Creature from the black lagoon interview part 1 of 2

Creature from the Black Lagoon is a classic pin from the nineteen nineties. One of those pins where it seems that everything just falls into place and forms unity. The first attraction for most people will be the artwork. Especially with the game switched on, the game becomes an irresistible magnet. Also the gameplay is top class and before you know it you will be playing it again and again.

You and your date in your brand new ?59 Chevy convertible ready to watch Creature from the Black Lagoon

The story of the pinball machine Creature from the Black Lagoon starts at the drive-in. Where you and your date are all alone in your brand new ?59 Chevy convertible, eating popcorn and getting into trouble. Creature from the Black Lagoon is playing, but you?re having too much fun. Suddenly the two of you are sucked into the movie. The creature grasps your girl and races of to the swamp. You have to search the underground caverns and rescue her, before she becomes part of movie history.

The Creature becomes alive and grasps your girl

Creature from the Black Lagoon was designed and created in 1992. Head of the design team was John Trudeau; who has been designing games since the beginning of the eighties, mainly for Premier. For Williams he has designed: Bugs Bunny Birthday Bally, Bride of Pinbot, Black Rose, Judge Dredd, The Flinstones and Congo. The first two were released within one month of each other and gave John Trudeau the nickname ?Dr. Flash?.

Part of the design-team on the movie set of The Flintstones from left to right Jeff Johnson (software), John Trudeau (design) and Kevin O'Connor (artwork)

Software was done by Jeff Johnson; this was his first game. Later he also worked on the software of Theatre of Magic. Responsible for sound and music was Paul Heitsch. He has worked on games like Bram Stoker?s Dracula and Scared Stiff. All the artwork is done by Kevin O?Conner. He is famous for the artwork he did on Kiss and Star Trek, back in the seventies. His first backglass was Strikes and Spares, which showed his talent for painting beautiful women. On Judge Dredd the whole team worked together again and also on The Flintstones, except for the sound/music.

My personal story starts in 2001 when I bought my own Creature from the Black Lagoon. It is a very fun game to play. And for a reason I can?t explain it is the game I play the most. Before I know it, I have pressed the start button again. Thru years of playing and cleaning the machine little things started to wonder me. Like why do I have to install three balls when there is only a 2-ball multiball, why does the license plate at the end show 1959 while the movie was released in 1954 and of course why are there two flashers behind the hair of the girl that is portrayed on the backglass?

This was only the beginning I had many, many more questions on the game and who better to ask than the people who designed it. With the help of Jim it was possible to contact them all. I want to thank all of them, not only for their time and patience to answer all my questions, but also for creating such a wonderful pin. It was fun thinking of possible questions and exciting to read the answers. I hope you enjoy them too.

Design:
The pin is a real classic. This has much to do with the integration of different themes into one classic design. How did the idea for the different themes came about? What came first: the drive-in theme, fifties rock&roll or the B-movie?

Official factory photo for the promotion of the pin Creature from the Black Lagoon. For the purist: note that the game on this early photo has black legs

John Trudeau> I have always been a fan of the 3D phenomenon, whether it be movies or stills. I believe the drive-in theatre was the first part of the puzzle with the theme and music coming in almost at the same time a very short time later, a matter of days. The actual time the game theme is taking place is 1959 according to the license plate of the car exiting the lot. This is a "revival" showing of the "Creature" (1954) to enable the music to have a wider choice of tunes. Unfortunately, "At The Hop" and "Little Darlin' " were too cost prohibitive to get into the game. But the tunes that did make it were great too.

Kevin O?Conner> The 3D thing came about as a result of John and I brainstorming on the whole drive-in and retro 3D movie thing. I think at one time we talked about the possibility of using 3D glasses. I had a kid in the drive-in wearing one of them, it?s on one of the plastics.

Detail of the playfield, which has a great fifties feel

For what reason did you choose the great B-movie "Creature from the Black Lagoon"?

Original movie poster from the movie

John Trudeau> I believe the idea of getting a hologram into the machine was there before the actual movie theme. After I had settled on a theme (drive-in) and a "toy" or "gimmick" I wanted to use (the hologram), the Creature wasn't far behind. I am a sci-fi fan too and I remember seeing the movie in the theatre a while ago. It was a natural marriage of themes!

A very satisfying shot to hit is the long left ramp, which together with the sound effects are a big thrill. (When during multiball I have both balls up there I usually do a little dance! ) At what stage during the design did you think of the long left ramp together with the whirlpool ?

With both balls on the ramp it's time for a little dance!

John Trudeau> It came to me during the layout portion of the design process, which is very early in the design. The dual ramp was an effort to take advantage of the "sweet" shot in two different ways. The whirlpool at the end was put there for a multiball "rest" for the player. With the one ball occupied, the player could concentrate a little more on his shots. If both balls were up there, the shots were very good when they were released to the right flipper.

The design has some specific features which differentiate it from many other games of that time, such as none looping orbits, the outlanes and the wide gap between the flippers. Any comment on this?

From up close the gap seems even bigger; as a personal touch I changed to black flippers with yellow rubber, although Kevin O?Conner picked yellow flippers with black rubber originally

John Trudeau> The "orbit" shots (or their equivalent) are there, they're just interrupted. I never felt there was a "wide gap" between the flippers. That was the way it was built in the first place as I can recall. Seems to work out pretty well......

Many Creature's are equipped with a post between the flippers. (For example mine came with a post, also the one photographed in Marco Rossignoli book Pinball Memories) Was it ever considered to have a post as an option, to limit the number of drains from missed shots at the left ramp?

John Trudeau> Not that I recall. We played the game without one and came up with a very generous time average, to my recollection. Maybe it was discussed for a time but it didn't get put in. I guess some people think that adding a post between the flippers makes it better, but it never went out of the factory like that.

The game has one multiball mode, which also is only a 2-ball multiball. It's exciting and a big challenge to play, but again different from other pins. Was there a specific reason it was done in this way? Was it perhaps decided late during the development of the game as the game needs three balls installed to play?

John Trudeau> Three ball multiball was way too disruptive. The shots available during the multiball play were blocked most of the time and didn't open up until one of the balls were lost. There was such a significant difference in the play that we decided to make it a two-ball game. I don't know why the third ball is needed to start it up.............perhaps we just neglected to take it out.

Jeff Johnson> the two ball multiball was chosen for many reasons, the main one being that with 3 balls out on the playfield it becomes to chaotic. I never liked 3,4,5,6 ball multiballs which came into fad later. I liked simple rules and elegance and two balls achieved that.

A big attraction is the holographic creature. Did it or any other feature give any headaches to get implemented the way you wanted?

The hologram photographed outside??ggrrraaaagggghhhhh"

John Trudeau> Actually the hologram was the smoothest piece to get integrated. Everything was pretty straight forward as to how to get it to light up the best and clearest. We (Ernie Pizarro engineered the actual mechanisms) moved the light source away from the hologram to help the image be clearer. The more parallel the light rays are when they hit the surface of the hologram, the clearer the image. If you ever held that hologram up on a sunny day and let the sun be the light source you would be pleasantly surprised. The image is amazingly clear and brilliant! A halogen bulb would have been a brighter illumination source, but it is also an easy source of fire. We went with the brightest incandescent and reflector we could put into the system.

Jeff Johnson> No. It was a fairly simple mechanical device, so the programming was simple.

For fun I changed the hologram bulb lamp with a new low-voltage LED bulb, the change gave minimal effect on the clarity of the hologram

Software/rules:
The base of the rules is the non-linear (non sequential) concept of "F-I-L-M". It gives a lot of freedom to the way the game can be played. How did the concept came about?

The concept of the rules is to spell F-I-L-M

Jeff Johnson> This being my first pin, and me not having a pinball background gave me a unique perspective to game play and rules design. I wanted to play a pinball game which basically rewarded someone for making a shot. I used to have my girlfriend at the time play the prototype, she played like a spaz ? hitting both flippers all the time. I wanted the game to be fun for her as well. So when I was programming/designing the rules - I always took that into account. I almost never designed rules for expert players. So, yes, most of the rules in the game are very free formed - you can either continue the current mode/sequence or ignore it.

John Trudeau> It just seemed a natural way to go. The object was to complete it to get the movie started. If you do happen to complete it in sequence(F-I-L-M), there is a nice bonus award too. I think there is a bug in the software at this point (or Jeff was feeling kindly to the player). If you manage to complete F, I and L in any sequence in one ball in play, and then complete the M in the next ball in play, you'll get the sequential award too.

Jeff Johnson> Actually, I wasn?t thinking about being kind to the player. As long as the player completed the sequence in order, it didn?t matter what happened in between - even across several ball starts.

You mention that the rules focus on the novice player to have fun. On the other hand the rules to complete F-I-L-M change in a smart and subtle way to keep the experienced player interested. How did you go about to achieve this balance? Was it difficult to design rules that are not only simple, but also deep?

Jeff Johnson> Designing rules that are easy for the new (bad players - like me) and the experts is hard to do. but since novice players far outweigh the expert players, I always designed rules around the novice audience. But occasionally, I would make the rules be incremental and what I mean by that is, once the player hopefully understands the rule (mode) - I was able to make it harder to complete...like for example speed up the time to shoot a shot, etc.

The design of the playfield compared to the rules of the game seem to be the complete opposite. The shot lay-out is very tough for novice players, the rules on the other hand are very easy to understand. Is there a specific reason the balance is chosen in this way?

Jeff Johnson> The playfield was designed by John T. before I started working at Williams (although some changes to playfield were made per my request). As I said above, this being my first pin, I wanted the rules to be simple, fun and free form - regardless of the playfield layout.

John Trudeau> Not that I can recall. The layout doesn't feel all that difficult to me........... :o)

"Super scoring" looks, feels and smells like a wizard mode. Why was it decided to make it a one ball timed mode, instead of a multiball extravaganza?

Have I reached the wizard mode?

John Trudeau> We were looking for additional ways of developing "play modes" to put in the game. We felt that we had a way of giving a lot of different features to the player in a way that was easy to understand. This was just one of them.

Jeff Johnson> Again to keep things simple and fun and non-chaotic and we found thru testing that most people lost the 2nd ball (yeah we had it two balls for awhile) almost immediately and people would get distracted by losing the 2nd ball.

Looking at the artwork and comparing the left and right orbit entrance, it gives the suggestion that originally it was necessary to hit the right orbit 4 times to light the "M" ("M" is the 4th insert of the right orbit). This would make it consistent that all the other letters in "F-I-L-M", which need 4 shots to light. Is this a pinhead looking too long at the artwork or is there some truth in it?

Don?t look to long at this photo, you will start thinking of silly questions?

John Trudeau> Sorry. The reason that the right shot ("SLIDE") was only a single shot was that, for some reason, we found it more difficult to shoot than the left "KISS" shot.

Jeff Johnson> Commonsense says that since the lights are sequential that it would require X shots to light lane. But that limited the logic we could put on the lanes. In order to use the lanes for multiple purposes (sometimes within modes, etc) we just made the logic - if light is blinking - try to shoot that lane or target.

Dots/animations:
During attract mode the dot matrix display shows that the game features "Dot-Mation". Is this the only game with it? And what was it's purpose?

After Pin-Mation technology on FunHouse we got Dot-Mation

John Trudeau> I don't think so, but it may be. It was the debut of the new sound program, I believe. It may also have been on "Dracula" on the Williams side. It was only an announcement to a new feature in the game.

Jeff Johnson> It was a marketing term to try to separate ourselves from DataEast. All it is, is that our Speech could be synced with the display. So that when an on-screen character moved his mouth it would look as if he was actually saying it.

"Move your car!" has become a classic quote and mode and is fun to play. Rumours tell that the mode was changed several times during the design of the game. Can you give a little inside into the development?

Scene from the classic ?Move your Car?-mode

Jeff Johnson> Again, this being my first pin, I wanted to bring a comic element into pinball. So "move your car" was my answer to that. as with any mode, it was changed several times but the overall idea remained the same just the shot logic and timings changed.

John Trudeau> I know that Jeff Johnson and I had an awful lot of fun getting that mode together. We were actually laughing all the time at the crazy things we could have the unfortunate patron do to the blocking truck. As I recall, it was pretty straight forward during the development stage. Our problem was in selecting the final truck destruction mode to include in the game. We could have gone on for a while, but we only had so much CPU memory.

How did the humorous scenes and quotes came about? Was it while working on the project or did the team get together to brainstorm ideas?

Creature contains a lot of humorous moments

Paul Heitsch> They pretty much emerged organically while working on the particular part of the game in which they occur. I had *some* autonomy in coming up with speech phrases, but all the real creative impetus came from John Trudeau. He had a fully-formed vision of what he wanted this game to be, and conveyed it to the whole team.

John Trudeau> I have to attribute a lot of this to Jeff Johnson. He came up with some great ideas. We worked to get them refined and polished and in the game. "Move Your Car" really came out well.

DoHo and many other easter eggs are incorporated in the game. The true meaning of DoHo has been revealed and this makes me curious if this is somehow related to the violence at the end of the video mode and/or the strangling of the snack bar guy. Is this punk making a pass at DoHo?

Is that you Dwight?

Jeff Johnson> No. I just wanted to bring violence into the game as well.... pulling from the success of Mortal Kombat at that time.

John Trudeau> No. That unfortunate guy that is getting throttled at the snack bar is our own Jeff Johnson. The guy getting the beating for peeping is poor Dwight Sullivan! How'd he get in there?? :o)

There seems to be a small inconsistency in how the Creature holding the girl is portrayed. On the backglass the girl is wearing a swimsuit, like on the press photo, but on the dot matrix display she is portrayed as in the movie with a skirt on. It looks as if the game follows this inconsistency on purpose, is this true?

During the shoot of this scene in the movie Julie Adams hit one of the fake rocks with her head as the Creature was carrying her thru the caverns; his view and movement was limited by the mask and suit and the shoot had to be delayed for some time

John Trudeau> Yes. The backglass was suppose to be a tribute to the movie poster. We weren't supposed to use the likenesses of the actual actors in the movie. But the scene where the Creature picks up the girl was pretty much lifted off the video of the movie. The resolution of the dot matrix was so vague that no one ever said anything about it.

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