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Episode 46 - Die on this Hill: Rocky & Bullwinkle
PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago57 min listen
Highlights
- Rocky and Bullwinkle was designed by Tim Seckel and released in 1993 by Data East
- Joe Balser was the lead mechanical engineer for Rocky and Bullwinkle but was not credited, per a Pin Game Journal article
- Artist Kevin O'Connor received no style guide or assets when signing the IP, only VHS tapes of the first two seasons, and designed playfield features from memory
- Rocky and Bullwinkle stands out among Data East games for having vibrant colored ball trails and art quality, rather than predominantly chrome finishes
- The game features thick stand-up targets (3D narrow oblong) that no longer exist and require disassembly to the switch level for replacement
- The game has a ball save that requires three switch hits (not a timer), activated by rolling through the pops after launch
- Rocky and Bullwinkle was the first (or among the first) game to recognize and reward death saves with an animation
- Ty's game comes in a blue cabinet (American release); a black cabinet variant exists for Canadian and European export
Notable quotes
“if the game doesn't make you go woohoo with like every single shot it's fucking up and i would say that rocky mwinkle over anything else has big woohoo factor”
“by the by the end of its time at like any of my locations it's the most divisive game out of my entire lineup people just fucking hate it”
“I went on a search to figure out like who still owned the tooling for that target to figure out like why it different”
“he literally really just got vhs tapes of the first two seasons of rocky and and just watched them like obsessively designed a lot of the playfield features just off of like memory of watching the show on vhs tapes”
“it's usually because those targets are stuck and they will activate and vibrate even with just like flipper hits”
“the safe way to do this is just to combo ramps to light your multiball and then go into it. But that means you have to combo, like, fucking, you know, 30 ramps in a row to light it. You're like, yeah, I guess it's safe. If you're that good, no game's going to be fun.”
Entities
- Data East· company
- Rocky and Bullwinkle (The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends)· game
- Pinside Top 100· organization
- Pops· organization
- Wedgehead· organization
- Alan· person
- Alex the Waterboy· person
- Christina D'Onofrio· person
- Joe Balser· person
- John Carpenter· person
- Keith Johnson· person
- Kevin O'Connor· person
- Lonnie Ropp· person
- Tim Seckel· person
- Ty· person
- Rocky and Bullwinkle (cartoon)· product
