Episode 369: Eight Ball Beyond

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·20m 26s·analyzed·Aug 2, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Sean Irby discusses designing homebrew 8-Ball Beyond with innovative mechanics and upcoming Expo debut.

Summary

Jeff Teolis interviews Sean Irby about his homebrew pinball machine 8-Ball Beyond, a four-year project inspired by classic 8-Ball games. The conversation covers Sean's design journey, technical innovations including custom clear ball targets and multi-ball trick shots, player feedback from location testing, and plans to debut the machine at Pinball Expo Chicago in October.

Key Claims

Sean Irby started the 8-Ball Beyond project in 2019 after quitting his job with savings to pursue homebrew pinball design.
high confidence · Sean confirms he 'quit my job and had some savings to do something fun for a year' in 2019.
Sean scrapped his initial 2019 layout in early 2020 and started over with a simpler design focused on 8-Ball game lineage.
high confidence · Sean: 'after a year and in 2020, I decided to start over and do something simpler and more straightforward. And I went to just those eight ball games as an inspiration.'
The game features custom-designed clear ball stand-up targets using resin casting and pop rivet fastening to existing target switches.
high confidence · Sean explains creating 'a mold for them and then cast them using this clear resin' and using 'a pop rivet to fasten these new stand-up targets to their already existing target switch mount.'
8-Ball Beyond includes player-controlled multi-cue mechanics allowing flipper-button selection of target bank shots.
high confidence · Sean describes 'a series of inserts that are all pointing at the ball targets' that players control 'with your flipper buttons' to 'move up and down across your bank of ball targets.'
Sean learned Fusion 360 and Blender software, spending about a month and a half learning Fusion 360 through YouTube tutorials.
high confidence · Sean: 'I spent a couple hours each day for, yeah, a month and a half watching YouTube videos and learning how to use it.'
The project cost at least as much as a brand-new Stern pinball machine in parts and tools.
high confidence · Sean: 'at least for the parts and the tools, like easily as much as a brand-new Stern.'
8-Ball Beyond is currently on location at Atta Ball in Fremont neighborhood Seattle.
high confidence · Sean confirms: 'Yes, it's at Atta Ball in the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle.'
Sean plans to bring 8-Ball Beyond to Pinball Expo Chicago in October after completing playfield work over the summer.

Notable Quotes

“I rushed into putting a layout together without really taking my time in the beginning to come up with a theme, to come up with a concept and have that inform the layout that I was making.”
Sean Irby @ ~7:15 — Explains the core lesson learned from his failed 2019 design and methodology shift.
“I think you come to a lot of points of indecision in a design, and it's great to have a theme to be your guiding light.”
Sean Irby @ ~8:50 — Key design philosophy for his restart with clear conceptual framework.
“I think players find it really challenging and it keeps them trying again. I think people are a little bit surprised at the amount of depth in the game from all this flipper selection that's involved and the strategy needed to blow it up.”
Sean Irby @ ~28:00 — Feedback from location testing showing positive reception to game depth and complexity.
“The skill shot phase is one that people mention a lot just because you have to choose your shot with your left flipper and then choose the award that you get with your right flipper... It's just overwhelming a little bit for some people.”
Sean Irby @ ~29:45 — Identifies constructive criticism that will be addressed through code updates.
“I set out making this with the goal to do it as professionally as I could. I wanted it to be reproducible. That was mostly to put my name out there and say, like, hey, I can do this too.”
Sean Irby @ ~40:30 — Clarifies professional intentions while remaining open to industry opportunities.
“It's because of people like you that make people want to do better. You never want to see the same old, same old.”
Jeff Teolis @ ~45:15 — Frames homebrew innovation as pushing the entire pinball industry forward.

Entities

Sean Irbyperson8-Ball BeyondgameJeff Teolisperson Scott Deniseperson Keith ElwinpersonAtta BallorganizationPinball Expo ChicagoeventAshley WeaverpersonScott Gullickperson

Signals

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event_signal: Gameplay video recorded at private Seattle location generated significant community interest and viewership.
high · Sean: 'A lot of people tuned in, and I was happy they all got to see some gameplay footage finally.' Video highlighted animations and playfield mechanics not seen by broader audience before.
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community_signal: Homebrew community actively supports emerging designers through Slack channels, Discord servers, and knowledge sharing.
high · Jeff highlights Multimorphic Slack, FAST Pinball Slack, and Trident Pinball Discord as active support communities with willing mentors.
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design_philosophy: Sean Irby emphasizes theme-first design approach as guiding principle for decision-making on homebrew games.
high · Sean states: 'I think you come to a lot of points of indecision in a design, and it's great to have a theme to be your guiding light.' This represents explicit design methodology after learning from 2019 layout failure.
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market_signal: Homebrew-to-commercial transition pathway becoming established with multiple designer success stories (Scott Denise/TNA, Keith Elwin/Archer, Scott Gullick/Wooly).
high · Jeff references multiple homebrew designers now in commercial production, suggesting viable career path for talented homebrew creators.
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event_signal: Pinball Expo Chicago serves as primary showcase venue for homebrew machines and potential industry discovery point.
high · Sean bringing 8-Ball Beyond to Expo in October as strategic move to 'get it in more people's hands.' Jeff notes: 'that's where all the eyeballs are going to be.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.061

0:00

it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teoles you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on facebook we're on twitter x i'm not used to saying that we're on instagram you can email pinballprofile at gmail.com if you'd like to show your support boy that would be nice. Patreon.com slash pinball profile. Don't worry, the show will always be free, and we thank great Patreon supporters like Rodney C, Jimmy Law, Lua W, and so many others. Thank you again. When it comes to pinball, the game 8-Ball just keeps getting better and better. 8-Ball with the fawns, or fake fawns, if you will. Tons of them produced. It was a fun game, good for its day. Then 8-Ball Deluxe. Well, that's a tournament darling. An all-time great. Then 8-Ball Champ had aspects of fathom with the upper third and a great multiplier bonus. But that was it. Where do you take 8-ball from there? Well, thanks to Sean Irby, we now have 8-ball beyond. And Sean joins us right now. Hi, Sean. How are you? Hi, Jeff. I'm doing great. It's good to see you again. So I was thrilled to talk to you about 8-ball beyond because it's been in the works for four years. It's now been on location. It's been at a show. We're going to be able to see it this fall at Expo. We'll get to all that, but let's go back to 2019. I know you're a great competitive player, so I have to ask you, what was it that made you decide to do 8-Ball Beyond? Is it the love of those three games that I just mentioned, or maybe seeing great homebrews like when Scott Denisey made TNA? Yeah, so what got me interested in doing homebrew pinball was seeing what Scott Denisey and what Keith Elwin had done with TNA and Archer respectively. And the time was right in 2019, I had quit my job and had some savings to do something fun for a year. And so I decided to make a pinball machine. And so that first year was a lot of learning and playing around with the first layout that I came up with. And I just kind of got burnt out from working on that particular layout. And I had also learned some lessons. So after a year and in 2020, I decided to start over and do something simpler and more straightforward. And I went to just those eight ball games as an inspiration because I wanted to make something that was simple, straightforward, and fun. And I think those eight ball games are the gold standard of those qualities. Sean, a lot of people will throw in the towel after scrapping it. You put a lot of effort in it in 2019. And in early 2020, 20, you said, that's it, I got to scrap the whole thing. What went wrong specifically and what gave you the drive to, okay, I've learned my lesson, now I can fix it? Well, when I started, so I had just a ton of excitement and motivation. And I think I rushed into putting a layout together without really taking my time in the beginning to come up with a theme, to come up with a concept and have that inform the layout that I was making. So I wanted to start over, and I realized if I came up with a theme beforehand, I'd probably be able to execute on it much better. And it was also just a matter of working on it for so long, I just got burnt out on it. And I think also it had three upper flippers, and that's actually pretty tricky to get right. For sure. Very few games would have that. I think of maybe The Simpsons, but that kind of cheats a little bit with an upper play field. Yeah. Okay, so you scrap it. Now you've got a theme. Now you've got this eight ball beyond in your head. When you start a game, it is a blank canvas, but you're telling me it's more important to have a theme. At least now you've got some kind of guidance, something that kind of brings you back. Okay, these things make sense in the game. Yeah, I think you come to a lot of points of indecision in a design, and it's great to have a theme to be your guiding light. So when you decided to start over again, were you at this point using 3D modeling from Fusion 360? I know you have a lot of love for that. Or did that come later? Yeah, that was one of the first things I learned when I started in 2019. And I continued to use it for 8 Ball Beyond. And it was a much faster process to getting started again with that new layout because I was pretty well versed in it by then. But it couldn't have been easy to learn. I mean, I've seen on Pinside, you've got a great chronological report of how this game came to be and a lot of praise too. And you talk about that specifically in Fusion 360 and you even have a how-to video, but it's not as simple for guys like me. I mean, was it easy for you to pick up? It was pretty easy to pick up. It certainly took some time. Like I think it was about a month and a half and I had all my free time to work on this in that first year. So I spent a couple hours each day for, yeah, a month and a half watching YouTube videos and learning how to use it One of the other things you posted too was how you were inspired by that grid paper technique you saw on Metroid Explain that. Yeah. So I was scouring all the homebrew threads on pin side before I got started, and I stumbled upon the Metroid pinball thread. And that was just a really good technique for starting out because you could come up with your design and take that drawing over to Kinko's and print everything out. And you could have all the hole locations of where you need to drill holes for mounting parts. So it helps with your initial white building of the white wood. And later on when you make adjustments, you can use that grid paper that's overlaid on top of your layout to determine how you need to change your model. So it helps out with iterating and refining your design. I can only imagine when you're drilling holes and then you're putting the parts together and the posts and everything else, they may not have been exactly where you wanted to. So was there a little bit of wood filling here and there and drilling different holes? Oh, yeah, totally. I still have that play field and it's just completely trashed and marked up.

6:47

So, yeah, I started off with regular stand-up targets, flat circle stand-up targets, and... They worked fine, but it was just kind of boring. And so I really wanted to make something that was more exciting. And I just had in my mind, you know, glowing clear ball targets. Wouldn't that be cool? So I modeled up an initial idea I had for those and found a way that I could make a mold for them and then cast them using this clear resin. And I could take off the regular stand-up target face on the targets that I already had and use a pop rivet to fasten these new stand-up targets to their already existing target switch mount. So, yeah. It works, Sean. It looks great. And have you had any problems with them? I know they're kind of close together. Do they move much? Are they always responsive? They work great. What I would do differently is mount the lights in there. I would mount them from the play field and have them shining up into the ball. Currently, there's a hole drilled in the balls, and the LEDs are just placed in there with adhesive. And so it's not very professional, but you'd have a hard time seeing that unless you got up real close. But you live and learn, right? You find these things out as you move along, but I like your suggestion for when these are mass-produced. Fingers crossed, someday, right? Yeah, that'd be cool, right? We'll talk more about that in a second. Other things, too. The multi-ball trick shot. Like, we see a lot of captive balls being used, but think of pool. Trick shots are you hit one ball, and it fires into another ball. It's kind of like that a little bit. Explain this multi-ball trick shot. Yeah, so there's a multi-ball in this game. It's a two-ball, but you can get it up to three. But what becomes available when you get into multi-ball are your trick shots, and those are your multi-ball jackpots. And so there's two of them. There's one on the left and one on the right. And the one on the left uses a magnet that's all the way at the top of the play field in front of the scoop. And so when you send the ball up there, the magnet grabs it. And so you've finished the first phase of that trick shot. And so now you need to use your other ball and send it back up the same way. And right before that ball collides with the held one, It triggers a switch that tells the magnet to turn off, and the ball slams into the other, and you knock it into the scoop. And so it's a really kinetically satisfying shot to make. And, yeah, it feels like playing pool a little bit. It does feel like pool. I like the one, too, where I saw the drop target on the right-hand side. There was a ball behind the right-hand drop target, and you knock it down, and then the ball kind of comes down, and you have almost two shots at the side. Right. Explain that. That was not something I had originally planned on, but once I was kind of developing the rules for the game and deciding what I wanted to be able to do in this multi-ball, I knew I needed a jackpot shot. And so that's what I came up with, was using the drop target that's on the right to hold the ball for a little bit. You use your other ball to smash that drop target down, and now you got two shots for these balls to hit into the eight ball saucer with the upper flipper so it kind of similar to the other trick shot that i mentioned so for the people that haven seen this game you listening to what in it already and you like holy cow this is amazing And there are videos out there and we get to that in a second, but that's not even it. You've got the player controlled shot multi-cue. Yeah, that's a series of inserts that are all pointing at the ball targets. And that's referred to as your multi-cue. And you can turn that on by hitting the really dangerous center stand-up targets. And so turning on your multi-cue turns on three indicators that you can move up and down across your bank of ball targets with your flipper buttons. So that will let you be able to hit three balls down at once. So if you hit any of those balls that are being pointed to by the multi-cue, you can collect all three. It's a way to make those ball targets easier to collect, but you have to risk making a dangerous shot to the center stand-up targets. It reminds me of a game I don't see often, and I wish I did, the old Stern free-fall game. Is it similar to that? I haven't played that one, but I've watched some tournament videos of it. But just the being able to flip or control, you have to hit dangerous shots, and there's flip or control. Trust me, this is a compliment. I love things like that. It's something we don't see, and I don't know why we don't, but it sounds like you've got it there with the player-controlled shot multi-cue. The toys, the mods, there's the rack award multiplier, the charge meter to show the playfield multiplier. Those are nice touches. Yeah, I wanted some visual indication of your playfield multiplier. And so you build that up by missing shots, basically. They're placed around the areas where a missed ball might land. And so whenever you hit those, you're slowly building up your playfield multiplier. Once you've got it to a certain level, at least 2x, you can trigger that by moving an insert around also with your flipper buttons, similar to the X in Walking Dead. So the idea and the way to score big in the game is to build up that multiplier, set yourself up for a big shot, and place that insert correctly so you can turn on the playfield multiplier and do your big collect or whatever. You've had this on location. I want to know what the feedback was like, and hopefully it was everything you hoped for. The feedback has been really great. I think players find it really challenging and it keeps them trying again. I think people are a little bit surprised at the amount of depth in the game from all this flipper selection that's involved and the strategy needed to blow it up. The feedback has just been excellent so far, and I've got some especially great feedback from the show. That was my first time watching players approach it and it really taught me what areas were a little bit confusing. It's helped me to refine it and to make it better. Yeah, it's tough to find games that are very intuitive, especially when they get deep with all kinds of code in there. When you get some of this feedback, yes, it's nice to have everyone say it's great, but what are some of the constructive criticisms you've heard that you've taken to heart and thought, okay, yeah, those are good suggestions. The skill shot phase is one that people mention a lot just because you have to choose your shot with your left flipper and then choose the award that you get with your right flipper. And there's 15 awards to choose from that are all displayed on that rack display you mentioned. It's just overwhelming a little bit for some people. So I've also found that they sort of understand it after about two or three games. But yeah, just gotten some good ideas about how to make it more obvious, like when you're choosing which skill shot you want, like how to communicate that better with more distinct light shows about which shot is lighting up for your skill shot. And these will be easy fixes with code? Oh, totally, yeah. Perfect. Is there an action button on this?

14:14

No action button yet. Sean, well done. Well done, my friend. I knew the answer before I asked. I just wanted to pat you on the back for that. Not necessary, is it? Not needed. Yeah. Well, using your flipper buttons, how's that? That's great. That's where your hands are. I like it. Tell me about the video that was shot of the gameplay, because that probably got the most eyes on 8 Ball Beyond. Yeah, that was great. We took it over to Ashley Weaver's house and invited a bunch of pinball people from Seattle to come play it. It was awesome because I don't think anyone's seen up close yet everything that's on the display, all the animations that are in the game. A lot of people tuned in, and I was happy they all got to see some gameplay footage finally. The animations, that's all you. Yeah, it is. In addition to learning Fusion 360, I also learned a tool called Blender, and that a free 3D modeling software but it more for artistic endeavors and less like for engineering parts So you can set up models and set up animations for them You could make Toy Story in Blender if you wanted. So for that first layout that I tried, I wanted to make some sculpts. And so that's why I picked up Blender. And once I realized I needed to fill the display up with some cool looking animations. I reached for Blender again and made probably about 10 or 15, like, three to four second animations that all lined up. And YouTube is awesome. I really leaned on that heavily for this project because there's a lot of great resources for learning Blender on there, among other things. And a lot of those Blender tutorials sort of had a space or a futuristic bent to them. So it was not too hard to find something close to what I wanted and then watch that video and sort of adapt it to what I needed. At Yagpen, you told me something and I was very excited that you are bringing 8 Ball Beyond to Expo in Chicago in October. That's, first of all, a big haul because you're in the Northwest, but that's the place to bring home brews, I would imagine. Yeah, I just want to get it in more people's hands and want everyone to try it out. And that's what I'm working hard towards this summer. So once I get to the next play field done, I'm going to do a play field swap and should be ready just in time to head out to Chicago. I cannot imagine how much time you have spent on this game. I don't even know if you can quantify the number of hours. But can you share with us maybe how much you've invested in this? Not time-wise, but maybe, you know, money. Yeah, at least for the parts and the tools, like easily as much as a brand-new Stern. So, that being said, you talked about Scott Denise, you talked about Keith Elwin with their TNA and Archer, and those two are now making pinball machines that are mass-produced. Is that the goal for you with this game and maybe others? That would be great. I set out making this with the goal to do it as professionally as I could. I wanted it to be reproducible. That was mostly to put my name out there and say, like, hey, I can do this too. Sure, it'd be great for the game to get produced. I'd also be really interested in working in the industry. I also have, like, no expectations about what might come from this. We'll see. I don't know. You never know. I had on this program a few years ago, Scott Gullick's talking about making Legends of Valhalla. And he made Wooly before that, and now it was mass-produced with American Pinball. You never know, Sean. We'll see. Especially going to Expo, too. Like, that's where all the eyeballs are going to be. Yeah. Think of the other people who've made homebrew games, like, oh, I don't know, Sonic and Metroid. They're now working in the industry. So maybe next, Sean Irby, and I hope so, if that's something you desire. because I know I'm looking forward to playing 8 Ball Beyond, and I'm sure many other people are too. Congratulations. This is fantastic. Well, thanks, Jeff. I hope you get to play it in Chicago. You're going to be there, right?