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...
Highlights
- Stern operates at half capacity with clear dividers between workstations, achieving full-line production output with 50% fewer staff members than pre-COVID
- 1.0 code means all planned features for release are in the game, reasonably fun, reasonably polished, and scoring is balanced; if a game never received another update, 1.0 would be acceptable
- Recent Stern releases (Turtles, Avengers, Zeppelin, Stranger Things, Monsters) have been near full code at release, representing a company directive to prioritize code completeness
- Release dates change frequently during early planning (6-9 months out) but stabilize closer to ship date; manufacturing must align 1-3 weeks before release date to have machines ready
- Game development includes multiple code handoffs to production line; Dwight's team continues development after handoff, delivering subsequent updates with significant improvements between releases
- Dwight works 10-15 hours per day during development phases, particularly when ramping up new games after completing previous titles
- Theme collaboration between programmer, designer, and mechanical engineer begins long before playfield design is complete
- High Speed fundamentally changed pinball by integrating story into physical gameplay, making it a foundational game for modern design philosophy
Notable quotes
“I make things disappear, so sure. Nobody ever calls me that, so I don't mind it at all.”
“What I've ever always been is a game developer. I'm good at creating, taking parts of ideas and pushing them together and turning them into something whole.”
“1.0 is if it never, ever got another code update, it would be okay.”
“We move mountains to try to make that happen. And sometimes we don't. Some games were less successful than others, and some games were pretty close.”
“The dates change all the time, but they're always set in stone.”
“I've decided to make myself happy most of the time. So I like games like Game of Thrones and Star Wars where there's this very, very light RPG kind of element to it.”
“So when I put a game in a box, 1.0, like Turtles or Game of Thrones or Star Wars, it's made me happy, and I think that I've tried to make as many other people happy as possible.”
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
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