Episode 306: The Dwight Sullivan process
Congrats to Dwight and the Stern Pinball team on their newest machine, The Mandalorian. I always enjoy talking with Dwight, so a few weeks ago, we chatted about his thought process on code and as a game developer.
Kineticist’s take
Dwight Sullivan explains Stern's modern game development process, code completion standards, and multi-audience design philosophy.
Synopsis
Dwight Sullivan, lead programmer at Stern Pinball, discusses his design philosophy, development process, and approach to game code completion. He explains how modern pinball game development balances theme integration, playfield mechanics, and multiple player audiences (collectors, arcade operators, tournament competitors). Sullivan defines 1.0 code as feature-complete with all planned content reasonably polished, distinguishing this from the actual version number used internally.
Entities
- Nickelodeon· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- Batman 66· game
- Black Knight· game
- Game of Thrones· game
- High Speed· game
- Monsters Unleashed· game
- Star Wars· game
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles· game
- Pinball Profile· organization
- Brian Eddy· person
- Dwight Sullivan· person
- Elliot· person
- George Gomez· person
- Jeff Teolis· person
- John Borg· person
- Josh Sharp· person
- Keith Elwin· person
- Larry DeMar· person
- Lyman Sheets· person
- Raymond Davidson· person
- Steve Ritchie· person
- Tim Sexton· person
- Zach Sharp· person