Five Minutes to Tilt #17 – Elizabeth Gieske on Keith Elwin & Split Flippers
Summary
Stern dev Elizabeth Gieske shares how a Keith Elwin tap-pass match inspired Transformers' split flipper mode.
In a short 'Five Minutes to Tilt' segment, Elizabeth Gieske, a Stern Pinball software developer and lead on Transformers, recounts how she was drawn into competitive pinball through an arcade tournament, her first win on Aztec, and an early tap-pass match against Keith Elwin that inspired the split flipper versus mode in Transformers. She also describes iterating on that mode with a colleague and a crash bug found by Rick. The content is anecdotal and personal rather than a formal announcement.
Untold Pinball Stories | Five Minutes to Tilt, season 2, episode 17: Elizabeth Gieske Pinball is more than machines. It’s about people. And the stories they carry. In this episode: Elizabeth Gieske, lead software programmer at Stern Pinball. Five minutes on a kitchen timer. No script. No second takes. Her first pinball tournament wasn’t the plan. She just had to play. That’s where she saw what you can really do with a pair of flippers. Then came her first tournament win, by the narrowest of margins. And then there’s the time she played Keith Elwin, and the game the two of them came up with afterwards on the Dolly Parton machine. A few months later they were working together, and that little game became the basis for the split-flipper mode on the new Transformers, coded by Elizabeth. She takes us from that first idea to the mode you can play today. 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. From player to programmer. Enjoy watching. Untold Pinball Stories | Five Minutes to Tilt, seizoen 2, aflevering 17: Elizabeth Gieske Flipperen is meer dan kasten. Het gaat om mensen. En de verhalen die ze meedragen. In deze aflevering: Elizabeth Gieske, lead software programmer bij Stern Pinball. Vijf minuten op de kookwekker. Geen script. Geen herkansing. Haar eerste flippertoernooi was niet de bedoeling. Ze moest gewoon meedoen. Daar zag ze pas wat je allemaal met twee flippers kunt. Daarna volgde haar eerste toernooiwinst, op het randje. En dan is er die keer dat ze tegen Keith Elwin speelde, en het spelletje dat ze daarna samen bedachten op de Dolly Parton-flipperkast. Een paar maanden later werkten ze samen, en dat spelletje werd de basis voor de split-flipper-mode op de nieuwe Transformers, gecodeerd door Elizabeth. Ze neemt je mee van het eerste idee tot de mode die je nu speelt. De geschiedenis van pinball zit niet alleen in de kasten. Ze zit in de mensen die ze maken.
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