Does anyone here like the Pinball 2000 games? I just got through watching "Tilt, The Battle to Save Pinball". It's an amazing story!
It starts out showing pinball and how things got started. When the new digital machines were being introduced, Gottlieb was the last one to join and they never made it up. They finally closed in 1982 or 1983. This left Williams to become the pinball giant.
In the 90's when pinball was finally kind of dying out (not for me I still love pinball) they needed an idea to reinvent the wheel so to speak. Some of the guys came up with an idea to integrate video into pinball. It was done before, but not like this.
In their spare time at home a few guys (two I believe) started working on a prototype. The unit uses a screen and a reflective material to make the display look like it's "IN" the playfield, when it's not. They brought a prototype in and showed it to the guys in a board room meeting and they were floored. This was going to save pinball.
So, they had 19 months to get this game up and running I believe it was. Typically a normal pinball takes that long to make, but this was harder due to the fact that it was new and there were more elements involved such as video. Before artists were drawing in 4 colors on a dot matrix screen. They had to learn how to do 3D graphics now.
The cost of the pinballs was a bit more initially due to the fact that it had this computer brain in it, but later on the costs would be less expensive because you could just swap out pinball playfields for a new one. Pretty plug and play. The artwork is also replaceable.
They were originally going to do Star Wars Episode I first, but chose to do Revenge From Mars since it was easier to do. They just took a popular game they already had, so they already had the basic idea down. It sold about 7000 units! Williams Pinball had their first profit in years.
Anyway, I won't give away the whole thing, but it's awesome to watch it all. You can find it online for download via torrent.
I only wish Williams wouldn't have just "closed" it's doors for good. They should have found someone who loved the game and wanted to buy the company just to keep pinball alive. Maybe even employees wanted to buy it all and make it an employee run company.
I really wish they'd release some design platform for their software and what not. Maybe we'd even see a "homebrew" made.
