Pulp Fiction pinball by CGC features retro-70s design with Tarantino oversight and 300+ movie dialogue lines.
Summary
A comprehensive featurette on Pulp Fiction pinball by Chicago Gaming Company and Play Mechanics, featuring interviews with the design team including Mark Ritchie (designer), George Petro (programmer), Josh Sharp (rules designer), David Thiel (audio), and others. The game is designed as a tribute to 1970s pinball while incorporating modern mechanics, with direct creative input from Quentin Tarantino who insisted on a retro aesthetic. The machine features 300+ speech calls, a briefcase multiball as its centerpiece, and will be released in Special Edition and Bad Mother Flipper Limited Edition variants.
Key Claims
Mark Ritchie has been working with Play Mechanics and Raw Thrills for 16 years before Pulp Fiction
high confidence · Mark Ritchie's opening statement in the featurette identifying his role and tenure
Quentin Tarantino directly mandated a 1970s-1980s aesthetic for the machine and rejected modern elements like LCD panels
high confidence · Multiple team members confirm Tarantino's creative direction, including his rejection of the original Mia poster backglass artwork
The game contains over 300 speech calls sourced from the entire vocal stem of the Pulp Fiction movie
high confidence · David Thiel explicitly states '300 speech calls' and discusses sourcing from movie vocal stems
George Petro programmed Road Kings with Mark Ritchie approximately 35-36 years ago
high confidence · Mark Ritchie's direct statement about their prior collaboration: 'we're talking at least 35 36 years ago'
Josh Sharp spent over a year developing the Divine Intervention wizard mode
high confidence · George Petro states: 'it took Josh I'm gonna say a good year plus to actually get it on his own'
The briefcase mechanism was the first feature built into the game
high confidence · Josh Sharp: 'I'd say the first feature I built in the game was the briefcase'
Chicago Gaming Company has been making pinball machine cabinets since 1977
high confidence · Doug Duba states: 'we've been making pinball machine cabinets since 1977'
The game features 5 characters that must be started and collected in 'Cast Chaos' mode, described as 'Taxi 2.0 rules'
high confidence · Josh Sharp's detailed explanation of Cast Chaos mode mechanics
Notable Quotes
“my immediate response was well it's been 26 years since I've touched the pinball machine but absolutely yes hell yeah”
Mark Ritchie@ 2:54 — Reveals Ritchie's 26-year absence from pinball before Pulp Fiction project; explains his re-entry into the industry
“Quentin Tarantino doesn't carry a cell phone and he Papa Duke much has an answering machine”
Josh Sharp@ 7:15 — Illustrates the difficulty of direct communication with Tarantino during licensing approval process
“the game switched from being a Pulp Fiction art package to a vintage pinball theme that just so happened to be Pulp Fiction”
Matt Scott (artist)@ 10:14 — Describes the fundamental design philosophy shift—prioritizing retro pinball authenticity over IP-first approach
“I feel like there's been a little bit of an inverse of that lately when you look at modern pinball it's you know getting excited about how many different things you can stack together”
Josh Sharp@ 20:59 — Critiques modern pinball design philosophy, contrasting it with classic Williams/Bally 'entertainment and story first' approach
“a rule is a rule and I've talked about this forever like most of my favorite rules in pinball the rule itself is stupid but the choreography and the emotion that you are able to connect with the player on makes the rules special”
community_signal: Play Mechanics and Chicago Gaming Company assembled multi-discipline expert team (designer, programmer, rules, audio, art) with complementary specializations and historical continuity
high · Detailed team bios; Mark Ritchie and George Petro's 35+ year history; Josh Sharp's rules expertise; David Thiel's 40-year audio career; integrated topper development
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design_philosophy: Josh Sharp criticizes modern pinball design trend toward rules complexity and multiplier stacking over entertainment and story-first approach from classic Williams/Bally era
high · Quote: 'getting excited about how many different things you can stack together and how many decimals of a multiplier' vs. classic approach prioritizing entertainment
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design_philosophy: Pulp Fiction explicitly designed as tribute to 1970s pinball with modern mechanics hidden underneath; prioritizes emotional storytelling and choreography over rules complexity stacking
high · Josh Sharp's extensive discussion of classic vs. modern pinball philosophy; repeated emphasis on 'looks 70s but isn't' aesthetic; focus on moment-making and player emotional connection
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licensing_signal: Tarantino maintained direct creative control over game design, requiring approval of all major elements including backglass artwork and rejecting modern LCD technology
high · Multiple team members describe approval process; Tarantino rejection of original movie poster backglass; mandate for 70s aesthetic; communication via mail and answering machine
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manufacturing_signal: Chicago Gaming Company demonstrates advanced cabinet manufacturing including custom coin door tooling, chrome plating, and bespoke electrical integration for complex topper with dual motors
Topics
Retro 1970s aesthetic design philosophyprimaryTarantino creative direction and approval processprimaryRules design and wizard mode developmentprimaryAudio design and dialogue sourcing from filmprimaryBriefcase multiball as centerpiece mechanicprimaryTopper design and motor integrationsecondaryModern vs. classic pinball design philosophy critiquesecondaryCabinet manufacturing and quality controlsecondary
Sentiment
positive(0.85)— Team expresses pride and enthusiasm throughout; collaborative tone; celebration of Tarantino's vision and involvement; minor technical/QA challenges (uncensored dialogue) treated humorously rather than critically; consensus that project exceeded expectations
Transcript
youtube_auto_sub · $0.000
[Music] [Laughter] [Music] get the [ __ ] out my face with that [ __ ] the [ __ ] said that [ __ ] never had to pick up itty bitty pieces of skull on the count of your dumb ass got a threshold Jules I got a threshold for the abuse that I would take I'm right now I'm a [ __ ] race car right you got me in a red well I'm a mushroom Cloudland [ __ ] [ __ ] every time my fingers touch brain I'm super fly TNT I'm the guns of the Navarone [Music] thank you roll cameras and action I want to win I want that trophy so that's good all right let's see what you can do [Music] it was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well you could see that the air did truly love the matter [Music] and now the youngest Madame had rung the chapel we met the game [Music] not a motorcycle baby [Applause] [Music] five long years he wore this watch up his ass print it that's a wrap I'm gonna go to the bathroom powder my nose so I'm Marco T and I'm a pinball designer and I've been working with play mechanics and raw Thrills for the last 16 years and um I made Pulp Fiction I'm back when the licensing became available and it was brought to me basically hey would you want to do a pinball based around Pulp Fiction you know my immediate response was well it's been 26 years since I've touched the pinball machine but absolutely yes hell yeah my name is George petro and I am president of play mechanics Incorporated we make video games and now pinball machines and by the way I programmed this one behind me Pinball's back obviously and whirl pinball guys we used to do this a long time ago for a company called Williams Electronics if anybody remembers them Mark and I met over a pinball machine and I actually got hired at Williams over a pinball machine so I'm just uh I'm an old pinball guy my name is Josh Sharpe and I am the rules designer for Pulp Fiction pinball so this project as far as my involvement was interesting so by day I'm the Chief Financial Officer at rothrills by night I'm crazy pinball person and I do our project costs month to month for raw Thrills and notice that there was this project called PF that was starting to show up on our project list and I remember talking to Eugene about like do you have any idea what the hell this is and he had mentioned just like flip it that like Mark was playing around with Something pinball related and I was like what like I was it was crazy I'm Doug Duba with Chicago gaming I was involved with the development of Pulp Fiction and we'll be manufacturing and distributing the product Mark Ritchie had contacted me indicating they were working on a project he came out and in the beginning I didn't know where it was going to go we helped them with some parts and initially prototyping some playfields and you know really you kind of fell in love with the project and became more and more involved as time went on I was the graphic designer on Pulp Fiction pinball I did all the art package on the whole game so the theme of the game is Pulp Fiction but it's also a tribute to 70s pinball too hi I'm David Thiel over the last 40 years I've gradually become a pinball audio artist and I'm excited to tell you about the best audio package I've done so far which is for Pulp Fiction because I'd seen the movie I love the movie I think it's uh I think it's a a genre changer it Tarantino brings dialogue back to movies I loved it so it to be dumped into a group where everybody knew what they were doing uh Mark of course and George is world class and Josh is uh well he has pedigree and he really knows he's been working with a lot of people he knows what what's up and the rest of the team the artist Scott I mean they're all all very impressive this is going to be great one of the really interesting things that occurred on this project was that we had absolute buy-in from Quentin Tarantino from the ground up basically wanted us to create a pinball machine that looked like it came from late 70s 1980s and that's what we did so this project started because Quentin Tarantino wanted a pinball machine and specifically he wanted a 70s style pinball machine when we first started talking with him about what we were going to design we obviously brought him up to the state of art of pinball at the time which you know involves LCD panels pinballs look a lot different than they did in the 70s he didn't want any of that in fact I have a folder of machine reference he sent us that some were dated back to like the 60s but mostly it was in That 70s realm pinball yeah so dealing with Pulp Fiction as a property um you know from my perspective we've dealt with some pretty large properties we've dealt with the Terminator franchise with Jurassic Park we feel like we're really good at that part we were very comfortable working with the property and very confident that we could do something that would be honoring to it you know we're working directly with Miramax who didn't really have a department for license out so we're kind of floating around um eventually we got handed right to Quentin Tarantino's uh right-hand person so we had a direct connect there and often I would when we were trying to get things in for approval Quentin Tarantino it turns out doesn't carry a cell phone and he pretty much has an answering machine that you know to get a hold of them some people can get a hold of it them but I would get like a text message that would be okay send the renders to this address right now you know send them mail them to this address he's there for two more days and then he can see it and you know so we kind of had to jump through a bunch of Hoops but it really wasn't bad they've been very very good about it making Pulp Fiction was could be challenging at times regarding the license itself because my goal was to try to pay as much homage to the movie as possible obviously but the most thing is the respect that we had for the actors and for all the stuff that basically makes that game what it is I guess my biggest concern was just paying attention close attention to when those speech calls were called and how much attention was brought to the characters the briefcase I mean we had respect for all the assets I guess the most challenging part of that would have been putting all that together because there are so many leaps and bounds that that movie takes Pulp Fiction it's such an interesting movie and you know Quentin Tarantino in general is awesome the ability for us to play around in his world he has such these large worlds and the ability for us to play around with it just ended up naturally working really well for pinball where it is this chaotic mess and you're you're dancing around everywhere and you're leading into this one feature but then you're starting something totally unrelated then you're coming back to the thing that you had lit but you didn't consummate earlier and I feel like it just it overlays with kind of how the the movie works as well that's how we really got started in that in that realm and it was a big challenge because he was very specific about things he wanted so one of the quick details that he got involved in was the back glass right the original back glass for the game was the iconic movie poster of Mia on the bed you know reading the book well he was like no way we sent that to him he's like I hate it he goes do you want me to have my artist do a back glass for you and of course you could have Scott tell the story but Scott was like no I'll handle it so Scott came up with a very we did a lot of research on what you know some of our favorite glasses from the 70s and how they you know focused on a center character and how all the people were around them and that's where Scott got the idea of hey I could put all the characters in Jackrabbit Slims and then you know they could all be focused on Mia dancing and he absolutely he Quentin Tarantino absolutely loved it when we sent it to him he goes that's it right there so very involved in all the design decisions that we were making saw you know we did early renderings we did pictures we we shot video of the game and everything to to show him every step of the way the game switched from being a Pulp Fiction art package to a vintage pinball theme that just so happened to be Pulp Fiction in so it could sit next to other vintage pinball machines that had themes that weren't licensed but this one just happens to be Pulp Fiction so yeah the 70s theme the Vintage theme is what I really tried to hammer in and then the Pulp Fiction laid on top of that so once I took uh Pulp Fiction graphics and stuff and it kind of filtered it through a 70s pinball lens then I knew I was nailing it because uh then he really loved it so Pulp Fiction's a weird movie it has uh if you look at it you would probably say it's a 70s movie like when I look at it I go you know they're wearing these suits the you know the Sam Jackson's hair John you know everything speaks 70s the cars everything but they have cell phones so it's kind of like okay it's not really 70s is it so that's how we kind of went about this game this game is going to be look like it's from the 70s but we're gonna put things in it that are very not 70s things that are could only happen now and be part of the current pinball scene so that's the basis of the game and then bringing up from there we want to make it look everything Pulp Fiction so as we started to put it together you know we really looked at every piece and said okay how does this how does this match the movie how does this you know speak to the movie it really you look at it it looks 70s but it's not you know and that's kind of the that was our Mantra through the whole thing when you approach it it's going to look retro the displays are going to say retro but you know those displays you can't buy gas discharge anymore they look gas discharged those are completely tooled out of led to look just like the gas discharge display so we you know we put that kind of love into it we have a I'd say the Pinnacle thing on the on the game is the briefcase right so when the briefcase opens um you saw it yourself when the briefcase opens it's magical what's in the briefcase we don't know nobody knows and that is that is the pivotal part of the movie when that happens and you get briefcase multiball it's amazing the whole trick with how it looks like it's in the briefcase is is a modern thing right you wouldn't find that from a vertical up Kicker you would not find that in a 70s pinball you wouldn't find the subway in the pawn shop pawn shop was in the basement the game goes in the basement those kind of things are very new so even though we don't have a lot of levels on top of the play field we have we have levels behind we have levels underneath so there's a lot of interest there and we do some uh we do some fun stuff with the magnet that you know just through experimentation that we we all are excited about um you know we have we have the Royale with cheese who doesn't want that I mean you know we've really gone above and beyond there's sculptures of Vincent and Jules I mean Jules is pointing a gun right at you so it's it's just incredibly realistic and then of course to top it all off it's complete LED lighting with RGB RGB GI that does I mean again when you approach the machine it's going to look like a normal machine when it gets into its modes it completely changes and all of a sudden you know you're looking at just a a very modern experience you know I don't know if too many people know this but George pizzaro was the programmer on one of my early pinball games that game was Road Kings and we worked together on that brought some new stuff you know George was a junior programmer then and kind of his first step in the game development one of them but we got together and became friends now we're talking we're talking at least 35 36 years ago so we have a history and when this came up we both looked at each other and said how in the [ __ ] are we going to get this done because George is the president of this company and operates it very efficiently for him to take the time to program and jump in this thing was awesome it was just an awesome experience all the way around I think that that movie is so unique in its own way regarding what you're paying attention to meaning everything and anything constantly all the time that's one of the things that I really got excited about because I knew the movie and I knew that it would lend itself very well to almost any kind of pinball action the biggest things I take away is for me regarding developing that in the pinball first of all the case two big things the case and the characters those two things I think carried most of the game and that's what you have at the end of the day you know I'd say surprisingly this game has many more LEDs than any game we've produced it has as many or more coils Motors and mechs than any game we've produced much of it is a bit hidden I would say the first feature I built in the game was the briefcase you know the fact that oh it's in the case nobody knows what's in the case ever there's all kinds of theories that you know Ving Rams Band-Aid the one that you have in the back of his neck is in the case there's a buck to the briefcase it sends it up all the wire form behind the back panel and then hides behind the briefcase when you lock a ball briefcase will rotate and out comes the gold the yellowish Gold light right in John Travolta's face which is right out in the movie obviously but we were able to create an effect you think you're locking the balls in the case I mean it it's super cool as you make progress towards briefcase Boogie you know you're locking your first ball and you realize holy [ __ ] that briefcase moves and it opens and it lights like what is what is going on and you lock your second ball and you're seeing the displays are showing the the cases being solved and you you hopefully are oh I see of the three locks of the three sixes for the briefcase I'm gonna open it up and we're probably gonna do something special and you know the answer to that is for us the challenge is yes it better be special because this is this is a moment this is a moment to hit home with and locking that third ball getting Jungle Boogie to start playing and to see the briefcase start to dance the lights are going like how can you not feel great about what you just did the other thing that I worried a lot about was font shop because that's where the camp stuff happens we had to put the pawn shop in the game which became a Subway which made sense because it was down below the Playfield law comes back a great place to do multiball the rules of of that multiball is you're playing the story of some really x-rated stuff that's happening down there but when you are locking balls it's beginning to tell you that story and you kind of know like oh we're heading there aren't we and it's like oh yeah we're heading there and you get into the multiball and you're playing these levels and you're advancing through the scene and there's a stage in that multiball where you're re-locking balls and making sure you had these trigger moments where as you're doing something important the game is recognizing and telling you yeah no I know you just did something important I'm gonna pay you off here with some stuff that's going to make the endorphins start flying around in your soul like that's pinball man at its core so those two things I think were that were the the big inspiration of the first things I had in the game that I knew I wanted to do the roll scene modes are very interesting because they're actually pieces of the movie that we cut up and dropped in such as the gold watch another thing that I really like is the is the instant Playfield multiplayer shot that we've we call it the Big Kahuna bonus you hit two Targets up near the bumpers which can happen fairly randomly but also their shots they're tough shots but they can be made and then you shoot the ball instantly into this magnet that grabs the ball but the best part is you don't know where the ball is going to go when it comes off tonight we don't just send it back down the right return line it can go anywhere it can complete shots it can lock the ball it can knock down targets it's uh it's crazy characters the burger they're interactive with the Playfield we have flashers that when they speak that light them up and you basically get to see the character speaking to you as you're playing the game the inline drop progress also came very early in the game but the coolest part of that is it creates like an Intrigue like what's behind the targets how do I get there the other thing is you have control that it helps us to sort of increase difficulty in the game rules regarding locking on the balls in the briefcase but let's face it drop targets are just fine to shoot no matter what I love them we also have them a three Bank in front of the pawn shop that involves not only the advancement of the of the pawn shop but also The Pulp Fiction spell out right in the center of the Playfield which those targets have everything to do with that and as you're playing you're constantly building that up so there's that spell out when you get to that basically Pulp Fiction frenzy which is I'm not going to tell you what the multiball does you have to come play it but for me the biggest challenge was a lot of it was problem solving of making sure we had rules that we could convey in the medium that we had available to convey making sure that cohesive package that every one of this team has talked about that the rules fell in line with the decision to have this stainless steel coin door the decision to you know have a mirrored backlash for me it was making sure the rules of the game also supported that team vision of the game overall let's talk about the rules a little bit the last pinball that I programmed was in 1986. we were always into the rules back then fast forward to now I couldn't tell you where we're at with pinball and how deep it is and thank God Josh Sharpe was on board because Josh is the rule man he wrote Every rule in this game him and Mark work through what I think we're we're on pretty much pretty much rules 3.0 their experience with pinball is from this generation ago and pinball is something that has stayed current with me throughout the time that they have stopped working in it and my experience of like helping helping other design teams just on the side you know at night for fun whether it's it's the guys at Stern or American pinball or anyone in the industry it's it's been a passion of mine and on the rules side especially being able to to understand modern pinball rules and at least for me personally some people may disagree but where some of the modern rules design has gone wrong and moved from an area of that like classic Williams Bally entertainment and story first rules geeking out second I feel like there's been a little bit of an inverse of that lately when you look at modern Pinball it's you know getting excited about how many different things you can stack together and how many decimals of a multiplier that you can get for a given shot so you notice the game from a distance and it's 1970s if you get these warm and fuzzy Vibes of an era that has gone by sort of like Pulp Fiction the movie and then you take a deeper look and I think every facet of this game is you take that deeper look and there's layers here that go beyond 1977 intro to solid state gameplay and it was important for me and the rules designed to also make sure that we aren't selling to an audience in the 1970s we're selling to Modern pinball audience today and the game with the rules had to have those layers of depth and breadth of content because these games are now in people's basements for 10 20 years so it was important for me to make sure that we're hitting those notes of approachability easy to understand but as you get into features you know it's like an onion there's layers here there's reasons for a player to want to avoid doing something now even though they could because their scoring strategies throughout the game for those that care about that part of the game that they can focus on that there's other people where it comes strictly to content within the game that they want to explore every thing that we've put into the game you can drill deep into that just that one feature alone Hammer that feature all day and there will be enough content there to entertain you it was really fun for me because this is a chance for me to just be the programmer and you know have somebody that really knows the rules be really focused on them and then for me to understand so it's really brought me up uh to where pinball is and kind of like wow this is pinball is really fun you know like the rules these days are deep and confusing but it's actually got me more interested in where where things are at with um pinball so this game has I mean there's so much depth behind every multiball and the levels you need to get to to qualify it and then we have of course modes that leads to we'll call it wizard mode but in this game it's called divine intervention and I can say it took Josh I'm gonna say a good year plus to actually get it on his own so for me it's very important using using Playfield artwork to explain the road map of the game that a player is about to be playing to play to me is of Paramount importance I think if you don't have that how can you expect a player to understand where their what tunnels they're digging into where are they going where's it taking me next so to get to divine intervention are the five inserts that are above that divine intervention which are briefcase buggy which is a Super Jackpot in the briefcase multiball pawn shop Panic which is a Super Jackpot in the pawn shop multiball completing all of the Roll scene modes which there's a mini wizard mode for that called the shot so playing the shot gets you that objective there is Pulp Fiction frenzy which is completing all of the Pulp Fiction letters on the play field which is done by the arrow targets that are on the bottom third of the Playfield and then cast chaos it's what I call like taxi 2.0 rules where we have five characters and you have to start each character and collect each character to get to that mini wizard mode a rule is a rule and I've talked about this forever like most of my favorite rules in pinball the rule itself is stupid but the choreography and the emotion that you are able to connect with the player on makes the rules special I dare say it's pinball mode it's moment makers we're moment makers here like when you hit that magnet and you hear that thump of the man you're grabbing the ball and all the the effects that David Thiel is adding to the shot you just made the lighting that George is passing through to make sure that like you need to feel a certain sense of accomplishment and if you did something important the game needs to tell you you just did something really and [ __ ] important man like bam here you go and you feel great the conversations that I've had with with the team and especially with working with Mark most of the feedback that we have the rules are really the the foundation of the house but everything that you build on that you know the ways to connect to the player emotionally that's all I think what when I first started working on the project George calls it the frosting on the cake that you know the cake is is whatever yellow cake right it is what it is it's what you do on top of that that can make it extraordinary and it's all of that attention to detail that I think we do really well on Pulp Fiction to make sure that the player understands what they're doing they're having a fun time along the way and they're feeling rewarded as they hit various accomplishments in the game there will be two models the special edition and the bad mother flipper limited edition the bad mother flipper limited edition includes the topper mirror blades speaker Grille the Le diecast Medallion Shaker motor and the extended warranty bad [ __ ] wallet only we're not calling it the bad [ __ ] we are calling it the bad mother flipper wallet so for the LE model we have built this amazing topper Sports two individual Motors and basically we have the characters dancing on top of the backbox at any given time a lot of the music background music we have synced and timed to the actual movement of the characters the lights the flashing I mean that was a brainchild of myself Scott and Doug Duba so that was a triple action let's do this you know kind of thing and Doug is just crazy enough to listen to me and Scott Mark Ritchie had a concept solid concept for a Topper and provided me some photoshop renderings I've done a few Toppers so I took on the responsibility to engineer and Design the topper I guess the biggest challenge was there are four Roto molds and two of which are human which is more difficult to do than just a typical geometric object basically both characters wrote them rotate independently the uh there's a large amount of outputs on this including the star Fields the tri-color Neon the car headlights and a bunch of other lighting I I think it's the most beautiful topper we've done to date and as well the play mechanics team did a great job integrating it into the gameplay so UC actually actual Motion in the characters relating to what's happening on the Playfield it's fantastic it's a fantastic topper you know I mean certainly this K this cabinet is more challenging than what we normally produce there are quite a few extra parts in the neck in the backbox but all in all we've been making pinball machine cabinets since 1977 so not an issue just more more parts I saw the first prototype cabinet with artwork on it to me it felt like the modern suzo app coin door was out of place and so we set out to design a new door that's very reminiscent of the old Williams Valley coin doors from that era you know the coin door was a lot of effort kind of a ridiculous Endeavor I think it really helps the package I think it's beautiful we had to you know redesign the door we had to Tool up all the Die Cast parts and really search for a supplier if they could produce a high quality Chrome to give it a high-end look in Pulp Fiction the dialogue I think is one of the biggest things in that movie obviously not for everyone's ears but incredibly hilarious incredibly entertaining non-stop we'd have non-stop fun with that the number one thing I love is the sound calls I think Pulp Fiction is one of those movies that has every lines of sound call and to hear them it makes me laugh every time I play the game even if I've heard it 100 times so Pulp Fiction Sports and other really cool thing and that is we have over 300 speech calls in this game so everything you loved about Pulp Fiction I guarantee you you will find in this game well we got to talk about the call outs because no matter what I do however a good my pinball audio Artistry is the only thing anybody ever wants to talk about are the call-outs so let's talk about the call-outs uh we had the entire vocal stem for the movie so we could pretty much pull anything that was pullable everyone that we pulled is being used in a most appropriate way in in that place that that tickles that part of your that Pulp Fiction part of your brain you know all those things that you've seen the movie and you want to hear them say the game's gonna say that you lack bad words we got them favorite color so there's a story here that makes this my favorite collet and it happened two days ago which is great so my three-year-old's son Evan is like The Unofficial game tester for Pulp Fiction he plays it too many hours a day probably more hours than I could admit that would make myself a really bad parent so you know he plays all the time George just gave me the latest software dump and my game at home is bleeped by default because I don't know if you've you've seen the game but there's plenty of colorful language in it so no swears in my house it's fine so David Thiel had added some speech calls to the game that may have not had their bleeped versions done yet and by may not they did not so I get a FaceTime call from my wife two days ago with this really awkward look on her face and she turns the phone to my son who said he's a [ __ ] and I was like okay and I still had no context of like all right what is what is my wife telling him at home so my wife Amanda explains to me that the game is now swearing downstairs and I was like oh like and my first thought was is there a bug that all of the beep speech is not working or so I'm trying to talk her through this like so I can get some information to George to George to determine whether this is a bug or something else and like my wife is clearly not participating at the level that I want to but one of the speech calls happened to me and it's now my favorite one is does he look like a [ __ ] so now my three-year-old hears that still because it hasn't been fixed yet so right now he's playing the game today he's continuing to hear that does he look like a [ __ ] it's obviously clicked into his mind some of the more colorful language that's my favorite call out oh I'm sorry did I break your concentration do you know what it is they call a quarter pounder with cheese in France A Royale with cheese that's a [ __ ] good milkshake that's my favorite it's 20 minutes away I'll be there in 10. that's that's one of my favorites pinball mother do you play it there's a closer right there we got the music yeah we we licensed uh original Tunes from the movie misirlou we have Comanche we have Jungle Boogie you know we have what never can tell we have so many things that evoke the movie and that play out through the movie and we also have a lot of custom music that was written by David Thiel which is amazing as well so not only is it Pulp Fiction speech and all these things then you've got this really great custom sound package that again evokes pinball of old you know where a lot of love was put into every sound effect and what it's doing and how it sounds and you know how everything matches it um having the canonical music piece the part that reaches back into your brain and screams Pulp Fiction when you hear it well you know you've got misirlou [Music] right when you have that and you hear that no nobody I I actually looked up the history of that tune that's an old tune that's from like it's actually from Turkey it was like some kind of traditional tune and then Harry James a very famous trumpet player had a big band popular hit of misirlou in the uh late 30s early 40s and the Dick Dale thing that weird you know the very fast picking stuff in some way it is an attempt for him to mimic the wide vibrato that Harry James had when he had the hit with misirlou 15 years earlier so you know miserlu is a classic and they've got it and you know of course we use it misirlou is great then Comanche [Music] which everything is associated with the scene in the pawn shop that's another bam Tarantino thing I mean there's sort of a class in music Assets Now called the Tarantino class which is all this stuff that he's licensed for his movies and it kind of is like that surf music it's like 50s early 60s stuff then the contrasts of those the Jungle Boogie [Music] is is so perfect for a multiball because you've been in that space and then you start multiball and George has some fantastic lighting choreography uh that that thing happens and all of a sudden you're in that other place in the movie and it's discontinuous like the movie is right you time trip in Pulp Fiction and so we ended up using the Dusty Springfield for game over [Music] so wonderfully appropriate though in a very demented way if you get to the the shot thing where you're trying to help Mia out because she's passed out on the floor there's a a very demented heartbeat thing with hints I've I've interspersed little distorted bits of Dusty Springfield throughout that as uh you know because it's like Mia's thing right oh and then of course the most famous scene from the movie The The Twist scene with the uh Chuck Berry and that's such a great song [Music] the cooler Raider come on Chuck cooler Raider perfect this runs on the CG cgc system which is uh you know Doug's been making Williams games for a number of years and Williams was never a stair well like it was not never they made a few stereo games but the majority of their games are mono yet there are speakers in the backbox and there's a speaker in the cabinet let me disabuse you that's not a subwoofer you can call the subwoofer all day but what cgc does is novel because they can in modern times they run a stereo system I've optimized particularly the music but a lot of the sound effects so that I do something that's Way Beyond what would normally be like a crossover and I can do things to the signal that's going to the cabinet speaker and I can hit its sweet spot and and Doug buys a pretty good cabinet speaker if you adjust the signal properly you can make that puppy vibrate the glass vibrate the cabinet vibrate the floor and if you do that at the right time you know with music or a sound effect or something that moves it into a new regime it moves it into a psychokinetic regime where you're feeling this stuff a degree of punch which you won't find in most production pinball machines this is the thing for which I'm most proud now yeah that's a great question how did we come to work with cgc so um I mentioned that we're old-time pinball guys I have a very um I have a very specific way I like the mechanisms in pinball machines I don't necessarily like the direction some companies have gone with the mechanisms and maybe cost reducing some things you know just taking quality out of the game I always thought Williams was for me was the Pinnacle certainly by the 90s they were the Pinnacle of quality and I really I really had a lot of respect for all the people that worked there and created all of that stuff and I had seen where Doug was you know Doug had started doing the remakes like I remember being at a trade show and he had the top up and he's showing me everything they did and I'm like man this is amazing it's amazing the length that cgc went to to recreate a machine that when you play it feels like a 90s would Williams machine which let's face it machines were moving by the you know 2010 machines had moved far away from that so I recognize that but put that aside when we were deciding to do this you know we started having to investigate Hardware like I'm like okay what what computer are we going to use I'm not putting a PC in there it's too too overpowered we need a good system solid system I started looking around at what people were using you know you had these different uh obviously multimorphic has a system there's a Heber system there's all these different systems and I kind of zeroed in on a certain CPU and I noticed that cgc was using the same CPU and I was like oh let me let me check this out a little further and I you know attack from Mars has the schematics in it so I started looking at it I'm like oh this is really this is really clever you know how they've taken this and and made it something that mimics what a Williams pinball is doing the collaboration has been amazing because you know yes it's play mechanics design yes we're doing you know everything here for that part but cgc has been absolutely a hundred percent on board with trying to create everything that we want to create like how do we build this how do we tool this the things that we have on this game really we would not have if if Doug wasn't I believe if Doug wasn't involved we would not have half the things especially that topper the topper is amazing that's his thing um you know I make it move but you know he created and that that's kind of the level of collaboration this is really a project that we've worked on completely together and I appreciate all the effort that they've put into it for sure we have a really strong relationship with the owner Doug Duo who's a turns out to be a very crack engineer as well it's been a pleasure to work with them they're great guys we couldn't have done this without them truth sold the most exciting thing about this project for me is just the team that is together to make it number one have a mark back in the saddle designing pinball has just been really great to see it's been just a it's been a true blessing for me to work with him again and work on this having Josh Sharpe on the rules and Scott pakulski doing the art Dave doing sounds and then and then we had Pete petrowski doing Mechanicals he you know long time Williams guy it's just been you know when Doug and cgc and all those guys that's been the funnest part about this is the team I think we've all had a really great time um you know we're doing it out of the love for the game we're not really in this business we're you know we're just kind of doing something that we thought we wanted to offer up as as a really great piece for people to have so I hope you guys feel that when you when you play it and we're really excited about that we're just excited for people to have this in their house and just really enjoy it I think it's great I think I have watched this company produce hit after hit for years and I think there are there is no other company that's output the quality of games that these guys have so it's it's really a privilege to work with them on this project Pulp Fiction in my experience is one of the most unique projects I mean it's from a a new group a lot of domain experience a lot of pinball experience but it's the first time they've come together to make one that's unique this project happened and we have the people that had experience within pinball to make this project hat say yes to an opportunity our Core Business will continue to be arcade and the ability for us to have the leader company leadership that allows us to take on projects like this that fill an emotional need for you know the people that are on the team I mean for me it literally like my anytime I don't spend it raw Thrill is doing work and being a bad father to my kids who swear is is spent in pinball right whether it's it's on the competitive side with ifpa whether it's helping other manufacturers with rule suggestions being able to do that for my guys at work that I that I do every day it's it's like the dream had already come true with my day-to-day job it's like overcome with emotion all the circumstances conspired a good client a development game great license good assets nice sound system uh plenty of time to work on it everything came together you know being able to work for Mark on this project and really help help pull through his vision of the game I made it they say don't meet your Heroes and sometimes it's it's cool to meet your Heroes man it's been so much fun to be able to do what I can to help his cause and to help the team's cause it's been uh an honor as an understatement for me this was awesome for me is this this worked and I think you know my legacy would be uh next game guys I can't wait till people can get their hands on this they get it home and just play the hell out of it it's gonna be a centerpiece to anyone's collection because you know all the modern games they they're great and they they look the same but this is definitely something that gives you vintage Vibes but still all the modern you know rules and the RGB lighting and stuff and it's it's it's really a mix of both and I think that's what's really going to sell it yeah I really can't wait for you guys to play it it's gonna be awesome there is something about this project everybody kind of fell in love with it it's the first piece we've ever built where nearly everybody on the team wants to take one home I think you have to see it in person to appreciate the details to see the effort and I'm excited for people to see the product adding Pulp Fiction to your collection I mean our goal was for you the pinball buyer to basically be putting a piece of art in your home when you look at it whether the power's on or the power is off we want this to be a great looking piece in your game room and we think I think we nailed it for me as someone who owns way too many pinball machines what I've enjoyed as I've moved Pulp Fiction into my basement already is how when people come over it is something that is unique and different than any other game that I have and I have games that are 1960s EMS through Stearns whatever Stern's latest and greatest are also in my basement and there is nothing else like this game in my collection I imagine and hope that if people give it a chance it's something that they can add to their collections that will be one of the most unique pieces that they have in the collection so I guess I'm going to leave you with with this die you know get out and check out Pulp Fiction as soon as you can it's a super fun game I wouldn't [ __ ] lie to you it's fine you gotta make some phone calls you gotta call some people well then do it [Music] did that cover that or did I go after the Weeds on that no all right I felt like I was going off in the weeds are you listening Nick are you do you have headphones in no I'm listening okay so you'll know if I say anything that I'm not supposed to do you know what they call a quarter pound what is it a quarter pounder yeah oh are you am I doing you doing this yeah [ __ ] man okay holy [ __ ] but where's Zach do you know what it is they call a quarter pounder with cheese in France A Royale with cheese there it is there it is nice incredible so you were you were uh open to the idea absolutely some people they don't even know they might think you're so damn sick and tired of him while you're like I'm not doing it oh no I never I never stopped going to shows I never stopped paying attention I love him well I mean it's part of me you know it always has been and I think George knows that too you know and that made for a really yes in a word yes that was a mess I don't really like that one you know whatever that's fine yeah how you feeling good though yeah but don't believe anything Josh says [Music] overcome with emotion Zach I might cry so I'm so excited uh you've you've just [ __ ] on my question and it turned out awesome uh talk a little bit about some of the other features that you have I mean you talked about the topper but you can almost list them out like this machine may feel and look initially like a 70s machine just dig deeper get a little bit closer we've got a state of the Arts Hopper we've got uh a subway system we have a buck we have drop targets we've got uh custom skulls we have magnets we've got just kind of language yeah you did great you want to just answer it I don't think I can do it that well a Salesman so you're a much better that was good I like that see that's good we rambled enough so [Laughter] I got a board I have learned it's [ __ ] hard to make a game like what that date Shivers combat of like it pinball is hard it's hard man right done done that's all I got I felt that one yeah what happened are we are we starting are we going they're one to five are we going all right here it is English [ __ ] that's it that's the one you just you just spoke it that's it English [ __ ] do you speak it one more time
David Thiel@ 30:20 — Explains comprehensive approach to sourcing dialogue from movie audio; shows unprecedented access to source material
“does he look like a [bleep]... now my three-year-old hears that still because it hasn't been fixed yet”
George Petro@ 32:34 — Humorous but revealing anecdote showing QA/testing challenges with uncensored dialogue in game
“if you did something important the game is recognizing and telling you you just did something really and [] important man like bam here you go and you feel great”
Josh Sharp@ 25:26 — Articulates the reward feedback system and emotional resonance design philosophy
high · Doug Duba's description of coin door redesign, die-cast part tooling, chrome supplier search, and note that CGC has manufactured cabinets since 1977
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community_signal: Mark Ritchie returned to pinball game design after 26-year hiatus to work on Pulp Fiction with Play Mechanics
high · Ritchie's opening statement: 'it's been 26 years since I've touched the pinball machine but absolutely yes hell yeah'
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announcement: Pulp Fiction pinball officially released in two variants: Special Edition (with topper) and Bad Mother Flipper Limited Edition (includes topper, mirror blades, speaker grille, medallion, shaker, extended warranty)
high · Explicit variant descriptions in featurette; topper specifications detailed; Special Edition topper with dual motors and character animation
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technology_signal: QA/testing challenge with uncensored dialogue callouts not properly bleeping in early software versions, revealing child-safety oversight in audio integration
medium · George Petro anecdote about 3-year-old hearing unbleeped 'does he look like a [bleep]' callout; notes some speech calls lacked bleeped versions during testing phase