The pinball bug hits hard.

It’s hard to explain to anyone who isn’t in the hobby, but once you get started on collecting these spatially impractical electromechanical money pits, it’s hard to curb your desire to get your hands on any & every game possible. Naturally, when I was approached on my favorite pinball site with the idea of a custom machine – something that had always been somewhat of a wishful fantasy I wasn’t sure how to fulfill – my reaction was predictably spirited. 

Spirited and honest

After some back & forth, I decided that a custom pinball machine was something I had to have (duh) and set out on a game theme with the man behind the message, Brian Soares. You can read more about Brian & visit his website HERE. There may have been times I drove him absolutely nuts with my extremely particular visions (sorry bro), but I do believe we have made an absolute masterpiece, thanks to his patience, talent & ingenuity… and my dedication to my vision & attention to every detail. I think we made a good team ! Let’s get right into the process.

The theme of the game was to be based around my husband, professional wrestler, Matt Hardy. I wanted something that could chronicle his career & include sentimental personal touches and I wanted it to be a surprise gift. No pressure, right ?

The donor machine: Stern’s MUSTANG

The first order of business was to choose a donor machine; an existing pinball title that could be completely stripped, refinished, reprogrammed & converted into a custom Matt Hardy game. After much debate over a classic machine vs a newer model, we landed on Stern Pinball’s MUSTANG. The biggest determining factor in this for me was the DMD display, a variety of game modes & the existence of ramps. The next big task: find an artist to bring the vision to life !

Matt Hardy, by Willie J. Smith II

Ideally, I wanted to find an artist who was familiar with my husband’s wrestling character, or, at the very least, a pro wrestling fan; having to explain every bit of terminology & details like ring gear, mannerisms, etc., to someone who has never watched wrestling would have made the project that much harder & take that much longer. Finding an artist was probably one of the most stressful parts of the initial planning process & there were times that I felt I was never going to find a good fit !  I was in search of someone who could not only deliver a traditional pinball style; a mixture of hand drawn art with a level of realism that would accurately portray the subject of the game, but someone who would be available for multiple time sensitive commissions over the period of a few months. Impossible, right ? I thought so too, until I came across the work of Willie J. Smith II. You can read more about Willie HERE.

Sketches of artwork in progress

 

With an ideal artist & donor machine acquired, it was time to formulate an actual game objective, which had to make sense with the current layout of the donor game. Things that had to be taken into consideration were game modes (and what to name them), multiball “rewards” & accompanying DMD graphics; all while staying within the available parameters of the software memory, an issue that we ran into a few times. Since this is more the game engineer’s forte, I’ll let him explain that part, as well as the rest of his experience building the game. 

Blank rule card. Making them up as we go !

It wasn’t enough to design a pretty game with a dedicated theme; the flow of the game, rules & objectives had to make sense as well, otherwise, you’d just be pointlessly flailing a ball around. It might seem like a limitation, but given the near blank slate of a custom game like this, it was helpful to have some sort of guidelines in place (the layout of the original donor game) to help move things along. This determined a lot of the artwork that was commissioned & ultimately, the direction of the game.

The option to drive different cars became the option to choose which title to go after

 

I wanted to include details he would be proud of & appreciate seeing in our home on a daily basis and procuring this information became a challenge in itself. As the game was to be a surprise for my husband, I constantly had to find new & inconspicuous ways to ask about things like which of the titles he’d won were most important to him, who his favorite opponents were, etc. It became increasingly difficult to sneak away for phone calls about the game & he began to wonder why I was suddenly so interested in the minute details of his career. I had even managed to sneak his brother, Jeff over for a secret voice recording session while he was away one afternoon.  After a few months, however, I had run out of excuses for always stepping outside when my phone rang & had to fess up to my secret pinball affair.

With Matt Hardy himself now in the loop, the stress of keeping things a secret was lifted & I was able to get his input on things like his favorite ring gear, his all-time favorite fan signs, what he thought were his best Matt Facts & more; the game became that much more personalized. Although I sometimes wish I had held onto the secret ’til the end, the information I was able to get from him to help with the design of the game was invaluable and his reaction when I spilled the beans about his surprise gift was still pretty epic !

Matt’s favorite fan sign interpreted by the game’s illustrator

 

Designing the playfield was a lot of trial & error. There were countless drafts & changes made before we confirmed the final placement of the artwork. At this point it was decided that the concept of the game was to chronicle Matt Hardy’s career & all of the different characters & personalities he has portrayed throughout the years through a quest to win championships; complete each of the championship title quests (modes) to become WOKEN & get to Wrestlemania (multiball/wizard mode), the most difficult & exciting game mode of them all !

One of the earliest playfield drafts

The one idea that absolutely had to be included in the game was a representation of Matt’s Wrestlemania 33 comeback, which was an emotional moment for our entire family. I had the idea of incorporating an illustration of the iconic Wrestlemania 33 ramp into the design of one of the actual ramps on the playfield & couldn’t be happier with how it ended up turning out. In order to include this design element – and even more of Matt’s career – on the playfield, a few of the original lights & inserts of the donor machine had to be sacrified, although I feel like this modification helps to give this game its own identity. You can watch a little about the aforementioned Wrestlemania 33 moment below & watch even more of that day HERE.

 

 

Original illustration of the Wrestlemania 33 left ramp element

In another ramp related customization, I wanted a head of sorts somewhere on the game a la Gene Simmons’ in Stern’s KISS pinball machine. Given that the position of the ramps didn’t allow for as much of a 3D giant head as I had originally pictured, I needed to find an alternative. I was hoping for a carnival-style open mouthed head in which a ramp could go through. The idea sounded familiar…but where had I seen something like that before….

Oh, right.

James Long, one of the producers of the original BROKEN Matt Hardy segments, had designed a stage set (pictured above) featuring an entrance ramp to/from Matt’s mouth. This ramp entrance was used for Impact television tapings & for a network special called Total Nonstop Deletion, which was filmed at our home. Given the personal connection to the imagery, I thought it perfect to include in the game & set out to contact the artist; luckily, he was all for it ! You can read more about James HERE.

James’ entrance ramp artwork, 1:48 scale

Secure in my decision of a game concept, I was finally able to work on making the game’s other main components come together; the cabinet & the translite. I began compiling my favorite photos of Matt throughout the years with the intention of having our illustrator draw them in a similar style to the playfield, but found myself drawn to examples of other pinball translites that included digital photography. Ultimately, the idea for the translite became a mural-style collage of Matt in his “different forms”. I tried designing it around one of my favorite photos of my husband; “Octochamp”, a dramatic portrait that included the majority of championship titles he had won to date. The only problem was that he had actually won a few very important titles since the photo was taken several years prior ! I told Matt to gather up his titles & meet me at Crunchy Glamour Studios.

“Octochamp”, Reby Hardy / Crunchy Glamour 2016

 

Behind the scenes of the photoshoot for the game’s translite

 

80lbs of championships held for minutes at a time on outstretched arms, over & over. He was thrilled

 

The finished product (*)

 

I was drawn to the layout of the artwork on Stern’s Ghost Busters. Can you spot the similarities ?

 

While working on the artwork for the translite, inspiration finally struck me for something I was lacking: a name for the game ! Given the game’s objective (winning titles) & the new championship-heavy translite, I decided on “MATT HARDY’S Expedition of Gold” as the game title. Everything was finally all coming together ! This was the end of the design process for the translite, (*) or so I thought. More about that later, though…

Pinball innards

 

* a n x i e t y *  I had no contribution to this part & for good reason

 

Dedicated power supply for all the extra mods

 

Stripped bare of its former identity, the donor machine is ready for its glowup

 

Left: 1st printing of the playfield. Right: iPhone notations for future edits

 

Blacklight reactive fluorescent plastics add color with the lights on & magic with them off

 

Laser cut mirrored speaker overlays

 

What makes this game extra special is the attention to the minute details. Colored bumper rubbers, posts & anodized nuts play into the vibrant colors of the game & add an extra bit of customization that really makes the playfield pop. The original plastics on the game were clear, but given the environment in which this game will reside – a blacklight home arcade – I wanted something that would make this game literally radiate. Fluorescent yellow plastics & ramps add another dimension of light & glow to the playfield & match the vibe of the space pretty well.

 

Testing out the plastics under blacklight

 

“Easter egg”: Our babies’ little faces hidden behind the HARDY targets

 

Designing, formatting & redesigning took so much time & focus that I can’t even imagine what the programming end of it must have looked like, although I did get a glimpse into the insane amount of work that went into this machine from this video sent to me by the game’s engineer.

A glimpse into the unbelievable amount of work that went into reprogramming

 

The last 2 big design projects left to complete were the cabinet art/modifications & the custom LED apron. I came across the art of Antoni Bliz on instagram & immediately knew I wanted to incorporate his work into the game somehow. His already existing artwork of my husband was the perfect addition to the cabinet, so I made only a few modifications/additions to fit it in with the rest of the game’s aesthetic. You can check out a bit of his process below.

Artwork by Antoni Bliz

 

 

Cabinet art renders

 

Artwork breathes a new life into the cabinet

 

Music was the last piece of the programming puzzle. In addition to all of Matt’s entrance theme songs, I wanted to include an original song in the game. Being that the vast majority of Matt’s entrance themes are rock songs, I sought out a musician who could produce a rap track exclusively for this project. As fate would have it, I found Jarvis Waterfall, who amazingly performed & produced a song in just a few hours ! You can read more about Jarvis HERE & listen to the song below !

With the technical, programming & artistic customizations in their final places, the last detail to settle was the game’s topper. Most creative ideas manifested pretty swiftly throughout the entire project, but this particular aspect of the game was a tough one. I bounced from idea to idea for weeks, but nothing seemed to click. My mind went from the obvious – a custom acrylic topper – to things like dismembered action figures on spinning bases.

Prototype for a spinning topper idea

 

In my search attempts for spinning base examples (there were none), I stumbled upon spinning fans; the type typically used for flashy advertisements. These fans project a hologram-type image that can play video, still photos or faux-3D images that appear to float in midair. I immediately tried envisioning how I could adapt this hologram voodoo into a pinball topper
…But what to project ?

A few of the first fan tests

 

With the topper finalized, the big day was finally upon us: pickup/delivery !

All packed up & ready to make the journey from Massachusetts to North Carolina

 

As the game was en route, something pretty unbelievable happened. As you now know, the entire point of the game is to chronicle Matt’s career & the major championship titles he has won throughout it. I prided myself in including his most memorable title reigns/wrestling personas in the game & was content in my thorough consideration of all championship victories. I got ’em all in there, right ? What could have possibly happened to derail the inclusion of every major title in the game ?

 

This. This happened.

 

Oh yes. The week after the game was finalized & shipped, Matt & his brother, Jeff – The Hardy Boyz – began their 8th WWE tag team championship title reign after winning the WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship Titles for the first time. 

*le sigh*

In an attempt to include this new momentous championship victory post game completion, I decided to alter the translite artwork. Lucky for me, the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships & the WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championships are nearly identical, the only exception being the color of the leather. Fate may have come into play a bit here as well, as the Raw Tag Team Championship was actually represented twice in the original translite – around Matt’s waist in the main photo & in the portrait of him & his brother – and the blue edit replaced one of these.

Translite: Before & After

 

And now…there was nothing left to do but wait.

7 days & 800 miles later

 

CLICK BELOW TO SEE MATT HARDY’S REACTION VIDEO !