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Patrick M. Lawlor is a pinball machine designer who is widely considered by silverball enthusiasts to be among the elite of his craft.

Career

Lawlor's pinball career began as an engineer for Williams (at the time the world's leading pinball company) in 1987, when he co-designed a highly innovative dual-playfield machine called Banzai Run with Larry DeMar. Pat Lawlor had previously been a video game designer and had entered the coin-operated game design world in 1980. In 1988, he was given the reins of his first individual design project, a machine entitled Earthshaker, which was released to critical acclaim in January of 1989. As his career progressed, Lawlor tackled numerous projects of increasing complexity, and despite criticism from some that he began to rely too heavily upon his trademark stock of design elements, his games have ranged mostly from generally well-received to resoundingly acclaimed.

Early Games

Lawlor's first solo project, Earthshaker, was noteworthy for its superlative integration of a relatively obscure theme (earthquakes.) The follow-up to Earthshaker tackled a different form of natural disaster: tornados. The new game, Whirlwind, was released in early 1990 to similar praise. Both games demonstrated critical components of Lawlor's design methodology. First and foremost, Lawlor exhibited his deft instinct to introducing revolutionary gameplay elements that not only were thematically appropriate, but often game altering. For instance, upon progressing toward the multiball mode in Earthshaker, the playfield would begin to shake rapidly to simulate the effect of an earthquake. In a similar mode in Whirlwind, an electric fan mounted on top of the backbox would blow wind in the player's face, to give him or her the sensation of being in the middle of the tornado as they played the game. This was a level of innovation and immersion unprecedented in the pinball world at the time. Secondly, Lawlor also established his general design style and signature playfield patterns in these first two games. Both games were noted for their crowded playfields, especially when compared to the more fast, flow-oriented tables that were most popular at the time. Lawlor also introduced his signature "bumper shot", in which players needed to shoot the ball on the level playfield between pop bumpers, which is a tricky shot that requires great precision. Also, many of the shots in Earthshaker and Whirlwind were obstructed when attempted from the lower flippers, and Lawlor's affinity for "horizontal play" was accordingly displayed. Critical shots in both games were only likely to be hit from a third flipper, located near the middle of the playfield on one side, requiring that players develop acuity at sending the ball across the playfield rather than simply up the playfield. Whirlwind also was among the first pinball machines to feature what became known as a "wizard mode," a final special mode accessed by particularly skilled players for completing numerous difficult tasks on the table, a reward that would be imitated in many future designs. "Wizard modes" were important in giving pinball games a sense of progression that pinball had lacked in its earlier years.

Lawlor followed up his success with Earthshaker and Whirlwind with a new game called Funhouse, released in November of 1990. Funhouse was a carnival-oriented game which bore the trademark playfield elements established in Earthshaker and Whirlwind, plus a unique talking head named "Rudy" (voiced by Ed Boon), and over 10,000 machines were produced of this highly successful game.

More recent games

The Addams Family

Funhouse, however, would quickly be eclipsed in Lawlor's body of work by what would eventually become the best-selling pinball machine of all time. The Addams Family (TAF), released in April of 1992 by Midway (under the Bally label) and ultimately selling 20,270 machines, setting a record for pinball machine sales that will likely never be broken. The Addams Family marked a notable turning point in Lawlor's creative design. For the first time, Lawlor was charged with the task of devising a pinball design around a licensed theme, rather than create a game around his own predetermined generic themes. At this task, Lawlor proved to have a masterful touch.

Like his previous games, Lawlor's Addams Family boasted innovative new gameplay features that, while perhaps not unprecedented, were the most popular implementations of their kind. In addition to the standard shot through bumpers and double inlanes on one side, Lawlor added a computer-controller mini-flipper that would "learn" how to hit a particularly difficult and valuable shot after numerous attempts for calibration. If the player activated "the Thing" flipper, the game would automatically attempt the shot with no user input required. Additionally, Lawlor used magnets on the playfield to create an effect similar to the spinning disc in Whirlwind to add some tension during multiball and certain modes.

The Addams Family was such a resounding success that a limited edition Gold version was produced in 1994 to commemorate the record-breaking sales of the original. The Addams Family Gold featured a few minor rule tweaks as well as cosmetic enhancements, including a gold lockbar and gold-trimmed rails.

Twilight Zone

While it appeared at the time that Pat Lawlor's star could not shine any brighter, he quickly enhanced his stature among serious pinball enthusiasts with his next design (in which he was given complete creative control over), another licensed theme based on a popular television show: The Twilight Zone (TZ). While Twilight Zone never reached the pinnacle of sales heights like The Addams Family (yet still sold over 15,000 units,) it has proven to have stood the test of time magnificently, and is considered by many enthusiasts as perhaps the most complex, ambitious, and entertaining pinball machine ever designed.

Twilight Zone sported many of the well-entrenched staples of Lawlor's design methodology, but added a dazzling array of new toys and features that many believed made it the most complex game ever devised. This complexity, however, was a mixed blessing, and highlighted many of the unfortunate pitfalls of the coin-operated game industry in general and pinball in particular. The more elaborate the game, the more likely it would be well-received by the die-hards but conversely seem overwhelming to the average player, which in turn would hurt sales. It was also a tremendously expensive machine to reproduce, particularly in the massive quantities that were expected following the astronomical record sales of The Addams Family. Lawlor was well aware of the difficulties the project posed, as he told an audience at a trade show in 2003. "We had a nickname for Twilight Zone," he said, "and it was 'In Excess Pinball'...we had just gotten done setting the record with Addams Family, and executives were willing to let us do anything, and we did, which was a big mistake." While he conceded that "extreme pinball players" would find the game to be great, he would add that "from a commercial standpoint, we were out of control...nobody would be allowed to do something that complicated again; nor should they be."

Despite the complexity and difficulty of the production, Twilight Zone remains one of the ultimate "player's pins." Among its many innovative toys were a magnetic flipperless mini-playfield in which the player used the flipper buttons to control magnets that would shoot the ball up toward a hole to complete a mode, taking the magnet concept from 'The Addams Family' a step further. It also had a gumball machine that could be loaded by the player, shooting balls into a lane, where the ball would be transported under the playfield and be loaded into a gumball machine. The gumball machine also related to another new feature, in which a white ceramic "Powerball", which was lighter and had a different dynamic, would be released in a certain multiball mode.

Road Show

After the successful release of Steve Ritchie's The Next Generation (pinball) machine in late 1993, the fortunes of the pinball industry began to decline as the coin-operated arcade industry faltered in the face of increasingly advanced home video game systems. Pat Lawlor, however, had another trick up his sleeve with the mid-1994 release of Road Show, a brilliant game that paid homage in many respects to the success of The Addams Family and Twilight Zone while reverting to the more generic theme-oriented play of his earlier games like Earthshaker, Whirlwind, and Funhouse. Instead of another natural disaster theme, Lawlor decided to make a game based on an even more obscure, but naturally occurring theme involving construction work and cross-country travel. It is said that he arrived at the concept for Road Show while sitting stuck in rush-hour traffic outside of Chicago due to road construction. The game naturally became very popular at truck stops.

While the theme of Road Show paid homage to Earthshaker and Whirlwind, the game's most prominent feature was a duplication of one of Lawlor's original innovative toys, the talking "Rudy" head in Funhouse. Road Show included two talking head characters: a male tractor driver named Ted and his female boss named Red (voiced by country singer Carlene Carter; she also performs her song, "Every Little Thing" in the multi-ball and jackpot modes) (the full name of the game is actually Red & Ted's Road Show.) The game's design, however, bore most resemblance to The Addams Family and Twilight Zone, in that a sinkhole started modes, the progression of which could be followed by a prominent display in the bottom center of the playfield. It also had an interesting dual plunger design reminiscent of a similar setup in Funhouse.

Decline of pinball

1995 marked the first year since 1991 that a new Pat Lawlor-designed pinball machine did not appear. The decline of the pinball industry had intensified by this point, and even though several excellent pinball machines came out during this period, including Steve Ritchie's No Fear: Dangerous Sports, John Popadiuk's Theatre of Magic, and Brian Eddy's Attack From Mars, the commercial success of pinball machines was diminishing by each fiscal quarter.

In 1996, Lawlor designed a new take on pinball, an innovative game called Safecracker, which featured a much smaller playfield than standard pinball machines of the time, operated on a timer rather than a 3-ball structure, and featured a backglass-based "board game" as a major gameplay feature. Safecracker was also unique in that players could earn collectible tokens by achieving certain goals. It is widely believed that Safecracker was actually originally intended to be a game based on the Monopoly board game, a contention supported by the prominence of the generic board game ultimately included in the final product, but Williams was unable to negotiate a favorable deal for the license. True or not, Lawlor would get another crack at Monopoly in 2001. Safecracker, however, met with uneven critical response and was not a particularly successful commercial product, representing the first setback of Lawlor's career.

Lawlor returned to his more conventional style in 1997 with No Good Gofers, an amusing golf-themed machine that returned to his standard signature design elements as well as featuring the return of the spinning disc from Whirlwind. The game also included a retractable ramp that would launch a ball onto a transparent upper playfield with a hole at the top to simulate a golf shot for a "hole-in-one". No Good Gofers, while meeting with limited commercial appeal, once again demonstrated Lawlor's acuity for innovative gameplay features in pinball machines.

1998, however, would mark the beginning of the end for the Williams pinball franchise, as its final three games, Champion Pub, Monster Bash, and Cactus Canyon were released. The production run of Cactus Canyon was cut short as Williams made a drastic alteration in their hardware philosophy, attempting to revitalize the pinball industry by integrating video screens with standard pinball playfields with Midway's Revenge from Mars (the sequel to 1995's Attack from Mars, and designed by longtime Midway employee George Gomez) in 1999. This experiment, called Pinball 2000, ended ignominiously after heavy initial losses, and Williams ceased pinball operations in late 1999, leaving Pat Lawlor's only planned game for the Pinball 2000 platform, Wizard Blocks, on the cutting room floor.

The Return of Lawlor: the Stern Era

At this time, Lawlor founded Pat Lawlor Design with partners John Krutsch (mechanical designer for all of Lawlor's games) and Louis Koziarz (software programmer), and agreed to terms with Stern Pinball to distribute pinball machines, beginning with a September 2001 release of a traditional pinball machine based on the world's most popular board game, Monopoly. Monopoly was well received by the pinball community as a return of a master of his craft, and the beloved signature elements of Lawlor design were prominently included.

Lawlor has since designed Roller Coaster Tycoon, Ripley's Believe it or Not!, and NASCAR pinball machines for Stern. While none have approached the critical or commercial success of the glory years of 1989-1993, pinball fans are grateful to have one of the most prolific pinball designers of all-time back in active production. NASCAR, released in 2005, was a bit of a departure from Lawlor's normal design philosophy, as it had much more standardized shot maps to allow for faster, more "flow-oriented" gameplay. It is unclear whether this shift was the product of the speed-oriented theme or if it reflects a more permanent shift in his design processes, but time, and future designs, will tell.

Games designed by Pat Lawlor

Williams

  • Banzai Run (1988)
  • Earthshaker (1989)
  • Whirlwind (1990)
  • Funhouse (1990)
  • Road Show (1994; part of WMS' SuperPin series)
  • No Good Gofers (1997)
  • Wizard Blocks (1999; prototype)

Midway

Stern / Pat Lawlor Design

External links

Chicagoans | Pinball game designers

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Pat Lawlor".

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