Part 2: Milestones to Grindstones

Before we could put a pencil to paper, PLD and Stern agreed on a set of milestones. The milestones determined the schedule of the game, since the production date of the game couldn't slip. A whole factory of workers, as well as the company, was counting on us being done with the MONOPOLY pinball game on time and on budget.

The milestones also served as a way for Stern to keep track of how we were doing, since we were 90 minutes away from the factory and it was hard to just drop by and see what we were working on. The major whitewood milestones would require us to bring the game into Stern's development labs and do a demonstration. Other milestones involved the delivery of playfield art, backglass art, the production bill of material, and production versions of the game control and display software.

We were scheduled to run after Austin Powers, and the staff at Stern gave their best guess as to when the run of Austin would be completed. (in reality, Austin was so successful that the date slipped). So, being the anal-retentive visually-oriented programmer type, I needed to actually see the deadlines so I could always see where I was in the big picture. The timeline was a running joke in the office at first, but eventually became a reference for everyone.

(Click on the image to see a larger view. It's very wide, scroll left and right to see it all.)

There's a few pinball terms on the chart here:

"B.O.M" means Bill of Materials, the itemized list of all parts used in the game. When the BOM is 'released', vendors and suppliers can begin to quote on finished goods and assemblies.
"F/X" means effects, such as lamp shows and display animations
"Cab Art" means Cabinet art, all the artwork on the cabinet and backbox sides.
"Mel Game Build" is an old Williams term referring to the first fully finished prototype game. The MEL was the Mechanical Engineering Lab.

Every Monday I would loudly declare TIME MARCHES ON! and move a yellow post-it arrow sticker one click to the right. Then I would stand back and see how much work we still had to go.

Pat describes working on a pinball as "having your head full of bees", and he's right. If you ever sit down and think about the amount of work required to produce a pinball, and think about the thousands of little details that need your attention, your head will literally melt. Pinball design is tackling each little task as quickly and efficiently as you can, while keeping your head above water and your eyes focused on the big picture.

So now it's time to sit down and think about how we're going to translate the board game into an interesting playfield.

Back to Part 1: Introduction - On to Part 3: Whitewood 1