Pinball Brothers, of course. And that is back in 2015 or something like that.'

  • The Queen license expired rather than being purchased by Pinball Brothers

    high confidence · Daniel explains: 'the Queen license was sort of – what's the word? It's running out of – expired... Because these licenses are, you have them like for two or three years maximum, something like that.'

  • Alien had to be completely re-engineered from the Highway system to the proprietary Razorback electronic system

    high confidence · Daniel confirms: 'Alien was originally designed on the highway system... you basically had to re-engineer the game in some capacity... Razorback has been built within Pinball Brothers. So that was one of the reasons why it took quite a long time for the relaunch of Alien.'

  • Pinball Brothers obtained an extended Disney license for Alien to include the Ripley character edition

    high confidence · Daniel states: 'We did this extension with Disney, obviously, for the license. And that opened up the opportunity to make this new edition of the game.'

  • ABBA became the planned third game approximately two years prior to the interview (circa 2022)

    high confidence · Daniel says: 'I would say that we didn't really knew that ABBA was going to be number three until maybe for sure, maybe two years ago, something like that.'

  • Pinball Brothers is headquartered in Sweden with design and prototyping, while manufacturing occurs in Italy through Euro Pinball Corporation

    high confidence · Daniel explains: 'this is the headquarter of Pinball Brothers in Sweden. In Sweden, we are designing and prototyping the games. And then all the manufacturing is happening in Italy, which is where European Ball Corp is located.'

  • Daniel's background is as a system developer who ran a software company for almost 20 years before Pinball Brothers

    high confidence · Daniel states: 'I've been running a software company for almost 20 years. My background is a system developer.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I honestly believe that you can...take almost any layout and make it into a great game if you do good enough software, which is rewarding.”

    Daniel Jansson@ 20:54 — Reveals Daniel's design philosophy prioritizing software/code over hardware as the differentiator in pinball quality

  • “I think the software side is the challenge, to be honest.”

    Daniel Jansson@ 22:10 — Emphasizes software development as the primary difficulty in modern pinball machine creation

  • “The whole mode is a timed mode where you...it's a sort of a victory mode, you could say. So you can't really, you can just get less or more points at that point.”

    Daniel Jansson@ 36:53 — Describes ABBA's challenge mode design philosophy combining narrative choreography with gameplay mechanics

  • “Choreography, if you like. I like that part of the game, really.”

    Daniel Jansson@ 37:31 — Indicates intentional synchronization between physical ball mechanics and audiovisual presentation as a design goal

  • “He's been in the gaming industry ever since, and he's been involved in a lot of big titles. But he always had this dream to actually do the sound for a physical, real pinball machine at some point in his life.”

    Daniel Jansson@ 39:04 — Describes ABBA's sound designer Olof Gustafsson's background and motivation to work on physical pinball

Entities

Daniel JanssonpersonPinball BrotherscompanyEuro Pinball CorporationcompanyPedretti GamingcompanyHighway PinballcompanyAliengameQueengameABBAgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Brothers, Pedretti Gaming, and Euro Pinball Corporation operate as integrated group despite separate entities; shared resources and joint ownership model

    high · Daniel: 'We see it as a number of different companies, but it's one group of companies, you could say. So like...we are utilizing all the resources we have'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: ABBA's helicopter toy initially appeared mechanically infeasible to designer but integrated successfully into final playfield

    medium · Daniel: 'When I saw it the first time, the first prototype, physically, I held it in my hands. It was kind of huge. So I actually thought this is never going to work in a pimple machine. But when you actually put it in the game, it fitted perfectly'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: ABBA choreography strategy synchronizes physical ball mechanics (magnet catch on left ramp) with audiovisual narrative moments (avatar character falling into water during challenge mode intro)

    high · Daniel describes 'choreography' moment where 'the ball gets stuck in the magnet. And then there's an intro from the animated movies from Voyage. And when the main character falls into the water, that is exactly when the ball is dropped from the magnet'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pinball Brothers prioritizes software/code as primary differentiator; hardware treated as reusable platform with game-specific refinements

    high · Daniel: 'I honestly believe that you can...take almost any layout and make it into a great game if you do good enough software...the software side is the challenge'

  • ?

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.154

0:00
All right, well, welcome. This is Flipping Out With Friends. And yeah, today I have an awesome opportunity to talk to the CEO of Pinball Brothers. It's Daniel, is it Jansson? How do you say your last name? Yeah, that's correct. In Swedish it's Jansson. Yeah. Okay. Well, wonderful. Well, yes, thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk here. There was a member of your team that reached out to me and said you were looking to do some interviews and wanted to talk to people about ABBA and everything that's going on at Pinball Brothers. So happy to have the conversation.
0:59
But yeah, just really to start, I kind of want to backtrack way back to where did you step into this? Because I know Pinball Brothers kind of had an interesting history with Highway Pinball. Alien had its thing and then it became Pinball Brothers. So at what point did you get involved personally in this whole venture?
1:18
Yeah, that's a really long time ago now. But yes, I was obviously one of the investors in Highway back in the day. So that was the start of Pinball Brothers, of course.
1:36
And that is back in 2015 or something like that. Okay. And then I know Highway kind of fell apart and Pinball Brothers technically bought the rights to Alien. and I think you technically bought the rights to the Queen license. Is that right at that time?

  • The ABBA helicopter toy was inspired by a physical helicopter in the ABBA Museum in Stockholm

    high confidence · Daniel explains: 'they have the ABBA museum in Stockholm and they actually have the helicopter in there. So it kind of an If you ABBA fan it more of an obvious toy I would say.'

    • Alexander Spohr
    person
    Ludvig Anderssonperson
    David Thielperson
    Olof Gustafssonperson
    Razorbackproduct
    Medieval Madnessgame
    ABBA Voyageevent
    Ripley Editionproduct
    Digital Illusionscompany

    personnel_signal: Olof Gustafsson (Digital Illusions founder, veteran game industry developer) hired as ABBA sound designer fulfilling his lifelong goal to create physical pinball audio

    high · Daniel describes Gustafsson as 'one of the founders of Digital Illusions' who 'always had this dream to actually do the sound for a physical, real pinball machine at some point in his life'

  • ?

    product_strategy: ABBA designed as dual-mode game: traditional music pin OR story-driven avatar narrative, allowing casual vs engaged play

    high · Daniel explains ABBA can be played 'as a usual music pin if you're into ABBA. Or you can look at the story in the game...you can just enjoy it as a music bit'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Alien received post-release flasher kit upgrade and new topper; ongoing updates and iterations planned

    high · Host mentions 'flasher kit' and 'beacon kit as well as there's a new topper for Alien'; Daniel indicates Ripley edition was surprise expansion

  • ?

    product_strategy: ABBA confirmed as third Pinball Brothers title with 2024 anniversary target date; Queen license extension under consideration

    high · Daniel discusses ABBA's planned 2024 release and states Queen is 'at the point where we are considering a license extension'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pandemic supply chain disruptions significantly delayed Queen launch and caused initial stability issues during Alien re-engineering

    high · Daniel states: 'we weren't the only one being affected by it, but it wasn't the best timing...to relaunch Alien in the middle of the pandemic. That was a real challenge'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Pinball licenses typically issued for 2-3 year maximum duration, requiring strategic timing for game releases; Queen under consideration for extension

    high · Daniel explains: 'Because these licenses are, you have them like for two or three years maximum, something like that' and discusses Queen license extension consideration

    • 1:56
    Yeah. Actually, the Queen license was sort of – what's the word? It's running out of – expired. Oh, expired. Yeah.
    2:12
    So technically it wasn't never bought, but it expired from – Because these licenses are, you have them like for two or three years maximum, something like that. But the Alien license was part of it, yes. Got it. So Alien was originally designed on the highway system, the highway pinball system. And then Pinball Brothers, the layout is very similar. There are some differences with the lack of the screen and whatnot. But you basically had to re-engineer the game in some capacity, right? Because I know you guys have your proprietary, it's the Razorback electronic system that was built in-house. And that's totally separate from Highway's system, right? Yeah, exactly. They are very different. And Razorback has been built within Pimble Brothers. So that was one of the reasons why it took quite a long time for the relaunch of Alien.
    3:16
    Yeah, because you had to re-engineer. I know, at least on the outside looking in, there was a lot of troubleshooting. There was a lot of hardware issues. And I think the redesign has improved a lot of that to the point where I had the opportunity to stream Alien a few months back. And overall, it was a very stable game. Um, I know when, um, it got here, it was new in box. And, um, I was impressed when you, when you open up the game, you know, you guys have, it's very clear, very custom PCBs. Everything was very clearly labeled, um, almost every coil or switch or, you know, instead of soldered, it was just, just needed plugged right into the PCB. There were a few that had fallen out during the overseas transit, but you don't see that and poop, flop them back in and boom, you're up and running. I was pretty impressed with that. But yeah, you're now, this is your third game. That was essentially your third game. What have you guys learned? What has Pinball Brothers learned over this time on just what it's like to build pinball machines and try to build a reliable pinball machine?
    4:23
    Yeah, what are you learning about all that? Yeah, you learn a lot, obviously, along the way. But I can tell you one thing, and that is, of course, we weren't the only one being affected by it, but it wasn't the best timing, I would say, to relaunch Alien in the middle of the pandemic. That was a real challenge, of course, because you start off with a new platform and with all the supply chain issues that were at the time. So that didn't make it easy for sure. But those things are easier now, of course.
    5:09
    But apart from that, I think we refined the system step by step, I would say. So it's a good system from the start. But there's always, as with all systems, you have room for refinements. And I think we have refined it for every game now a little bit. So it feels great as it is. So if there was an alien owner that bought ABBA, would there be things on ABBA that would be new, like improvements that you would see in the system? Anything obvious like right off the bat when it comes to just the overall whether it's switches coils and anything cabinet
    6:02
    yeah the system can can make use of more coils for instance that is one thing but but for sure you you wouldn't notice that in alien because you don't you you only need the coils that are in the game so but it makes it easier for us to to make new games with more coils in it and And obviously you have flashers in the system now, which we didn't for Alien. Even if you now have the possibility to get a flasher kit for the game.
    6:35
    But yeah, there are a lot of small refinements. They are, I would say, not that noticeable, but they are making the system slightly better and more reliable. But overall, I don't think that there's nothing that makes what's in Alien.
    6:58
    You don't need to have the new stuff. Sure. Yeah. Well, Alien, I know I have friends that stream Wild Dog Arcade. They've had an Alien for a long time. They've streamed it. They've actually made some instructional videos for you guys as well. And and so I know I watched them do a video on installing the flasher kit, which is comical because I had an alien. I never realized it didn't have flat like it was that game was so I had a ton of fun with alien. The sound package on that game is incredible. So the overall immersion of the game, you know, is a lot more dark and dreary and kind of scary. So I never realized there weren't flashers, crazy flashers in the game. But now there is kind of a flasher kit or a beacon kit as well as there's a new topper for Alien. So is this I mean, you've Aliens had a few iterations now. You had the Ripley edition come out. Is there more planned for Alien? Are you going to continue to develop on Alien or do you feel like you're you may finally be close to a finished product?
    8:04
    You never know, of course. But, I mean, we are on our third game now and we are developing new games, obviously. But somehow I think the thrill for Alien is never ending. It's such a legendary theme, really. I mean, we didn't know that we were coming back to make Ripley, for instance. Okay. Yeah, that kind of happened. And so I guess I wouldn't say that we never go back again, but there are so many other themes, I guess, to work with. But there are themes, obviously, that are sort of related to Alien that could be a possibility. Oh, okay. All right. And I know the Ripley edition kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, that was definitely a surprise to us, being the pinball enthusiasts, that when Alien first came out, it was, oh, they didn't get Ripley. You know, obviously there must have been an issue with the license. They didn't get Ripley. And then, boom, Ripley edition. Not only is Ripley in the game, she's in the code, but here's a brand-new art package. It's cheaper. It's more, you know, it's a great bang for your buck kind of thing. Here's a new topper. I mean, you said that was a surprise to you, or how did that kind of fall in your lap that Ripley became available or was possible? Yeah, I mean, maybe I shouldn't have said surprise, but because we always, everybody involved always wanted to have somehow get Ripley into the game. Because that was, I wouldn't say it's the holy grail, but it's kind of felt a little bit incomplete without her, obviously. So it was a great opportunity. We did this extension with Disney, obviously, for the license. And that opened up the opportunity to make this new edition of the game. So that's basically it. Nice. That's awesome. So you've been very successful with Alien. Obviously, I think you've technically been making it for years now. And it's definitely your most successful game. But then Queen came out. I have had a chance to play Queen. It was a fun game.
    10:33
    But Queen, I know it kind of came out, like you said, during the pandemic. It wasn't the best time. And I don't know how many people have had a chance to play it. I mean, where are you guys at currently with Queen? Are you still developing it? Do you feel like it's code complete? I don't know. What are your overall thoughts on Queen and game number two? Yeah, it was a difficult start There is no question about that We had a really It was a long Long way to Get Queen into production, obviously And that is That was a pity Because we also think it's a great game And I think the main problem is that A lot of people didn't have the chance yet to actually experience the game and play it. We are actually at the point where we are considering
    11:30
    a license extension for Queen. So it's a little bit up in the air where to go from here, but to be honest, there's definitely a few things that should be added in the code for the game. Okay. And I know at least talking to other pinball manufacturers, you're talking about licensing, you only get them for a few years. So you kind of have to, if you have another license in the pipeline, you got to keep moving or else you're going to lose that license. And so I know ABBA was announced and it was kind of a surprise of like, oh, I thought they were still, you know, cranking along on Queen and boom, here comes ABBA. Was that kind of that situation of we got to go or was there a set date? I think the launch date was on an anniversary, right? So was that that was always planned as the launch date for ABBA? Was that like planned for a while now or how long has that been thought ahead, if that makes sense? Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. I wish I could say that it was planned for a long, long time, but it wasn't. But definitely it was planned for quite some time to be honest because we knew that 2024 obviously was the big Abba year the big anniversary And then of course things sort of aligned a bit you could say which made that actual date possible. But if I understood your question correctly from the beginning there, there was no there's no sort of rush or due to licensing issues or anything like that so that wasn't the case so well maybe ask this so i know alien and queen both came from highway now you had to you said you extended those but at what point where did abba come into play or where did you like how far were you in the middle of queen and you're like man i'm really enjoying making a band pen let's get another band ready to go or how long have you known ABBA is going to be game three or that's the license you want to pursue? Yeah it's a really good question I have to jog my memory a bit here but yeah it actually was like this that I got in contact with Ludvig Andersson the son of Benny in ABBA obviously and We were in touch, that is a number of years ago, but nothing really happened. So it took quite a long time until we spoke again. And then things were more sort of, it was a better timing for us also. because when we spoke the first time, it was like it wasn't even close to talk about or think about a third game, honestly. So I would say that we didn't really knew that ABBA was going to be number three until maybe for sure, maybe two years ago, something like that. Okay. And then maybe just to explain, because I'm over here in North America, I'm much more familiar with the American manufacturers over here, the American teams that are over here.
    15:04
    Maybe just a brief overview of, I mean, you can start with yourself, just Pinball Brothers as a whole. I know you guys aren't manufacturing on, like you personally as in Pinball Brothers is not manufacturing your games. Those are being manufactured. We talked about this a little bit before. So there's three entities here. There's Pinball Brothers, there's Pedretti Gaming, and there's Euro Pinball Corporation. Is that right? Yeah, correct. So I think you had said that technically the factory is Euro Pinball Corporation. They are the factory and Pedretti Gaming and Pinball Brothers are both utilizing them to manufacture your games. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. And it's jointly owned by Petretti and Pinball Brothers also. Got you. And then from a physical location standpoint, I see you're in an office. Is this the Pinball Brothers office or is the manufacturing happening right below you? Or where's the locations for everybody involved? Yeah, this is the headquarter of Pinball Brothers in Sweden. In Sweden, we are designing and prototyping the games. And then all the manufacturing is happening in Italy, which is where European Ball Corp is located. And Pedretti happens to be located at the same place as European Ball, quite conveniently. Okay. And then when you just talk about your team there in the office, so you're the CEO. You clearly do everything, right? I mean, maybe start with that. What's your day to day as a CEO of a pinball company? What would you say is the majority of your troubleshooting or I don't know what keeps you up at night? That kind of thing. Yeah. What makes you think that we have troubleshooting? Yeah. No, it's a very good question. What am I doing? It's I mean, it's actually a bit like you said in the beginning there. it's a bit of everything. I think that is the situation for most
    17:21
    Pimble manufacturers that are a bit smaller than Stern perhaps. I guess they might have it a little bit different. So yeah, when you work at Pimble Brothers, you typically have a number of roles, I would say. But that said, I think there are a lot of, I mean, everybody has their main skill, obviously. So there are people for manufacturing and people for prototyping, people for coding and animation and sound and everything. So yeah. But my days are a bit filled with everything, I would say. It could be licensing, it could be administration, it could be even some coding. It's a little bit of everything, depending on what
    18:21
    the situation is. Obviously, the development projects are... I mean, we only have one development projects ongoing at the time. So it's that apart from now I would say because obviously we are working very closely together with the European Ball Corp on Ampedretti on the remakes also. So we are kind of utilizing all the resources we have. We see it as a number of different companies, but it's one group of companies, you could say. So like Funhaus, you've had involvement in Funhaus in some capacity, or you've helped with that project in some capacity, or no? We are, yeah, we are. I mean, I think we can see more of that the further we get. But as it has been, I should say that the development projects has been obviously kind of separated up until now. Sure. So just because you said a little bit of accounting, a little bit of phone call, a little bit of coding, what did you do before this? What was your role before you got involved in Pinball Brothers? What was your job before that?
    19:48
    Yeah. I've been running a software company for almost 20 years. My background is a system developer, so it's not that natural, I would say. That is where I think I can contribute in the best way, apart from doing the administration and licensing and other stuff, I guess, in the company. So what, as a pinball machine, do you think it's, do the majority of the challenges, do you think they come from the hardware or the software side of the pinball machine? Because if one of them, it doesn't matter if your game shoots amazing, if the game's gonna crash over and over again or has code that's boring, you know, how do you find that balance or how hard is that for you? I honestly believe that you can, I mean, the geometry and how the game shoots is obviously very important for the feeling. But in my view, you could actually take almost any layout and make it into a great game if you do good enough software, which is rewarding. and and and uh so uh but um that doesn't mean that you you can uh you can do that take any left you have you obviously have to work with that part also but uh i think that um the development of pimple machines has become at least for us and i would think the others are are having the same kind of the same view that you can reuse more parts obviously on the hardware side than you can do not the main toys and stuff like that but you do if you get the platform ready in place and it's stable and yeah then it's more about refinements for next game and next game When it comes to the software side, you obviously have with all the full HD screens today and all this amazing sound in the game, sound capabilities in the games, you really have to work with the content in the game, I think. So if I have to say something, I think the software side is the challenge, to be honest. from the software guy there's somebody somewhere somebody somewhere is the hardware guy and he's disagreeing with you but yeah no i just but that's what i love that's what i love about pinball is it's that perfect mesh of it's a mechanical game but yet the software the sounds the lights the code that's what keeps drawing you back in so i i just think it's a perfect blend But yeah, so you you know, you have ABBA you're like, okay, we're doing this so describe your team I I don't I'm sorry, but I don't recognize any of the names. I'm just not familiar with them So, you know when it comes to designing the game and where did you start? You know who who was designing the white wood or how many people were in the room? When you started to design the layout for ABBA
    23:10
    Yeah, they designed for the first layout of ABBA, I would say the base for ABBA was made by Alexander Spohr, which is one of the shareholders in Pimble Brothers. And then it sort of evolved into a teamwork, really. So I would say that between maybe five to seven people have been involved in the iterations, because that is really what it is. You come up with a base design and then you have to test it and then you have to refine it and you test it again and you refine it and you test it again and so on. So there are multiple iterations obviously. And that has been a real teamwork to get to the point where we are now. And we are really happy with the layout to the game, how it flows and there are hard shots and the easier shots in the game and quite a lot of
    24:15
    big number of shots I would say so that's nice. Yeah and I know I've asked a few designers this because sometimes they're given a theme where there's an obvious toy you know there's an obvious like oh you know this that my example is like Godzilla even though I've interviewed Keith Elwin, he's brilliant what he can do. But in his mind, he's like, I have to have a building that you can break. And so immediately you start thinking about what that mech would be, and then you got to figure out where that's going to go on the play field. So when I first heard of ABBA, I'm like, when I think of ABBA, there isn't any immediate toy that pops into my head, but you guys have this really intricate helicopter ball lock toy. How early in the design of the game did that come into play or when did you think of that that was actually very early i would say it's been there from the beginning so okay yeah it was um um you know they have uh this helicopter is actually quite uh quite famous um in in the abba world you you have the abba museum in uh museum in Stockholm and they actually have the helicopter in there So it kind of an If you ABBA fan it more of an obvious toy I would say But maybe not in a pinball machine, I don't know. But still, yeah, it was thought of early on. And it actually came out great, I think. When I saw it the first time, the first prototype, physically, I held it in my hands. It was kind of huge. So I actually thought this is never going to work in a pimple machine. But when you actually put it in the game, it fitted perfectly. So I think we are very happy with that decision. I saw it and you had a really good teaser video of just showing it was a black silhouetted, shadowed kind of... it was clear, you know, this is some sort of intricate ball locking mechanism. And I think having some, something fun mechanically on the play field that you can interact with is pretty important in pinball. Is there anything else mechanically on the game that you feel like, maybe that's, what's the most mechanically satisfact, or where, where's the mechanical satisfaction? What's the most, or kinetic satisfaction? What's the most enjoyable shot in your mind when you play ABBA? Or what do you like to interact with? I actually think that the left ramp is really, really nice. At the top of the ramp you have a... Like a whirlpool. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. And you have a magnet in the back and when you actually hit that shot, it's a skill shot actually also and it's used in in the game in in the various places um that that is really satisfying i think it's a it's great it's an easy shot but it's really really nice when you uh when the ball uh gets sucked to the back wall of the game nice so yeah and that's um so you have your helicopter and you know that's got to go somewhere but then you were had you already kind of designed a layout and you just fit the helicopter into the layout? Or did you start with the helicopter and then you started trying to figure out the shots around it? Sometimes it's one or the other.
    27:58
    Yeah, but I think that the helicopter was obviously, since that was thought of from the very beginning, I would say that it didn't feel that way, but maybe the rest was kind of developed around it. But also, we did have some input that was quite important from Ludvig, actually. because he's the guy who came up with the idea of having an ABBA pinball in the first place. And he was actually playing pinball in the 90s like a lot of people did. And he also had a favorite game that a lot of people know, obviously, that is Medieval Madness. Oh, yeah. And if you look at the layout of ABBA, you can clearly see that the two ramps are a little bit influenced by that. It's not that they are extremely similar, but yeah. So that was also kind of in the basic layout, I would say. So the helicopter and the ramps are, I would say, that's the base, I think. But you have a third flipper. Medieval Madness doesn't have that. You have a third flipper, the upper flipper. Is that shot a repeatable loop or is it just a hit to a stand-up kind of thing? Yeah, it's a hit to a stand-up target.
    29:39
    And maybe some people will be frustrated by that, but we think it's a great shot, actually. Especially if you do a combo in the right orbit and it comes all the way down to the upper flipper, you can hit that. because you have a spinner also you have a spinner in that inner loop so you have two spinners in that combo and then then you have some nice um reward when you when you hit that upper target so it's uh yeah i think the combo is a really really really nice feature of the game awesome and so you had mentioned the left ramp the whirlpool i'm assuming whitewood number one that was just a ramp but somebody had the idea of let's let's put the funnel or the whirlpool up there and if we're going to add that let's add a magnet you know taking it a step further did that happen later on in the process or was that early on as well it's actually alexander's
    30:34
    design from the beginning was kind of um is not that far away from from the end result in terms of um um of the of the when it comes to the big um things in in the layout but uh And as always, I think, when you do the first whitewood, you realize that things aren't working the way you thought they should or they are not as fun as you thought they would be and stuff like that. So we did change quite a lot, but still the design is there from the start, I would say. Nice. The main shots to some degree. Cool. We actually did have an idea of combining the layout with some classic flavor into it, if you like. With a sorcerer at the top. There is a sorcerer at the top, obviously, that feeds the helicopter. But the idea from the very beginning was to actually, you should be able to use the sorcerer at the top of the game, as in the old value games from the 80s. So like at the orbits and it kind of stopped up there in the saucer kind of thing? Yeah, exactly. But that didn't work out in play testing, so we had to rethink. And I think the solution now is great actually. Yeah, so you get a working whitewood, you're feeling pretty confident on it, and then now it's time for your favorite part, the software to come in. So you've got, I'm assuming, an amazing light show. You could do whatever you want. I mean, ABBA is a very loud band. So you got a great light show that you got to build in there. You have a lot of music that you have access to. And then you have to, music pins always seem to be very challenging on trying to find a structure, like a rules, what kind of modes, how do you want to handle this? So the initial brainstorming that you did on the code, Who would you say is the lead software designer of this game or whose vision is it for the rules and code? Who kind of put all that together?
    32:53
    I would say it's the same team actually that did the layout, the physical layout of the game. We The good thing about this game, I think, is that we obviously did Queen and that was obviously a music pin and and but that was so heavily influenced by the fact that we we had the live performances of queen in there and you can't really you can't really go away from that if you have that you have to do the most of that and and i think it's in those performances are amazing and i think queen is amazing as a as a band especially live so uh but uh but that was
    33:43
    all about the music in in abba we actually did um we we had another opportunity which is a great thing uh we actually had the um started the discussion about abba voyage at some point and that is a show in London obviously with ABBA performing as avatars and they are not just performing there is also some other parts of that show that are animated movies and we kind of thought that maybe we can do something about this here and we came up with the idea So basically you can say the bottom line of this is that you actually have like, you can see the ABBA pinball as two different things actually. You can step up to the game and you can play it as a usual music pin if you're into ABBA. Or you can look at the story in the game and that is not so much about ABBA. even if the goal of the game is to actually make the band members into avatars. Avatars, yeah. Yeah. So that is the thing. So you are actually chasing to complete the medallion of power in the game, and you get a piece of the medallion for each part of the game that you succeed with.
    35:17
    But you don't really, if you're not into that story, you can just enjoy it as a music bit. So it's a little bit more to it than just being a music bit. Yeah, no, that's great. We thought that idea was a good thing. Is there any particular mode then that you are really proud of or you think is a really fun mode to play, like creative in either the shots you have to hit or the order? I think it's amazing what these pinball designers can do with just a ball and shots, you know, and be creative on different modes that have character and life and fun challenges. So, yeah, any particular mode that stands out to you in ABBA that you really enjoy playing?
    36:06
    I actually like most of the modes in the game. Good, good. I do. Yeah. Surprisingly. No, but I think that what stands out to me is actually, I like the, maybe it's not the right word, but I can't find it. The drama, a little bit of the drama when you actually qualify, we call them the challenge modes. When you get to the challenge modes, you have the opportunity of getting a piece of the medallion. And actually, it is like this, that when you reach that point and you start challenge mode, you will get the piece of the medallion. But the whole mode is a timed mode where you, it's a sort of a victory mode, you could say. So you can't really, you can just get less or more points at that point. But at that point, but yeah, I like the drama when you qualify the challenge mode and you have to hit the left ramp and the ball gets stuck in the magnet. And then there's an intro from the animated movies from Voyage. And when the main character falls into the water, that is exactly when the ball is dropped from the magnet. There's a little bit of choreography, if you like. I like that part of the game, really. Honestly, I think the more that I'm in pinball, the more that choreography and sound really can take a good game to an amazing game. I mean, that's really what brings you into the experience. Because like what you just said, hitting the left ramp and getting the ball stuck, that probably happens a lot during the game. But it feels totally different in that moment because of the show that's being displayed or the lights probably pointing you in that or the music making it a little more intense. I think that's huge. Who is doing your sound? Because I know, what was it? Was it David Thiel that did the sound for Alien and he just was incredible? Who doing your sound package for ABBA Yeah that is actually another legend I would say because David is obviously a huge pimple legend And he did Alien and he also did Queen But for ABBA, we work with Olof Gustafsson, who is a Swedish guy. He is actually one of the founders of Digital Illusions, the software company back in the 90s who got famous for making three pinball games for the Commodore Amiga at the time. Oh, okay. Which is Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies, and Pinball Illusions. And he's been in the gaming industry ever since, and he's been involved in a lot of big titles. But he always had this dream
    39:13
    to actually do the sound for a physical, real pinball machine at some point in his life. Nice. Yeah, yeah. and as it happened, his dream came true actually with ABBA, which is quite a coincidence. But it was quite nice that he... I mean, I really like the sounds. It's great. It's great working with Olof. That's awesome. It's very different sounds from... I mean, Alien is just amazing. I think everybody thinks that. But, yeah, this is – it's always – David always told me that when we were talking about him joining to work on Queen, he actually – I don't know if he wants me to say this, but he hesitated a bit because he said to me that he's not really – He thinks that working with music pins is very hard because the sound is already there to some extent.
    40:22
    But he did it amazingly there as well. Yeah. My only complaint with Alien was I was able to figure it out. Whenever I stream a game, I try to do direct capture of the video. and then I try to do correct direct capture of the audio just to get the best, you know, video and audio experience for whoever's watching the stream. Um, I could, I could not figure out how to do direct capture with your current setup, the way that the screen is kind of mounted to the computer, trying to get in there. It's not HDMI. I couldn't do that. But, uh, and then even the audio, I ended up having to disconnect the speakers and then tap into that. But being able to do that, tapping into the audio and pulling that into the stream. And then when I stream, I wear headphones, being able to hear every single little bit of audio that David Thiel had put into Alien, just, it was incredible. So the best suggestion I would have for you is, is develop a headphone kit or some adapter for your games so that all of your users, Alien and beyond, can hear your game as clear as possible. So I don't know if that's in the works, but I would highly encourage it because, man, the audio was so, so good.
    41:38
    Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah. We are on it. I can tell you that. Yeah. Wonderful. So, yeah, Abba, where are we at with manufacturing? How soon? I mean, I'm over here in the States, which creates challenges on how soon the games will get here. Where are we at? we're recording this on May 21st. So how soon do you think buyers in North America will be able to see or get their ABBA game? We are actually... production has started, so they are being assembled. It's not... we hope to... or the first games should ship second half of June. What I don't know is exactly where, because I don't have the schedule here. But it's safe to say that the first games should definitely be in North America in, I would say, July then. Something like that. Nice. And I'm hoping, I know Zach was flipping out. He is a distributor for you guys. So I know he will be getting some games and hopefully I'll have a chance to stream one and play that for everyone. So I'm I'm looking forward to it. I'm not an ABBA fan. I recognize so much of their music. That's the thing that, you know, it's not it's one of those bands. Elton John was similar. Like, I don't ever go to do something and think I want to turn on ABBA or I want to turn on Elton John. But yet when you hear it, you know all the songs. So I have no doubt that we will enjoy ourselves playing that game. and then it sounds like you have some very interesting modes in there with this idea of assembling avatars and um as long as it's a fun layout that's fun to shoot i i'm looking forward to it i think it'll be really really a good time um but yeah i'm i'm looking forward to that you know looking ahead is there are you guys already looking ahead at at game four game five i mean um is there you're saying it kind of sounds like you and pedretti are going to be doing a little more together i mean what's the what's the game or what's the thought moving forward with just pinball
    43:58
    yeah there are a lot of plans i would say um so yes we are definitely looking ahead for game four and game five and there will be um um safe to say that there will be more remakes also okay so that's uh yeah we uh i can't really go into the details too much but um um yeah we have projects are are um ongoing i would say wonderful yeah multiple products so that's good so i mean avon was released first but then pedretti has announced um funhouse funhouse is coming out there's there's a standard edition an le edition it's a whole new remake um but by progetti games and i remember seeing that and a lot of people some people even asked me you know like wait does that mean who's are they building both like who's this assembly line yeah so the euro pinball corp is that the plan this one line's going to be building funhouse the other is going to be building abba i mean there's no i'm assuming you guys just work well together or there's no way that's going to compete or go in shifts or anything like that um that's always been the plan or what yeah yeah yeah that's that's that's the plan i mean we uh um we jointly own the uh
    45:27
    the european ball factory so it's uh it's no problem at all it's no competing i would say is just a really unique situation, a good situation I would say. So yeah, One Line will be building Pinball Brothers games and One Line will build Funhouse as you say. So it's nothing more than that I guess. Nice and I know just so much of manufacturing with pinball is in North America. America so I know we're spoiled where if we need a part if we need whatever it's just it's right here is there as more European pinball manufacturing is happening do you guys have any plans on I don't know strengthening the US support side do you have anybody that works in the US that does support whether it's software or hardware or like how easy is it to get parts reliable for that kind of thing? Yeah sure it's good you mentioned it. We do have obviously PB USA in Pennsylvania and that is run by Sean Forsyth and he's also one of the tech support guys so it's very easy to to get spare parts buy add-ons and obviously you can you can also get it from all the distributors I think we have I hope I'm right when I say we have 14 or 15 distributors around us right now but if you don't have a distributor nearby you can always turn to PV USA as another second option so and yeah we are looking forward to increase the number of parts available and
    47:32
    strengthening the support as we go. Wonderful, I think that's the biggest fear of any buying any pinball machine is the fact that it would somehow break and you're not going to be able to fix it and so you know there's a few companies, Stern being one that's been around so long, you know, you can, you feel confident in being able to buy those things long-term or even some of the Bally Williams that have been out. And not only are the original parts still somewhat available, but there's so many remade parts. So I think that's always, you guys have established yourself enough at this point, you're on game three. It's not like you've changed. You're still on the same system. So you're reiterating, you're making it better. You're making it stronger. So that's good to give the buyer confidence that you'll be able to buy parts and support your system long term.
    48:19
    But yeah, I knew I wanted to talk to you, kind of start to finish. Good introduction of who you are. And I mean, is there anything else that you'd like to just tell the pinball listeners on? I don't know what you're excited about or what you're all about or anything else I didn't mention that you want to dive into here real quick.
    48:41
    Well, there's a lot of things to talk about, but I can just say that, as you mentioned before about ABBA, I think that it's not the theme for everyone. But I really think that people should try the game if they get the chance to play it. Because, as I mentioned before, it's a lot more into it than just being a music pin. so um that's uh yeah that's one thing i've got yeah yeah absolutely i think um that's i'm all for it i know foo fighters did something similar where it's not just a foo fighters pin it's actually like a totally alien invasion mode based you know extreme kind of thing so it's give people options and uh you know yeah you make you may end up making somebody a huge abba fan just because they love playing your game as much as they do. So, well, that's awesome. But hey, I really appreciate you coming on. I appreciate your transparency and your openness and honesty to talk. If the listeners had any questions for you, is there an easy way to reach you? Or I mean, they can obviously put it in the comments and YouTube and I can try to forward any of those on. But what would be the best way to get a hold of you or somebody at Pinball Brothers if they had more questions?
    49:57
    I think the best way would be to they can always send me an email. Daniel, pimblebrothers.com. I think they also should talk to Sean, obviously. I think they should reach out to PBUSA, the pbusasales.com. Because that is, I think, as I said before, as we go, we are looking to increase the support and the number of parts that we have to offer. So yeah, we are just happy if people want to talk to us. And don't be afraid reaching out. We are there for you. Yeah. Awesome. Or yeah, or reach out to Zach at Flippin' Out. I know he's selling them and he's supported many aliens in Queens. So I know there between him and Greg, they can help you as well, but awesome. Well, Daniel, it was great meeting you. Great talking to you. I appreciate you setting some time away, setting some time aside to have this conversation. Thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. We'll have to talk again sometime soon. Yeah, sure. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Yep. Bye.