New Pat Lawlor PP table

[frederikjurk]

Back when the first Pro Pinball Kickstarter was born, one of the announcements that excited me the most was that Pat Lawlor was going to team up with the Pro Pinball guys to make a completely new virtual table - one that could in theory even be built into a physical machine.

Pat Lawlor certainly needs no introduction on a forum like this. I personally am a big Lawlor fan (my most played table on Pinball Arcade being Whirlwind, closely followed by Twilight Zone and Ripleys Believe It Or Not), I adore his imaginative, dense and intricate tables, and his taste for picking interesting themes and fully realizing them into the playfield designs.

Here´s Lawlor talking about Addams Family. Can you see how he can barely contain his smile? He knows he has a hit on his hands.

I really loved the videos on the first Kickstarter - those were rather silly ones, with Pat and Ade very obviously having a great time together. Graphic artist John Youssi making a little drive-by appearance was a sweet moment as well. Lawlor on the playfield design, Youssi making his trademark colorful graphics, and the whole PP team realizing the table in glorious photorealism - I got really excited. And who wouldn´t want to see those virtual whiteboards?

"Pat, you´re shaking it!"

So I´m wondering what happened to the plans you guys made. I assume the goal is to first remaster the currently existing PP tables one after the other, and the original table coming after that? I´d think that the original table would be more costly than the remasters, given that there would be more people to pay, not to mention the actual design, testing etc taking more time.

I guess this is very early to ask, given that PP Remastered is just a freshly born puppy at this point, and maybe there´s some plans you don´t want to reveal yet.

But I am just too curious to not ask

Great Pinsider interview from sept 2012

One last video: Stern factory tour during the production of RBION, with the legendary Steve Ritchie making an appearance as well!

[Grandelius]

This is my first post here and I know that I now take the risk of sounding like a jerk or a whiner, and that my voice probably won't count that much in the end anyway, but:

I am a long time fan of pinball who competes regularly and got two machines in my two-room apartment. I am also a long time fan of Pro Pinball, I got The Web in 1996 and bought the other tables as soon as they got released. I am really excited to see them taken to all-new heights. But there was one sole reason I did not back the first Kickstarter: Pat Lawlor.

I am not a fan of any of his games, and the ones he have made the last 15 years has in my opinion been terrible. His creations use to be boring luck-based stop-and-go-games with more focus on gimmicks and toys than good rulesets. Pro Pinball stands for the opposite: Good flow with rich, interesting and balanced rules.

So please don't let Pat Lawlor ruin the magic of Pro Pinball, you can do the design much better on your own, Ade!

And if Pat would happen to read this for some reason, I just want to say that this is of course nothing personal. I know you have contributed a lot, both to pinball development and the pinball community. And you are probably a nice guy. I just don't like your game designs.

[frederikjurk]

Fair enough! The great thing about pinball is how much variety it allows. I personally love his designs, but definitely not to the exclusions of other playstyles, I enjoy fast flowing tables in the vein of Steve / Mark Ritchie or George Gomez as well.

I assume Ade wouldn´t have teamed up with Pat if their styles didn´t gel, and ideally both of them would work on a design together as partners. I don´t think we have to fear a game with five talking heads coming out of this collaboration

Also, keep in mind that if all of this is still planned, it would be an opportunity for Ade and Lawlor to work directly with us fans, reacting to whatever kind of feedback and criticisms each of us would have.