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Stern Media Day - King Kong by Keith Elwin

In Before the Lock·video·16m 17s·analyzed·Apr 18, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Keith Elwin's King Kong impresses at Stern media day with strong playflow and original art direction.

Summary

At a Stern Pinball media day, Keith Elwin presents King Kong, a game developed with a custom art palette by multiple artists (Zombie Yeti, Kevin O'Connor, Greg Ferris) inspired by the 1932 novel rather than movie assets. Players praise the gameplay flow, mechanical variety, and shot design, with particular enthusiasm for the Kong multiball and helix shots. The event includes factory tours, gameplay demonstrations, and live streaming to the community.

Key Claims

  • King Kong art palette was developed by Kevin O'Connor before Keith Elwin came on the project

    high confidence · Zombie Yeti directly states: 'The palette for this was developed before I ever came on Tee'd Off this. It was actually Kevin O'Connor.'

  • Three artists worked on King Kong: Zombie Yeti (heading it), Greg Ferris, and Kevin O'Connor, with different roles

    high confidence · Discussion of art team composition; Zombie Yeti confirms 'Kevin and Greg primarily worked together on the play field, and then Kevin and I primarily worked on back glass and cabinets.'

  • Keith Elwin designed the game around a specific flagship shot (the helix/cinnamon roll shot)

    high confidence · Don states: 'He said he built the game around that. So he said he always starts with one shot and then kind of builds around that.'

  • King Kong game features distinct experiences between Pro and Premium editions, including the gong shot being more dangerous on Premium

    high confidence · Nick notes: 'They're both, they both actually have unique experiences... the gong on the Premium Edition, it is kind of a dangerous shot because it can send it back at you, but the Stern 'AC/DC (Pro Vault Edition)', it's a little safer.'

  • The game uses original character interpretations based on the 1932 novel rather than movie adaptations

    high confidence · Keith Elwin explains: 'We took the character names that were from the novel and kind of gave them their own personalities, their own jobs.'

Notable Quotes

  • “You're going Tee'd Off make an all-new The King Kong, which is a lot more work and part of why we had multiple artists collaborating together.”

    Zombie Yeti@ 10:00 — Explains the artistic rationale for multi-artist collaboration to create original IP rather than copying movie aesthetics

  • “The Kong multi-ball with the drain. I love it. Just the way that it's metal, the action that it has. You can go each way with the right or left coming out of it.”

    George Gomez@ 11:13 — Community legend's positive reaction to key mechanical feature

  • “I think this is very much Godzilla's cousin, right? The way you can Transformers Limited Edition the ramps and everything.”

    Don@ 11:51 — Comparison to recent Keith Elwin game suggests design lineage and ramp-heavy gameplay

  • “It's just such a fun, it flows really well, but that's like Keith. Keith's The Games all flow really well.”

    Retro Ralph@ 14:47 — Reinforces Keith Elwin's reputation for playflow-focused design

  • “Don't even judge it until you play it.”

    Retro Ralph@ 14:53 — Suggests video presentation doesn't do justice to in-person experience, common theme in pinball media

Entities

Keith ElwinpersonZombie YetipersonKevin O'ConnorpersonGreg FerrispersonSeth DavispersonGeorge GomezpersonDonperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern conducting media day events with factory tours, live gameplay streaming, and community player participation

    high · Event structure includes factory tours, expert player feedback sessions, live stream coverage, and multiple media personalities covering simultaneously

  • ?

    competitive_signal: King Kong positioned to stand out in a potential crowded Kong IP market as public domain; original art direction and character interpretation strategy differentiation

    high · Zombie Yeti: 'we wanted it Tee'd Off stand out 'in there' or similar interjection a lineup of Kong derivatives because obviously this is, you know, it's free domain, public domain now. So other people might get the same idea.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Initial social media criticism about art direction (color palette, modernized comic book style vs 1930s aesthetic expectations) mentioned but contradicted by in-person player reception

    medium · Don notes: 'the first thing that popped out was like this art purple garbage i don't like it' but later 'now like i get the vibe that they were doing and yeah i think it's great'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Elwin builds games around flagship shots, designing playflow outward from a core mechanical element

    high · Don reports: 'He said he built the game around that. So he said he always starts with one shot and then kind of builds around that.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Stern media day event with factory access, live streaming, and journalist/influencer participation generating significant community content coverage

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.049

0:00
All right, we're waiting to go in. I got George Gomez. Not with Stern. No, not the George Gomez, but a George Gomez. But owner of many Stern machines, right? Yes. Are you in on comm? I am. Which one? premium okay cool so you you I asked you before you watched a bunch of videos I haven't watched too much what do you kind of look it out for today I love the art yeah I see some naysayers about the art but I love that business of the art three artists on the package you can't beat that yeah what's what's the story with that like I guess like I was listening to poor man's and he was talking about how this feels integrated but it's three different artists that did it zombie yet he's like headed it maybe to the finishing touches the cabinet okay I think the other two artists are Greg Fury okay and who was the other one. Name's escaping me. But just owed to like the old Data East Kong that never came out. But if you look at that and you do the lower play field by the flippers, you can see a lot of the same elements in the Stern premium and Stern art package, basically. Do you have Godzilla? I don't have Godzilla. Okay, what are your thoughts on like the lack of movie assets? Is that kind of I like the original IPs. King Kong hits home to me. I'm from born and raised in New York, so that allure of You know, the subway, an Empire State Building. Yeah, yeah. I think it's some oil building in this original IP. His home. I'm not a big Godzilla fan, I'll say it. I mean, I'm probably one of 2%, maybe. But I do enjoy Godzilla. Oh, you don't enjoy the game, that's it. Okay. I don't, like, it's not something I own. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't see me owning a Godzilla. But King Kong, immediately I jumped on, reached out to Jeff at Mad Pinball and said, hey, put me down for a premium, be sight unseen. Ellie, maybe, but I was too late. LE sold out quick, but I definitely didn't see it. Okay, so interesting. So you couldn't even get one. No. And you've gone through Jeff before, so you were kind of somewhere in the, you should have been able to, but couldn't. No, yeah. Okay, well, that's good. So we're going to have it quick. Good. I definitely prefer Premium. I'm excited to play it today. I think it's loaded with mechs. I think the flow from the gameplay stream last night, well, I mean, if you watched it, like, it's just crazy. Like the ball paths, I didn't know there was a little, like, Vuck scoop, like the bond. Right, right. coming on the mid right there, so that was pretty cool. See, I don't even know what you're talking about because I haven't been watching it. Let's do this. Let's do this. I want to hit you up after you've played it a little bit and see what you think. All right, we'll be back. Hey, thanks. It's still fun. It's cool.
Retro Ralph
person
Kyle Spiteriperson
Rick Zeefperson
Stern Pinballcompany
King Konggame
Godzillagame
Jawsgame
In Before the Lockorganization

high · Multiple content creators (Retro Ralph, In Before the Lock, others) covering event; factory tours occurring; live stream announced for following Monday

  • $

    market_signal: King Kong availability limited; one player notes attempting to get Avatar LE but sold out quickly; King Kong Premium Edition securing strong pre-orders

    medium · George Gomez reports: 'James Camerons Avatar (Limited Edition) sold out quick, but I definitely didn't see it... I definitely prefer Premium Edition. I'm excited Tee'd Off play it today.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Zombie Yeti confirmed as head of Stern Pinball art direction, making key aesthetic decisions and leading multi-artist teams

    high · Zombie Yeti describes role: 'The palette for this was developed before I ever came on... Kevin had come 'in there' or similar interjection and started coming up with all these concepts. At one point, Greg Ferris came 'in there' or similar interjection.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: King Kong Pro and Premium editions feature mechanically distinct experiences rather than cosmetic-only differences

    high · Nick: 'the gong on the Premium Edition, it is kind of a dangerous shot because it can send it back at you, but the Stern 'AC/DC (Pro Vault Edition)', it's a little safer.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: King Kong uses advanced 3D video animation with dynamic effects (wind, movement) rather than static CGI; notable improvement over Black Knight: Sword of Rage era animation

    medium · Don: 'This isn't just static Kong, like, moving around, being drug around... There's a lot of dynamic 3D stuff going on 'in there' or similar interjection this... like, look at the wind blowing 'in there' or similar interjection the background'

    • 2:40
    Stuart? Walk-ins put you guys into two groups. half of you are going to go with Kyle Spiteri on a factory tour, half of you are going to stay inside, there's a promo premium, Keith's going to go over the game with the Vax. So this is probably for one half, the bottom half is the top half for all the other keyboards, and these are the Vax. This is kind of one of those keyboards that you can use with your production cell, that's the way to take the cards, They have a couple wires.
    3:29
    It has a computer. It has wiring. It's ready for a plate. We'll see that in a moment. It's happening, it's happening.
    3:53
    You guys are good, I'm pretty high up. I guess these are probably evidence that are slated to be LEs so they got the art plate the logo the shirt the phone I hit you with it with a question That's my bread and butter. I understand that you can come right out very shortly. The issues can be reported back to the production team, so we can make sure that everything is consistent.
    4:37
    We'll skip over this and come down here and show the actual production lines at work. This is final packing, though. This is where they took the games into the box and scanned them from all ends. I'm going in.
    5:18
    All right. This is a lot more fun tour whenever there are people here. With D&D there was nobody here. I know what it's like to bend that shape. It's not fun. These are always fun, right? These come manufactured this way. I'm sorry? These come like this for you. Yeah, they get manufactured.
    6:42
    So this is where like commercial parts go. It's like, you know, everybody from our side. So I'm Seth, I'm the CEO at Stern. I am basically his body double.
    6:58
    I'm kidding. Zombie Yeti Jeremy backer. Cool. Keith's back. So Keith, take it away. I'll shift to the center here.
    7:12
    Welcome to Hong Kong Midland Terror Island. It's basically our own spin on the 1932 novel. We took the character names that were from the novel and kind of gave them their own personalities, their own jobs. So Laura, we named her Laura. Laura Groff? Yeah, Laura Groff. And Zero is an archaeologist. So is Jack. on the island looking for treasures. Carl Denham is still a filmmaker but he's more of a documentary filmmaker trying to follow their adventures and selling the footage. He's very selfish, all he cares about is getting the shot. He doesn't care what happens to his actors. We have Captain Englehorn, voiced by the legendary Rick Zeef and his first mate Jimmy voiced by Q So yeah we have our own characters their own personalities but the over lowering the story arc of the arrive at the island they don't really know what to expect, and then they come across Kong, Kong gets enamored with Ann, and the rest kind of just follows the story. Everybody knows. The palette for this was developed before I ever came on to this. It was actually Kevin O'Connor. If you look at Kevin's work, like Robocop, those are his colors. Yeah, so Kevin O'Connor actually started working with Keith, because again, Keith wanted Kevin on this. Keith, of course, loved the original game that he's never played. Gary will say it's better that way. Do you want to talk about it? No, I'm fine.
    8:57
    And so Kevin had come in and started coming up with all these concepts. At one point, Greg Freris came in. He had, of course, originally, I think you had approached Greg about those two working on it. And Greg, of course, retired. Queer.
    9:19
    And then it sort of came to light that, hey, you know, actually he could be involved. And so like, okay. So Kevin and Greg primarily worked together on the play field, and then Kevin and I primarily worked on back glass and cabinets. And basically what that means is he did a lot of the concept stuff. That back glass right there for the LE, that is the first piece we worked on together. And you can see elements and probably pick out who did what where. But there was a lot of overlap, and we just sort of passed things around, things like that. And a lot of this was we had to develop a world, right? Usually you're going like, hey, I'm following a movie. Like, you know, Jaws artwork looks like Jaws artwork, right? This one, it's like, right, you're going to make an all-new King Kong, which is a lot more work and part of why we had multiple artists collaborating together. Yeah, and we wanted it to stand out in a lineup of Kong derivatives because obviously this is, you know, it's free domain, public domain now. So other people might get the same idea. So we really wanted to kind of find what our angle was. And so we all just kind of, you know, worked together. And I, of course, having worked with Greg for about a decade now and been friends with him and being friends with Kevin, I thought it was a good opportunity. I wish I could have come in sooner, but I was working on other things. But once I got in and once we started going to town, we had a good time. We don't hate each other. We still talk. I'm meeting Greg for lunch today. Hi, George. We're back, man. You guys, did you get to play it? I did get to play it. Non-stop. No, I have. Non-stop. Not in the ready replay room, though. I love it. Love it. And you're in on the previews, too. Would go to ELE if I could, but too late. What's standing out to you after kind of watching a ton of videos and playing it now? That Kong multi-ball with the train. I love it. Just the way that it's metal, the action that it has. You can go each way with the right or left coming out of it. That spider is pretty legit. It has a little bit of a flair to it and it has a little playing element. So I like that. And then just the flow, shot after shot, and it's not clunk fest at all. So Keith Elwin knocked it out of the park again. Nice. Don, what's up, buddy? Welcome to the show. How you doing? I never miss one of these things, man. Are you kidding me? You're on there all the time. Yeah, yeah. The game's fun, man. And I don't think there was really any doubt. But does this play like AIQ? Does it play like Jaws? Does it play like Bond 60? That's what we didn't know, right? I think this is very much Godzilla's cousin, right? The way you can combo the ramps and everything. Getting the fist, like, spiral, what do we call them? The cinnamon roll shot.
    12:01
    And then right back to the flipper into the biplane ramp. I've done that a couple of times. And, like, that's always going to be satisfying. Wind up wind out up the ramp another helix back to the flipper I still going man What do they call that The punch The punch back The banana slap I don know what they call it He said he built the game around that So he said he always starts with one shot and then kind of builds around that. So it's pretty cool. But the cool thing, you know, if you get a shot up in there, it doesn't quite have the momentum to carry through all the way. There's a drain there, and it's back into that buck and still back to the same flipper. So, like, I love it. I dig it, man. What's the vibe been out there on this so far? like the last couple days are people like hating on anything any shark eating ball yeah type stuff man like people are so funny like yeah the first thing that popped out was like this art purple garbage i don't like it and i think it were i mean anything else you see in person it always looks better um at first when i first saw it i was thinking like is kong part of the avengers now is he part of the x-men but now like i get the vibe that they were doing and yeah i think it's great i like the the translate on the pro yeah but like the le translate image that's the boss one. I want a Translight version of that to put in my game. How about the video assets? I mean, there's no, obviously, video from the movies, but it seems like there's a lot going on with this. I haven't seen any dropped frames or anything. It all seems to make sense. It's a big step up from, like, the early days of Black Knight Sword of Rage, like the early CGI. Yeah, this looks good. This isn't just static Kong, like, moving around, being drug around in Blender or anything. And it's not the flat stuff, like, Foo's cool, but it's, like, there's a lot of flat artwork. Like, I feel like there's a lot of dynamic 3D stuff going on in this. Yeah, this looks good. Like, look at the wind blowing in the background, you know, just while you're playing. Yeah, that's good.
    13:38
    That was a long game. Nick, what are you thinking on this bad boy? Oh, man, do I need to get mic'd up for this? No, no, you're good, yeah. That was one of the best balls I played.
    13:46
    I love the Pro, and I love the Premium. They're both, they both actually have unique experiences, and I think that's one thing that, like, people in the past have thought, oh, well, if you're getting the Pro, you're not getting the full experience or whatever, but the fact that these two actually have different experiences, like the gong on the premium, it is kind of a dangerous shot because it can send it back at you, but the pro, it's a little safer. All right, we're here with Retro Ralph. How you doing, buddy? I'm good, man. It's always good to see you. Absolutely, absolutely. So we're going to wrap it up here. I'm a long day. You been playing a lot? Well, yeah, we played, we got to play in like the private room for like 30 minutes, which was cool. I feel like I got, you know, a good idea of both the pro and the premium. on King Kong. And you guys just finished up a live stream. What's the vibe out there? People feeling like they're getting a better sense of it? I think, first of all, I think it's interesting when you play it versus you just watch the trailer. Right. And there's a lot of things that I had questions about that once I played it, I'm like, all right. Maybe they were like reservations, and the reservations were gone for me after I played it. It's just such a fun, it flows really well, but that's like Keith. Keith's games all flow really well. You know, I'm starting to learn. It's like, don't even judge it until you play it. Yeah. But I mean, obviously, it's cool to see it, but to see it in person, I mean, it really is a great shooter. I mean, I've certainly played some Stern games lately where I'm like, I'm not sure about this one, but I'm pretty sure about this one. No, it flows well. I love that helix shot where you kind of hit it from the right, you hit it from that right flipper, and it does that, like, loop, and back to the, I think it goes back to your right flipper. But it's just fun, man. And then the Kong thing is just, the gorilla is, like, cool as hell. Oh, it's very, it actually hits the glass. Yeah, yeah. And I guess it's going to be, like, an attract mode thing where, like, He'll get angry and start banging on the glass to play. It's just cool. So what are you going to do? Are you doing any content on this one or just the live stream? You know, I wanted to be in the moment for this one. I've got to say, I could probably scrape a video together with what I filmed, but I don't think I'm going to. Well, you don't have Mason here with you, so you're just focusing on playing and do the live. That's good, though. Then I can talk about the game. Awesome, man. Well, I hope to see you again at these soon, buddy. All right, dude. Signing off, guys. Check it out. We're going to do a live stream on Monday on the channel. We're going to have Jamie Burchell with what, JBS? The new brand? JBS Show. Jamie's going to be on and Davey. We're going to get into some of the areas where mods could exist. There's a ton of stuff on here, so we'll see you guys then.