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Dutch Pinball - Pinball Expo 2024 - Melvin Williams, Barry Driessen & Rens Hooijmaijers

Pinball News (Pinball Expo 2024)·video·51m 4s·analyzed·Oct 19, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Dutch Pinball details Alice's Adventures in Wonderland design evolution from John Popadiuk's foam-core concept through production.

Summary

Melvin Williams, Barry Driessen, and Rens Hooijmaijers presented Dutch Pinball's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at Pinball Expo 2024, detailing the extensive design and prototyping process. Melvin acquired John Popadiuk's original foam-core concept and spent 10-12 months iterating through dozens of whitewood prototypes to create a playable game that honored the original vision while solving fundamental mechanical problems. The seminar showcased the journey from concept through artwork, with emphasis on serviceability, world-under-glass design philosophy, and meticulous attention to detail across playfield layout, mini playfield mechanics, topper design, and cabinet art.

Key Claims

  • Melvin Williams acquired John Popadiuk's lockers from bankruptcy and found the original Alice foam-core concept inside

    high confidence · Melvin: 'I acquired lockers with from the bankruptcy from john from the zittaware and um so i took all the stuff brought it back to the netherlands um was digging through all the files'

  • The first whitewood built directly from Popadiuk's design didn't work and was called a 'dumpster fire'

    high confidence · Melvin: 'the first whitewood i build on the lines from john um that was a dumpster fire and with all respect to john or whatever he created it just didn't work out'

  • Melvin went through approximately 46 iterations of the central ramp to get it working properly

    high confidence · Melvin: 'but also what i didn't want to do, i don't want to create a ramp that goes outside the border of the mini play field because then you're losing the illusion of what the concept was. So Barry still hates me for it, but it was like 46 iterations of that ramp'

  • The game was designed to use common Bally/Williams parts for long-term serviceability rather than proprietary components

    high confidence · Melvin: 'you can get off the shelf and he just chucked everything in the box and almost from all the mechs that are in there just i think 90 you can just if something goes wrong go online you can order it's all bally williams parts'

  • All playfield artwork was hand-redrawn, not AI-generated, going through approximately 30 versions of iterations

    high confidence · Melvin: 'so everything we had some characters of course from the uh from the translate itself but here you can see all the iterations we went through and we the real the first one which we didn't like that much but uh yeah i think there's 30 versions'

  • The cat topper uses real glass lenses to create a depth effect and make the eyes appear to follow the player from any angle

    high confidence · Melvin: 'what we use are real glass lenses that make the um the screens look much bigger and with the eyes because they're compact lenses if you his eyes move but if you go from left to right it creates like he's always chasing you'

Notable Quotes

  • “the first whitewood i build on the lines from john um that was a dumpster fire and with all respect to john or whatever he created it just didn't work out so I was back to the drawing board”

    Melvin Williams@ 6:33 — Establishes the fundamental design challenge of adapting Popadiuk's concept into a functional machine

  • “So Barry still hates me for it, but it was like 46 iterations of that ramp just for me to get it working”

    Melvin Williams@ 13:21 — Illustrates the meticulous iterative design process and the toll on team relationships during refinement

  • “I wanted to create a world under glass, and I still believe that's something we are missing up to today. Everything is just flat plastic”

    Melvin Williams@ 20:38 — Articulates the core design philosophy of recreating the 'world under glass' concept with sculpts and interactive elements

  • “I wanted to create something, even if you don't play it and you look at all the sculpts. Every time you look at it, you're like, oh, now I see a little bit of that. It's like if you're looking at a painting at home.”

    Melvin Williams@ 21:54 — Explains the artistic vision for collector-oriented machines focused on aesthetic appeal beyond gameplay

  • “when you gotta create it you come to something else so the first whitewood i build on the lines from john um that was a dumpster fire”

    Melvin Williams@ 6:26 — Captures the design philosophy paradox: paper designs don't always translate to physical playability

  • “I have OCD for straight lines and stuff so as you can see this insert right here on the mini play field it's a mirrored version of that one but it doesn't make sense so we created a brand new mold”

Entities

Melvin WilliamspersonBarry DriessenpersonRens HooijmaijerspersonJohn PopadiukpersonDutch PinballcompanyAlice's Adventures in Wonderlandgame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Dutch Pinball team actively addressing community questions during seminar; transparent about design rationale and decision-making process, suggesting effort to build trust after potential production delays

    medium · maybe we can do the questions just you know as we go so maybe if you have a question raise your hand and Jonathan will come to you with the mic and ask you can ask a question

  • ?

    community_signal: Significant community debate about Alice's character sexualization/colorization; Melvin defends artistic choices as natural consequence of adding color to original translight design

    high · Everybody is like, oh, you over-sexualized this game and with the characters on there. but if you really look at it it was already pretty sexualized on the you know to translate was a translate and as soon as you add color to something you create more depth

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Original John Popadiuk foam-core design contained mechanically unplayable elements (U-turn shot requiring third flipper, spinning disc blocking ramp entry) that required fundamental redesign

    high · if you see there john had like i don't know a spinning disc or something he had on magic girl but if you look at that shot there's no way that flipper can take that u-turn right there there's no way you only can make that shot if you have a third flipper

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Strategic use of interactive topper (cat with motion-tracking eyes via glass lenses) as conceptual gateway figure luring players into 'Wonderland' world based on Through the Looking Glass narrative

    high · I wanted him just to come out of that world and just lure you in it's like talking come on play me you know come into this world it's like he's coming out of that mirror and just trying to lure you in

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.153

0:00
Good afternoon, thank you for coming to our seminar about Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Sorry, yeah, okay, okay. So first I'll introduce the three of us, starting with Rens. Renside. Yeah. Tell us about yourself. Okay. Okay, nothing there, no? So, I'm now doing... Oh, sorry, everybody can hear me? Yeah? Okay. So, my name is Rens. Many of you know me as Rens, the last name and the last letter H is the first letter of my last name. If I ever had known I would get so much interaction with Pinsight, I think I would have done it a little bit different. because everybody calls me wrench so anyway so I do this now since I met Barry sorry English or English I'm not used to speaking into public so I met Barry I think since 2010-11 the Dutch pinball association. We made we make still make a magazine together called spinner for the Dutch pinball Association. And 2014 10 years ago, we visited for the first time, pin expo, or pinball expo, I should say here in Chicago. That was the moment of launch of Lebowski. So I put myself then also on the list I became an early achiever. So that's a long story, of course. Yeah, short. Short introduction. Okay, let's wrap up. Fast forward since three years, I became more interactive. This is for me. My wife would call it an out-of-control hobby. So I have a day job. I do this in the evening and in the weekends. I do the, let's say, the web care and support for Dutch Pinball. That's now since three years.
2:10
Yeah, that's good. You want a short one? Yeah, that's fine. Everybody can hear me? Hi, my name is Melville Williams. I'm the lead designer on the Addams Avengers in Wonderland based off a concept by J-Pop, John Papaduke. I was always a pinball collector, but more from the prototype things. So to see all the engineering that went into a game and why it could or couldn't work. I took possession of the lockers from J-Prop from the auctions.
2:43

The mini playfield can be removed in approximately 30 seconds with just three screws

high confidence · Melvin: 'it means that would with a few plugs and and you don't after you remove the um the plastic from the mini play field it has three screws you unscrew those and you take out the whole mini play field and that's like i think you would time me you probably can get it out like 30 seconds'

  • The game runs on P3 Rock boards, making it maintainable long-term

    high confidence · Melvin: 'and it's running on p3 rock those things you can get online as well'

    • Melvin Williams@ 15:25 — Demonstrates obsessive attention to detail and custom manufacturing to achieve aesthetic perfection

  • “it wasn't centered with the lock yeah so the top of the gate wasn't centered i was like barry it's not centered he's like Are you kidding me? It's not centered.”

    Melvin Williams@ 35:47 — Shows alignment obsession extending to Barry's frustration with Melvin's perfectionism

  • “I wanted that if people are familiar with the uh alice in wonderland you also have like the book through the looking glass and alice walks through the um to the glass uh to the mirror itself so what i wanted to create with the cat”

    Melvin Williams@ 31:32 — Explains the conceptual framework of the topper as a gateway figure luring players into the game world

    • Zombie Yeti
    person
    Pinball Expoevent
    P3 (Multimorphic)product
    The Big Lebowskigame
    Circus Voltairegame
    Tales of the Arabian Nightsgame
    Magic Girlgame
    Twilight Zonegame
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Melvin intentionally selected common Bally/Williams parts over proprietary components to ensure long-term serviceability and avoid manufacturer dependency

    high · I said to barry listen what's in lebowski you know what is something you can what's in lebowski you can get off the shelf...90 you can just if something goes wrong go online you can order it's all bally williams parts

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Melvin prioritizes 'world under glass' aesthetic with detailed sculpts and interactive elements over commercial convenience, bucking industry trend toward flat plastic playfields

    high · I wanted to create a world under glass, and I still believe that's something we are missing up to today. Everything is just flat plastic...I wanted to create something, even if you don't play it and you look at all the sculpts. Every time you look at it, you're like, oh, now I see a little bit of that.

  • ?

    community_signal: Melvin demonstrates obsessive attention to detail (OCD tendencies) affecting design decisions, including commissioning new molds for perfectly symmetrical inserts and centering issues

    high · I have OCD for straight lines and stuff so as you can see this insert right here on the mini play field it's a mirrored version of that one but it doesn't make sense so we created a brand new mold

  • ?

    product_concern: Extensive artwork iteration (30+ versions) with hand-drawn elements rather than AI generation; debate over color intensity and character placement suggests high production standards but potential for customer dissatisfaction with final aesthetic choices

    high · every art that's on the play field was redrawn...there was another idea with i think the queen here is with the queen with the inserts but we didn't like that either...I wanted to create like more here you can see the stuff that they did and i told her i just want more and more color

  • ?

    product_concern: Melvin conducted extensive mechanical testing and refinement (46 ramp iterations) to ensure shot playability and ball flow, indicating high quality standards despite original design flaws

    high · So Barry still hates me for it, but it was like 46 iterations of that ramp just for me to get it working...I had to call Barry and say, yeah, can you change this? Why? It's like one millimeter.

  • ?

    technology_signal: Melvin leverages modern CAD (Fusion 360) and 3D printing for rapid prototyping and precision design, contrasting with 1980s/90s designers working without these tools

    high · I have so much respect for all the guys who made pinball machines back in the 80s, 90s. I can't even imagine how hard and difficult it was...now these days I can just look up to like Fusion 360, zoom in and see exactly how much space I got left

    • There was some stuff in there that I found fascinating. So I knew already Barry from some other things.
    2:50
    And one day I walked into Dutch and I just said to Barry, like, look, I got this idea. How about we make this game? And he was like, okay, can you do it? I was like, yeah, I think I can.
    3:07
    And a few weeks later, I showed him my first whitewood I did on the game. And he was like, okay, you know what? Just let's go for it. Yeah, we'll show that later. So maybe. Yeah, so now, you know, 10 to 12 months later, we're here. So it's great. Yeah.
    3:26
    So, yeah, we'll talk about that later in detail, of course. so we have some topics a lot of pictures some videos we're going to discuss right now last I had a Q&A but maybe we can do the questions just you know as we go so maybe if you have a question raise your hand and Jonathan will come to you with the mic and ask you can ask a question if that's okay so yeah melvin was already talking about why alice so maybe you can yeah raise a little bit more about that so um when i acquired the uh the lockers you know most people know about it if not so i acquired uh lockers with uh from the bankruptcy from john from the zittaware and um so i took all the stuff brought it back to the netherlands um was digging through all the files and everything he got because his whole life work was in there and um there was one game in there that always stood out for me you know to give me back that old 90s feeling from you know circus voltaire and tales of the arabian nights um and the more i dug into it um because it was the least developed it was just a foam core that's everybody familiar you're with that knows now what Alice is um it just I just wanted to make that game and see if it was possible to achieve it in a way um so we come to the next point so when I began Alice there was not much around it I knew what the art was and everybody knows like the Disney movies about the uh about the characters and everything and some people might know the book um and then when i got there it's like okay what choice do i do now and because i was looking at the art and everybody knows that jeremy packard that the uh the trans light from it with the with the line art and um i had to go off that you know so that's where the more adult theme came from because if you talk about Alice, everybody thinks about the Disney movies and stuff.
    5:53
    So I just took further steps from that prognosis to go into the game as well. You have the magic world on a glass. Is that something you want in one way? Yeah, that's something we wanted to create, of course. Yeah, yeah, of course. So when I wanted to do Alice, it was like I wanted to try to make that game as close as possible to the foam core you know and it was pretty difficult because that's why we still don't have flying cars because everything on paper looks great but when you gotta create it you come to something else so the first whitewood i build on the lines from john um that was a dumpster fire and with all respect to john or whatever he created it just didn't work out so I was back to the drawing board like okay I want to get this vision right but I do not want to change a lot of things because then you're in the debate of you know you're changing so much that you cannot do uh what your vision is so from that point on I started to go through iterations of whitewoods and and started to see what things I could do to make the game better.
    7:15
    So yeah, from the foam core and all the layouts, I went to the first Whitewood, and then we put it in like the Fusing 360 just to see. Because nowadays, I have so much respect for all the, you know, all the guys who made pinball machines back in the 80s, 90s. I can't even imagine how hard and difficult it was to get things right. because now these days I can just look up to like Fusion 360, zoom in and see exactly how much space I got left with a nut and a bolt, you know. And so that's good. And then like I say, like creating the prototype, that was a thing. So I had to create first all the lines for all the ball guides to get some good shots in. And once I got that done, then I had to create something that was never finished. So when you look at the foam core, you only see it like this. But if you turn it around, there's nothing there.
    8:22
    So there comes the challenge. Okay, what do I have to create to still make it work and still have the flow? um so eventually through the time i it was a learning curve for me as well and i just came to a point that it worked and through different iterations of the whitewood um and then what also was a problem is like everybody knows like the magna flip on the uh twilight zone and it's compared to our game it's a lot smaller and the only thing you need to do is just a little bit of bashing and just try to get it up right yeah well magnus had a tendency if you just bash it it goes like this you know like a grabbing effect so um that was also pretty difficult to do to also get it working uh not only to have it look nice then again when i tried to create this game um i hear a lot of people say to me right now when the games are out there it's like but why didn't you do this or why didn't you put flippers there and it's like there was never even i think if john made this game like 15 or 20 years ago i think it would be at the exact same not as beautiful i believe with the with the things we put in right now uh but it would be the same game you know with the with the plastic ramps i have people screaming like why is no wire form in there well that was never in the vision of that game you know there's no wire firms in circus volt there you know um so i just try to keep as close as possible to the original design that was there yeah so now we're going to watch some photos of the prototyping process and also So as everybody know, so this was the, this is the thing I had to work with.
    10:23
    And of course I had some, some, some files where he created this foam core from. So I knew a little bit of the base lane layout of the game.
    10:34
    So I knew what the vision was from it. And this is where we started from. here you can see already a little bit further along we have like yeah yeah i know so this was like a later iteration of john's game and it's a shame i cannot can you put it back one more yeah i cannot uh point it out right now but what john had he had like a uh where i have like when when people see my game they see the uh the clock you know the digital one and you can shoot owner under it if you see there john had like i don't know a spinning disc or something he had on magic girl but if you look at that shot there's no way that flipper can take that u-turn right there there's no way you only can make that shot if you have a third flipper somewhere uh where the newton ball is um so that was a really one thing i was like okay that let me first get that right oh here we go nice so if you can see so this is the spinning disc i'm talking about um so if you do this what you're gonna do you're just gonna there's nothing there so i have to create something to get a little bit more flow into the game and there what i came up with the whole clock system and with the time so as you can see john already wanted like a a lock system with the three balls and it's the same as this shot john was a fan of like having strange stuff i think on the original one i had he wanted like um like a spring something like a magic girl and a ball hit it and it just spring it back but it those are things that are nice And that's where we come back to the concept of this is why we don't have flying cars.
    12:37
    Some things just don't work. And I had to find out myself as well And it the same as the ramp So if you see the ramp right here and you see this hole right there so how would you get up there when the ramp is in the way? You can't get there. So the first whitewood I built on his platform with the ramps, I was looking at Barry's like, okay, there's a hole right there. So you shoot through the ramp then? That didn't work. So – but also what I didn't want to do, I don't want to create a ramp that goes outside the border of the mini play field because then you're losing the illusion of what the concept was.
    13:21
    So Barry still hates me for it, but it was like 46 iterations of that ramp just for me to get it working. So I call him in the morning and say, yeah, can you change this? Why? It's like one millimeter. Not again. And again. Not again. Because one of the guys in the office that does tremendous work on Fusion was one of Barry's staff. So I had to call Barry. It's like Barry said, no, no, no, no, no. If you want something, let me do it because you will make him nuts. And he would just quit his job. And I'm like, okay, fine. We'll do it that way. So three days, I just put him directly into contact with the engineer. He still hates me for it. so yeah so i had to create something real new and also to be in the lines of the uh of the ramp itself so in the end i just um as you can see uh on the game now it's looked like it's floating but on the first uh whitewood i did it had extra post right here right there um but i had to remove it just to make a more entry space for the ramp to go around it but in the end i was like oh it looks more much better because now i have like a floating castle right up there um and also we changed some things so john wanted to pop up stuff right here but i already created these uh spinning discs that you can use as like a like a magnet save but something new we had it on magic girl but it just didn't work you know it it never grabbed the ball it was at a too high a location so i chose to not use the pop-up because you already have the outline it's a save on a save on a save and i'm like you know where's the fun in that so i just removed it and we changed some inserts around because i wanted a few more modes i changed the light the lightning bolts as you can see here this lightning bolt right there I have OCD for straight lines and stuff so as you can see this insert right here on the mini play field it's a mirrored version of that one but it doesn't make sense so we created a brand new mold just because I wanted the insert to look in the perfect shape yes and so if we go to the new one here you can see all the differences from John's to mine so if you sell the resemblance is the resemblance still there so if you can do it a few times you can really tell that there's much more to it so like a million things that you will never see it until you see it now there's so many things we we needed to change just to uh just to get it working so now for some prototyping photos yeah sure let them laugh okay
    16:29
    so yeah so this was my uh my first white wood i'd done on uh john's design i even i hot glued all the rams um just to see if i can get the flow going
    16:44
    here you can see it's still the old layout with the old inserts i added one more yeah it was collect all suits and of course there are four suits so we change it to but here it was but eventually it changed to to the modes yeah so yeah so here you can already can see that this is not a ball guide but it's like a metal and when you shoot the u-turn right there it just hit this it didn't work so from this point on i knew i was in trouble and uh had to start over all again so here's some things i tried you know with rams going shorters uh that also didn't work and this was something that John created right here and it didn't make any sense because these are light. So these are light. So this is the inverter goes up and then something happens here. What happens here then? So those are all things I just didn't knew and I couldn't ask John and I didn't want to.
    17:47
    So yeah, so here's my mock-up of my first prototype great ramp. So shot great. Ref one. So here's my first concept of, okay, so what can I create, you know, to get the ramp up and that sort of stuff.
    18:08
    So here is, I think there's a prototype two. Yep. I still kept the inserts right here, but now I already got to see, I think there's one more in between because this already had the gate up there. Okay. Yeah. We'll have to check. No, that's fine. so here you can see um i printed so i printed the first ramp this one that was the easiest because i just had to get the the line skill in and just to see where it gone up so that was done here you can see it's still hot glue but that worked under this uh under the under the mini yeah
    18:47
    so this was already um the ramp at its final position and here you can see this is my first idea about the about the clock system that I just designed and printed to see if I if it looked good and I can get somewhere can you do it one more back so if you could see it's playing here what I did I just got Lebowski PCBs and it just hot wired everything to the TBL game just to see if I can get it flipping no so here we are already in a further stage as you can see already got the the rails right there to the plastic I think it's already got the screen in here but it was just to see if everything just looked good and worked out okay no that's fine yeah I think this is already so these are the final design of the so I we printed these and just glue them together and they shot great and I now I you can see all the lines if you look really closely and you look up to the game this represents like a heart-shaped Okay.
    20:14
    Oh, yeah. Here was the first try I did with the lights. I wanted to create a little bit more of a static to the game, a little bit more of a world under glass. So I started with these light posts to just place them somewhere.
    20:37
    Oh, that's okay. Yeah, so these are the first – my idea is I wanted to make – when I created the game, I wanted to create a world on their glass, and I still believe that's something we are missing up to today. Everything is just flat plastic, and I can understand from commercial sites that you want to – you don't want to break things on site or whatever. You want to protect it at all costs. But this was my first idea to get rid of all the plastics. And if you can see here, there's already details in them, but they're not even close to what we put out right now.
    21:21
    But this was already my vision of what I was working on to get more sculpts in because I still believe that a Pima machine is not only, you know, fun to play with the family and everybody around you. But I also want to create like an atmosphere, like a good – like a nice painting at home. It's more than that. These games now, all of – they all go to your own collection. Maybe 1% of these collector games are out in the wild. They're all in your house. You want the best of the best. And I wanted to create something, even if you don't play it and you look at all the sculpts. Every time you look at it, you're like, oh, now I see a little bit of that. It's like if you're looking at a painting at home. Every time you look at it, you envision something, and that was my take on to create a world under glass.
    22:16
    Yeah, I think this was the first one. So here you can see the original black and white. So what we've done is the first game we built was the black and white art that everybody knew. um but it looks to me i had some people question me why would you not leave it black and white because it was so for me too outdated you know i know it was uh a vision that was done it was never colorized but for me i just i wanted it colorized so here i think this is um my is this the final one i made this final the final before yeah okay so this is my um final whitewood with no art printed on it but just you can see it already has the four inserts it already has here you can see what i what i created new so now with the it's a tight shop and now with the flippers you can go here and then the ball can if it's a slow ball it can go into the side of the scoop or it can go to this rubber right here it bounces off this one and if you're really unlucky it goes in there uh but then you got these saves to save that so it creates a little bit more variety that's the only thing i really really changed to john's game so as you can see right here um here you can see different spinning discs than the ones i got in there right now i um the stranger pattern you create it doesn't this pattern did grab the ball but it just didn't give me that that grab that i wanted so when i fine-tuned it more and more it worked as you can see here the um these are in here here's the mini play field with the magna flippers right there so talking about that mini play field so if you go okay we just pass on so here you can see the first um this is where we all started you know we had the trans light in black and white and i uh i wanted to see in color you know And that's – that was all the discussion is about because who chooses that her dress is blue or if it's red? That's always a bit difficult to get that going. But we had a great artist who also did Lebowski and with art direction from me and Barry. I had a vision. I wanted to have bright colors. and so we added a few extra things that were not in the black and white like you have some moon stars some more smoky stuff in the back and here you can also already see the lit apron for the game so this was almost at a final stage so now it already had the art on the game itself And here you can see all the sculpts that we first printed to see um if it would work out these already had a few iterations as well um and in the um so the jabber walk you see right there that's now in the game it was initially not there and i when i started filling everything in i was like i'm missing something and that's why we created the Jabberwock character oh yeah so here's one of the tests stuff I did as you can see the awesome rams right there so I was testing the magnets to see what I can do with the game see if I can backhand shots to to the ramp I made yeah this one still got the old spinning disc where you can't now you can see so this already had it so here was like a target so you should have a flipper right there to get this going so this that's fine but it doesn't work you can never hit this one right there yeah so here was my first try on the under rams and on the spinning discs it was fun if it worked so yeah these are the friend of rams I tried to see if it worked.
    27:05
    No breaking shots. I'm on the wrench. Yeah, so here at the mini play field, as you can see, there was nothing here as of that point.
    27:22
    This is something I added later because I wanted that to create a little bit more play in the game. So if it fires it out, just bounces right here and just creates some more of a game play because it's still Magna Flippers. It's not precision flipping. So I needed to get a little more fun, a little bit more control out of it.
    27:50
    So hold on. Yeah, and here you can see – you see this was the old vision for the inserts, and I didn't like him because it didn't look good. so i created a new mold just to have this one the exact same as that one so they look in line and as you can see here on the games that are now on the show floor are there's a rubber right here it's just that for playing on the show it's easier to play but you can remove um the um the rubber and just do it like this these are also you can adjust those for the gap but if this is too easy for you at the show and it's in a home environment, you can do a setup like this. And then you got to catch the ball on the magnet before it drains.
    28:41
    Yeah, this is the old ones. Oh, here. Nice. So this is one of my first gates I made to see if it goes off the mini play field. So I printed like a ramp and then it goes back into the ramp itself.
    28:57
    No, that's... Yeah. Also with the ugly inserts. Yeah, here you can see still that ugly insert. Oh, yeah. You have a wrong order. So here you can see one of the very, very early ones, what John wanted to do. He had it like this. So or the ball went there. But if it didn't, it was just dropping it off just straight into your play field um i know you guys don't like dimples but i really don't think you want to like this so this is why i created a whole like a whole cage around it like you see right here so the ball wouldn't go into the uh look here you go So here you can see me testing if it worked with the Magna Flipper. So if you can fling this around.
    30:06
    Because I wanted to create a little bit more on that play field. oh yeah that's fine so this was my first topper so here was my first idea um that i wanted a topper with a with a cat um and i already knew what i wanted you know to be a little bit more interactive so here you can see like the first phase when i modeled when we modeled the the cat itself I was trying out like screens for eyes but I was missing that depth effect to get that going so what we use are real glass lenses that make the um the screens look much bigger and with the eyes because they're compact lenses if you his eyes move but if you go from left to right it creates like he's always chasing you no matter what view you have so here you can see the um the topper sculpted and i think it was the old position it was holding it like this but if you were looking at the game you were looking into his paws and he just didn't look right and this is the final design we have and my um my concept about this is um is if people are familiar with the uh alice in wonderland you also have like the book through the looking glass and alice walks through the um to the glass uh to the mirror itself so what i wanted to create with the cat with the uh with the backdrop right here is that you know the game itself is the um is the world is the the the wonderland and i wanted him just to come out of that world and just lure you in it's like talking come on play me you know come into this world it's like he's coming out of that mirror and just trying to lure you in so i just always wanted to create something like that before we go to the art this is a little impression of all the parts and the final design of the game yeah here you can really see how much goes into everybody knows it but there's revision 1708 yeah and 108 yep that's the nice thing about the mini playfield so when I design the game itself I always also want it to be that it's serviceable it means that would with a few plugs and and you don't after you remove the um the plastic from the mini play field it has three screws you unscrew those and you take out the whole mini play field and that's like i think you would time me you probably can get it out like 30 seconds and you can get both those ramps out without even removing the little light because as you can see right here the ramps just go through it so once you got that um mini play filled out it's six bolts there two here and then four here and you take out everything so cleaning up this game is super super easy you know if you need to service something um you don't have to take everything apart i designed it that it's you know and all the so the first time i designed the game i said to barry listen what's in lebowski you know what is something you can what's in lebowski you can get off the shelf and he just chucked everything in the box and almost from all the mechs that are in there just i think 90 you can just if something goes wrong go online you can order it's all bally williams parts you know that's what you want from a surface perspective you don't want special you know of course we have our own board systems but I didn't want so much special things in there that you were like okay now we gotta deal with the manufacturer and what happens if that manufacturer goes out of business or what happens in 10 years you know I wanted that it still is serviceable and it's running on p3 rock those things you can get online as well so yeah so now we're going to look at some of the artwork that was created for the game starting off you know we started off with the black and white version from zombie yeti so i'm just going to show some iterations i think there was a first version we got colored by freak we also did the Lebowski artwork on the play field.
    35:02
    Yeah, I didn't like the cat right here. I didn't like the colors. So here you can see a second version.
    35:15
    I think this was added by me. A little bit more color to the cat. Yeah, as you can see here, on my prototype, I still have the character right there because this was the original but i i just find it odd he was here so i asked barry and frank just to remove this one right here and just put it right there so you can show her arm much more as you can see here i have uh i have like uh an ocd so when you got the trans light in the uh trans light in it wasn't centered with the lock yeah so the top of the gate wasn't centered i was like barry it's not centered he's like Are you kidding me?
    35:58
    It's not centered. So this is why you can see it's moved. And also you see the character now that has been moved right there.
    36:06
    And you can see her. But yeah. So I feel sorry for Barry, but if I wanted something, then. So everybody thought that the play field art was like AI and we didn't draw anything. Well, we can tell you that every art that's on the play field was redrawn. so everything we had some characters of course from the uh from the translate itself but here you can see all the iterations we went through and we the real the first one which we didn't like that much but uh yeah i think yeah i think there's 30 versions so i just kept going to skip through them pretty fast it's just to show you guys that we you know we really took the time to really create our own stuff don't use AI or whatever all hand-drawn press coloring with the porous in the bottom yeah Jabberwock layer you had a lot of discussion about the mode inserts yes a lot of versions yeah because i like bright colors and uh so we changed up a lot of stuff right here in the inserts that was the most debate we had about because i wanted to create um just i don't know i wanted to create like more here you can see the stuff that they did and i told her i just want more and more color he's like how much more is it more give me more you know it's so here you can see all the steps we went through so there was another idea with i think the queen here is with the queen with the inserts but we didn't like that either yeah so here you can see that we uh put a large face up so they're nothing Alice yep didn work let go back 10 versions Yeah this is about final I think No, no. Yeah, almost. Yeah.
    38:27
    This is the final version, right? That's coming up right now. This is final. Yeah. So now also mini play field for a sketch.
    38:42
    Here you can see like I wanted to create, you know, with the magnets, I wanted that the everything's breaking off with the effects. The chair for queen. Yeah, so this was a concept if you get it back right there. And this is what the final but even on here, you know, I wanted that the inserts are matching colors. text on the inserts and that sort of stuff.
    39:19
    So this was the original drawings we had. For the first sketch, yes. We had some line out of course for the concept game. And this is the first sketches we did on getting it going.
    39:41
    Hold on. For the art. Well, I can show – yeah. Well, we saw the first cabinet sketch from – Yeah, so – So it's pretty close. If you look at the original sketch from – because I know it's debatable right now. Everybody is like, oh, you over-sexualized this game and with the characters on there.
    40:11
    but if you really look at it it was already pretty sexualized on the you know to translate was a translate and as soon as you add color to something you create more depth you create something else as well um so yeah um i know john wanted it to be sometimes like a black and white game i just didn't i didn't fit the standard so we just ran with it from the vision we had and just gave her own concept to it so here you can see the the back box left side right side with different ideas different ideas So there was no art for the back box, so this is something we completely made new.
    41:11
    Thank you. This is how we brief our artist. Yeah, so if we have an artist, then we just write him down what we want, and then he gives us feedback, and it was like, nope. we want something else this is the final one right yeah so this is the the final art for the cabinet itself Do you like it? Thank you.
    41:55
    Let's see, what more do we have? So yeah, for the design process, you know, everybody knows we're a very small company. I do all the design and engineering almost myself. Barry did all the design work for the PCBs we did the art direction ourselves and to crank out this game in like 10 months for us it was a brilliant achievement from going from that phone quorum to this and making it DP compatible was okay because I already started from the P3 Rock system and he knew exactly so when I had my designs finalized he just made all the new pcbs and all that stuff so that was good to do um but yeah working with a small team is really hard you know and i sometimes if you look at the bigger companies you know i'm so jealous sometimes that they can walk into another engineer or get some more feedback or you know if i'm stuck with something and i can't create it i cannot call anybody i just have to go back and back and forth in myself to get it going and if i find issues i have to resolve them myself so that sometimes it's uh a little bit nerve-wracking yeah to the extent that uh sometimes we fight that's not yeah it's okay so yeah because this game was like uh you know like a 90s game feel i always wanted to create a people are saying oh but you could have done this or you put this magical mech in there that's not in there it wasn't the original game you know it's if i put something else crazy in there i could have but what then maybe we're two years out for making this game and it was never the envision it was more for me also for myself to challenge me it's like a resume to the world you know let me first do this and then i can take the next step and that's also with the the world under glass i I wanted to create something that was never done before to set the new standard and go from there. Also to try to push me as far as I can get myself.
    44:15
    And about the rules-wise, I wanted to go on the easy mode. These days, pinball, I think it's too complex. Everybody wants more and more and more. I understand that from a perspective. But I have my kids. If they fire up these newest games, they're like, okay, where do I shoot for? because 20 lights are blinking. I don't know what to do. Give me a book because then I can read on the rules.
    44:38
    If you want really, really crazy deep rules with 20 wizard modes, sorry, this game is not for you. And it wasn't designed to be this way because it wasn't designed as it was. And I don't want it to be linear as well, but I want it to be understandable. So where you need to shoot for, that's the thing that's blinking and not 20 thing else because you'll just lose track.
    45:02
    there are tight shots in there. The wizard mode is reachable. And for the, you know, for the experienced player, there's also something in there. And we're thinking about that too. I try to just create the best of both worlds. And I don't think you need to see this game as the next Godzilla X-Men or whatever. This is just for me, a passion of love, you know, to get this game out with all the rule steps, what, what the tools I have into this game. I try to create the best I can and give you the back that 90s feeling with the rule set.
    45:39
    I think that was about it about the game. So we just want to show some work and sketches on the animations.
    45:48
    So we just started off with some animatics, black and white, and then after that we colorized them. so it's also all mostly hand-drawn then animated after effects and colorized with some 3d effects just so this is a mode where you have an intro a running loop, a hit, and an ending. So when it's then colorized, it looks like this. It all looks very simple, but I think we have more like already 200 animations or something in a game, So it's a lot of work.
    46:52
    Caterpillar, one T. On the first prototype, we had Caterpillar with two Ts. Yeah, misspelling on the play field. Caterpillar. so all the animation also hand drawn and then you know animated an element and after effects
    47:31
    Yep. If I'm correct, I think the prototype had the screen under the glass. I'm glad it doesn't. What drove you to make that decision to put it back up in the back box? You couldn't see anything. Yeah, so on that, I had the old cabinets. I have them. And on John's game, he had the mini playfield so low that you could never, ever see under it. So even on John's game, it could never work because if he had lifted up that mini playfield, it would block the whole screen. It just wasn't – also working on that cabinet because I own a Magic Girl, you cannot even – it's nice to have that novelty cabinets and stuff, but there's a reason everybody loves the Valley Williams and all these types of – don't change too much. Even though it looks magical, it just doesn't work. It just doesn't.
    48:26
    I guess we only have five minutes left. the title of this talk is, I mean, this is fascinating. I love this game. But the title of the talk is where you guys are and where you're going. What can you tell us about where you're going?
    48:40
    Well, right now, of course, we have to focus on Alice and getting it in production. So that's our main focus right now, planning on Sonic production beginning of the year, January, February. And then, of course, with our, you know, we build about 10 games a week. so we're probably you know pretty much done for 2025 so that's main focus right now yeah and so uh all i can say is that i push myself hard to to make something new um with the sculpting and the word on the glass all i can say is that on the next game we're trying to push out i will uh challenge myself to go even further so all your expectations which you have right now in this game, I will do my best to top it twice.
    49:46
    The question is did you create your own font? No, it's an existing font, but we made it, you know, it's in a 3D animating program. them 3D with some special textures on it. Yeah. I just want to say congratulations. I think you made an amazing game and I bought one. Thank you. Thank you. My biggest question is I think it's very unique and amazing and will you ever remake the game Or will you protect the people that... Sorry? Will you ever remake the game? Remake? Yeah, like, will you rerun it someday, you think? No, never. This is where DPX stands for. We think exclusive is exclusive. If you buy from us, we guarantee you we'll never rerun, do anything else. That's the game you're getting. Thank you. I think you have an amazing company. We're very, very happy. Thank you.
    50:48
    Thank you. It was good. All right. Really good. Yeah, thanks. Good one.