Skip to content
LoserKid Pinball Podcast
LoserKid Pinball Podcast
200 episodes tracked since 2019 about →
Copied!

Ep 108: This is a Call with Raymond Davidson

PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago1 hr 13 min listen
From the creator

Raymond Davidson joins us to talk about Foo Fighters and the journey so far at Stern.

Listen on LoserKid Pinball Podcast

Highlights

  • Raymond Davidson won the North American Pinball Championships (Nationals) at District 82 in De Pere, Wisconsin, defeating Escher in the finals, and chose Foo Fighters Pro as his prize.
  • Foo Fighters code was designed by rolling directly off Rush, with an outlined framework of modes and multiball already laid out by Jack Danger before Raymond filled in implementation details.
  • The Van shot mechanic in Foo Fighters was inspired by the MAP shot structure from Jurassic Park, adapted to spell 'VAN' instead.
  • Area 51 multiball on Premium involves the upper playfield with targets and ramps, while on Pro it activates after hitting the ramp enough times without the upper playfield interaction.
  • Raymond Davidson had never listened to Foo Fighters before working on the game and was only familiar with 'Learn to Fly'.
  • On Rush, Raymond 'went wild' with multiplier stacking, resulting in scores reaching hundreds of billions, prompting balance adjustments in a later update to make scoring meaningful again.
  • Brian Eddy, currently at Stern Pinball, designed the software/rules for Black Flag Pinball (1992).
  • In-lane targets on Foo Fighters were originally sourced as an idea from Heavy Metal Meltdown, according to Jack Danger.

Notable quotes

“It's really hard. Like, when I'm playing and I think of an idea, I'm like, why didn't they just do this? But when you actually make the rule, you have to think of every implication and execution of that rule and how it interacts with the other rules.”
Raymond Davidson
“You never want the thing you should do to be the thing you don't want to do, right? If those two are in opposition with each other, your game's not going to have as much legs to stand on.”
Raymond Davidson
“I like to have clear benefits and uniqueness to having the Premium, but not have things that are totally different or you feel like you're missing half the game with a Pro.”
Raymond Davidson
“I'm always looking to avoid any sort of exploits that would be boring. Like, you never want to just shoot a shot and then trap up and wait for the timer to go down.”
Raymond Davidson
“Everyone's been loving the heck out of it. And it's cool to be part of something everyone's so excited about.”
Raymond Davidson
“So we actually made it kind of synchronized with the video. So when you get captured and the tractor beam comes on, especially on the LE with the expression lights, it really looks like a tractor beam.”
Raymond Davidson

Entities

  • Flip N Out Pinball· company
  • Stern Pinball· company
  • IFPA World Championship· event
  • North American Pinball Championships· event
  • Black Flag Pinball· game
  • Foo Fighters· game
  • Jurassic Park· game
  • Led Zeppelin· game
  • Metallica Remastered· game
  • Rush· game
  • LoserKid Pinball Podcast· organization
  • Brian Eddy· person
  • Dennis Kriesel· person
  • Escher· person
  • Jack Danger· person
  • Josh Roop· person
  • Nicole Mini· person
  • Raymond Davidson· person
  • Scott Larson· person
  • Tanya· person
  • Zach Sharpe· person
  • District 82· venue
  • Winchester Mystery House· venue

More from LoserKid Pinball Podcast

→ All content from LoserKid Pinball Podcast
Contact us about this coverage