It’s Brian Eddy’s World. You’re Just Living In It

Brian Eddy is the man behind some of your favorite games. He’s also the man behind some of your family’s favorite games. In fact, he’s done so much that we did THIS profile of him last year as Nudge’s fave designer. You should go read it, but if you’re lazy or in a huge hurry to do something else, we’ll just try and sum it up for you.

In the 30+ years this man has worked in pinball, he’s crafted some absolute bangers. In addition to creating some of the most popular games of all time (Medieval Madness, Attack From Mars, etc), new Stern bangers (Stranger Things, Mando, Venom) and cult classics (THE SHADOW); he’s also programmed some of your favorite games (Indiana Jones, and a buncha other shit). Most recently, he’s come out with Stern’s newest cornerstone, Venom — which is already getting buzz surrounding its mechs and distinctive RPG-style elements.

Anyone who knows me (Doc) knows that I love two things: Brian Eddy and parenthesis. This article is CHOCKED FULL OF BOTH. How? Because we were lucky enough to sit down with the fair haired pinball master to bust open his brain and sort through all things pinball, design, and… cows? Here now is our transcripted interview

Nudge: You're in sort of your own generation of pinball designer. Coming from Williams and then going to Stern. You’re not old or young. Do you feel like you have contemporaries in pinball?

Brian: Yeah, I was always like the youngest guy at Williams. So, I always like to say I'm the youngest old guy in pinball. When I came to Stern, I still was the youngest old guy. I'd say I'm still kind of in with that group, because being at Williams with Steve Ritchie and Pat Lawler and Dennis Norman, all those guys, we're all still making games at the same time.

Were you friends with those guys?

Yeah, sure.

I thought so because I have heard this, I don't know if it's true, but it’s been said that Steve Ritchie made the Spider-Man game as sort of an homage to a Brian Eddy game, right?

I’ve heard that too. I don’t know for sure that it was.

He didn’t tell you?

*laughs No, no. But I’ve always gotten along really well with Steve. He’s really entertaining.

I can see similarities in some of your work — but you’re also very different in how you approach a game.

Steve was inspirational to me in the fact that he made his games flow. I always loved flow games - there are two kinds of ways to make a game, flow or bump and hit type games that I’d say is more Pat Lawlor - so I always tried to put in that flow. It just feels so good.

Since you’ve been at both Williams and Stern, can you talk a bit about the design process and the timeline for a game to come out?

Timeline-wise, it's actually pretty similar. The amount of Williams people at Stern and the kinds of methods we use means that the amount of time that we have is pretty similar. I mean, some things have changed. There's like longer lead times on parts sometimes and things like that. That’s a challenge So even though the time frame (from beginning to end) is the same, sometimes we don't quite have as much time in between.

We had a very contentious article recently where one of our writers said video modes suck and I said video modes rule. All the examples that I think I used in the argument were Brian Eddy games... You were a programmer on Indiana Jones, also The Shadow as an example of a really good one. What do you think makes for a good video mode?

I think it's that simplicity a video mode offers. It goes back to the coin-op arcade days in the early 80s. Something that is really obvious and simple but is still a challenge to do. And so I programmed the video modes in those games.

I also did Attack from Mars (video mode). Even though Lyman took over the programming about halfway through. I liked doing them. I thought they were fun. It's another game within a game. To me, I love all games, right? I love board games, I love video games. Uh, and maybe there was a little part of me that wanted to do video games too at the time. Which I did after —

— My favorite title of a video game ever. PsyOps Mindgate Conspiracy.

It's kind of a horrible title.

No. It’s a great title.
*laughs

After Williams shudders its pinball division, you moved to video games in the 2000s. At the time, you were doing hit after hit (with Williams) so there was nothing you did that killed pinball, which must have felt frustrating to not be able to return until Stern asked you back. Do you feel kind of like you lost some prime pinball years there?

I don't know. Times were different, right? It was like when I started designing, it was already about to be the downturn of pinball. So I didn't really get to feel the huge peak during those games, but they were still so much fun to do.

The hard part I think back then too is we could only make a game once. It never went back on the line. Sure there were a couple weird exceptions, like Addam's Family, but yeah, they couldn't really figure out how to do a game more than once and still make a profit. So once a game ran, that was it.

So it could be like a year later. It turns out that everybody absolutely loves the game. It's too bad. That's all we made.That’s different with Stern now, right? They can remake games. They figured out how — it’s awesome.

It's really interesting to hear you say that. I mean, of all the designers, you're the one that CGC is popping back on the line, with Medieval Madness and Attack From Mars.

And that’s precisely why — because of the downturn. By the time people figured it out and were having fun with the games, it was already too late. Now people get to play those titles.

I don’t know how you feel about this, but as someone who runs a pinball magazine, a lot of casuals tell me their favorite game. It’s almost always Medieval Madness. How do you feel about that stuff? It’s work from 30 years ago at this point.

It's the most rewarding part of doing the whole job. Seeing people having fun, hearing about having fun playing one of your games. That hasn’t changed.That's what I strive for. When we’d do games back in the nineties, we didn't have the internet and people talking and everything. So we would physically put games out on tests and then we would go and watch people play, stand behind them and just watch.

We'd notice if somebody played a couple of games and then they went away and like 20 minutes later or something, they came back. You knew you had something. That made him come back. That's how we did it back then.

I went to L.J. Green’s induction ceremony for the Pinball Hall of Fame, and she had similar stories. It was her job to go to arcades and see if anyone under 20 was playing a game, how often, how long, etc. It’s so wild to think about the analogue nature of that vs something like Stern Insider Connect where there are all these different ways to get those metrics. The 90s were a very interesting crossroads for pinball. A lot of those games feel modern still.

It was a great era for pinball. We finally had enough power in the CPU and computer memory to actually put more into a game than we did with ‘80s games, which just couldn’t ever do quite as much. We got the dot matrix display that we could put more information, so they, they kind of hit that sweet spot of just enough that they could hold out for 20-some years and still be fun.

Selfishly, I’m going to ask some questions about the shadow, since that’s my favorite game. It’s your first, and I’m not sure how to ask this but — what was your idea for the mechs? Let’s take the diverters for example, they’re so great, how they feed the ball to either flipper. What’s the story there?

It's just was always about choice. I wanted to have the choice as a player as to where the ball went and, and which flipper it came back to. I liked a safe return.

You integrated the theme of The Shadow really well, from the mechs to the art direction. Did you see the movie beforehand to nail that aesthetic?

No, and back then we used to do a lot of movies before they would launch. We would have no idea about how it was gonna do. And then The Shadow, unfortunately, didn't do so well.

It didn't quite reach the level of Batman, but there were still a lot of cool elements in there to pull out that I tried to bring into the game. Obviously we did get things like, um, voice clips and stuff like that. But we didn't actually see the movie until it came out in the theaters

So how does the Battlefield look so similar to the end of the movie? It’s this crazy rotating thing that looks exactly like your upper playfield?

You know, I think we got a script. So that's where probably some of the ideas formed, even though I had no idea what they were going to do exactly. I’m sure it still probably helped. But to tell you the truth, I can't remember. But what we actually had back then, was we had all those speech callouts which led to a lot of tight integration.

It's super tight integration. Part of the reason why it's my favorite is the art direction. You’ve got this beautiful art deco and like green and Black all over the lower third of the playfield. You don't see a lot of that in pinball.

Yeah, it just fits well with the film . That is what drove the style. Doug Watson did a great job. It does have a following now, which is interesting.

It really does. I think it’s safe to say the pinball game is more popular than the movie.

*Laughs That’s not saying much.

I asked you this yesterday, but why cows? (Eddy’s games often prominently feature cows in some form)

… What? What do you mean?

Maybe this is a good place to ask this, but can you talk a little about putting so much humor into those early titles?

What was great about those games was they were original themes. So, you could do whatever you wanted. You didn't have a licensor who had to approve everything.

You know, we kind of moderated ourselves a little bit, but, you know. Still some people say, like, you couldn't make Medieval today because it's not quite PC, but... times change, right? The world changes, views change, but to me humor is a great part of pinball.

And it’s hard to do. Figuring out something that's timeless enough for people to play it over and over again and not get tired of it. It also has to have some type of feeling with the game too, and the existing world that’s been created. The humor has to kind of echo it back. It’s about the feeling in the game instead of just being a random funny line. It's a balance. It's a tough balance.

Thanks so much for your time, Brian

No problem, thanks Ian