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Ep 157: Stern's D&D with Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan

PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago1 hr 24 min listen
From the creator

Stern Pinball's new game, Dungeons and Dragons The Tyrant's Eye, is here and we have Brian Eddy (Game Designer) along with Dwight Sullivan (Lead Coder) to walk us through this new pinball adventure!

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Highlights

  • Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye is available now in Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition variants
  • The game uses Insider Connected to allow players to pick up where they left off across games, with character progression saved (levels, gold, accomplishments)
  • The story 'The Tyrant's Eye' was written by Zach Gross and Dwight Sullivan and is an original Stern creation, not based on an existing D&D campaign
  • The game features three flippers, with the upper flipper positioned above the gelatinous cube mechanic to allow soft feeds
  • The dragon toy on Premium/LE can move up/down and left/right via two stepper motors, spit balls from its mouth, and block shots; Pro version dragon is up/down only, non-spitting
  • Weekly dungeon layouts are generated server-side on Sundays and distributed via Insider Connected to all machines globally, using a random seed system
  • The game supports local co-op play for two human players on the same machine, with a four-person party (two human-controlled, two AI-assigned)
  • The dragon mechanic was not responsible for the delay that led X-Men to ship before D&D
  • Different character classes have distinct mechanical bonuses: Wizard (longer shield time), Dragonborn Paladin (dragon effectiveness), Rogue (more luck), Cleric (anti-undead)
  • The game contains 30+ monsters, some undead, and player class choice affects effectiveness against monster types

Notable quotes

“We just made a pinball machine like we've done a thousand times where we draw from that story and make modes and multiballs and so forth, make a regular pinball machine.”
Brian Eddy
“It's pinball and it doesn't have to make sense... the rule of cool. Because you're 100% right. In real D&D, you wouldn't battle a dragon for a long time.”
Dwight Sullivan / Brian Eddy
“For me and Dwight's side, we want every game to be fun to play, right? They may have a slightly different feel, right? But we want them all to be fun to play.”
Brian Eddy
“Everybody everywhere will play the exact same dungeon for that week. And then it changes on Sunday.”
Dwight Sullivan
“It's essentially just the thing goes out on Sunday via Insider Connected and says, hey, this is the new seed we're doing, and it presents that in the game.”
Dwight Sullivan
“I really wanted the player to be able to get into using it a lot [the upper flipper]. So to me, we have all the flow of like the lower flippers that can lead to various shots smoothly.”
Brian Eddy
“He can go all the way to the play field level and block two shots or block the three bank in front of him from you hitting it. And that happens from time to time.”
Brian Eddy
“We have lots of excuses why he might fly away or whatever but right now it's so much fun we don't care much about that.”
Dwight Sullivan / Brian Eddy

Entities

  • Flipping Out Pinball· company
  • Stern Pinball· company
  • Twippies· event
  • Attack from Mars· game
  • Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye· game
  • Lord of the Rings· game
  • Medieval Madness· game
  • Shadow· game
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles· game
  • Venom· game
  • X-Men· game
  • LoserKid Pinball Podcast· organization
  • Blake· person
  • Brian Eddy· person
  • Dwight Sullivan· person
  • Gary Stern· person
  • Gomez· person
  • Josh Roop· person
  • Keith Elwin· person
  • Scott Larson· person
  • Zach Gross· person
  • Faeron· product
  • Insider Connected· product
  • Pinside 100· product

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