Five Minutes to Tilt #16 – Melvin Williams on the Big Bang Bar That Almost Was
Summary
Melvin Williams recounts his unreleased Big Bang Bar reimagining, abandoned after Williams' PCB work stalled.
Melvin Williams, creative director of American Pinball, recounts his history with the unreleased Williams Big Bang Bar, which he began reimagining as a whitewood prototype after Williams abandoned its nearly finished development. He says he left the project after the PCB work fell through, later moving on to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The conversation is informal and light on verifiable detail.
Untold Pinball Stories | Five Minutes to Tilt, season 2, episode 16: Melvin Williams Pinball is more than machines. It’s about people. And the stories they carry. A special one: recorded ten miles high, on a plane from Chicago to Amsterdam. In this episode: Melvin Williams, creative director at American Pinball and formerly at DPX, the team behind Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Five minutes on a kitchen timer. No script. No second takes. His first game: Big Bang Bar. After a lawsuit between Theatre of Magic (Williams) and Pinball Magic (Capcom), Williams acquired the rights to Big Bang Bar. They were actively working on it, but in the end they chose Pinball 2000. In this video you’ll see what that looked like inside the Williams factory: a Frankenstein pinball, with a Medieval Madness cabinet, the Big Bang Bar playfield and a Pinball 2000 monitor. In 2021, while working with Pedretti Gaming on the FunHouse remake, Melvin wanted to bring Big Bang Bar back. He went to work with the original Williams design, and the game was almost finished. Almost. But what hasn’t happened yet, might still happen. After that came Alice. And there’s a fun story there too: a pinfluencer hidden in the game as an easter egg. Listen closely to the Rabbit. Pinball history doesn’t only live in the machines. It lives in the people who make them. That’s why we record these stories. Five minutes. One game that almost was. Enjoy watching. Untold Pinball Stories | Five Minutes to Tilt, seizoen 2, aflevering 16: Melvin Williams Flipperen is meer dan kasten. Het gaat om mensen. En de verhalen die ze meedragen. Een speciale: opgenomen op tien mijl hoogte, in het vliegtuig van Chicago naar Amsterdam. In deze aflevering: Melvin Williams, creatief directeur bij American Pinball en eerder bij DPX, het team achter Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Vijf minuten op de kookwekker. Geen script. Geen herkansing. Zijn eerste game: Big Bang Bar.
Comments