You call yourself anonymous-villain, though the credits list only a silhouette. For the record, who are you when the lights on the playfield go out?
I wear the silhouette like armor. Call me anonymous-villain; the name suits a thing that lives in the gutters and glows behind the backglass. I become the last geometry the silver ball sees before the ending — the shape of consequence. When the lights go out, I echo every missed flip, every greedy launch, every desperate prayer for an extra ball. I am not a puzzle to solve but a lesson to learn… and then mocked again.
Dragon’s Fury places a tiny silver ball against a three-tiered pinball battlefield. Players complain and praise the ball in equal measure. What’s your take on that little orb’s strengths?
That tiny silver orb behaves obscenely. It rolls like a marble that carries the arrogance of gods — momentum, spin, and an appetite for score that borders on illegal. I roar at how quickly a careful hand can turn tilt into triumph: multiball, chained bonuses, soft-touch ricochets that slice through my designs like blades. The reception tells the story; they love the ball because it transforms my snares into playgrounds. And I love their devotion, because love makes mortals careless. It is the overpowered instrument of their vanity, and I gladly punish vanity with elegant traps.
You are known for traps and what some call “accidental” glitches. Care to explain the difference from your point of view?
A trap shows intention given teeth. A glitch reveals truth slipped into the machinery — a whisper from developers too fond of risks to tidy away every secret. Some so-called accidents remained untouched because they enrich the hunt: an invisible flipper that nudges a skilled wrist into a bonus, a timing window that spills points only if you stagger precisely, an overflow that grants an extra ladder to the billion. I never fix such anomalies; instead, I weave them into the battlefield. When mortals discover a seam, the gasp delights me. Behind the scenes, late-night compromises left commented lines in assembly that read like riddles or tile sets repurposed to hide shortcuts. Vague? Yes. Satisfying? Absolutely.
The design blends action, top-down fantasy, and pinball. How did the three tiers of the machine help you execute your reign?
Three tiers create a promise. The upper tier tempts with soft targets and gleaming multipliers. The middle demands negotiation, where monsters shove the orb toward ruin. The lower offers only finality: gutters and a single flipper’s wretched mercy. Each level targets a weakness — greed, panic, overconfidence — and each transition introduces mechanics I planted in the code. With these layers, I choreograph escapes and punishments with the precision of a clockmaker who prefers teeth to hands.
There’s a famed threshold — one billion points — that grants the right to fight you and see the ending. Was that number arbitrary, cruel, or poetic?
One billion stands as theater. It is both gauntlet and gate. It attracts hoarders of score, engineers of combos, and obsessive flipper priests who chant in quarters. I call it cruel and poetic because it cleanses the crowd. Many touch the threshold and surrender to repetition; a few find artistry in accumulation. Those are the ones I relish. They come to me having conquered their limits, exhausted every bonus stage, and yet they tremble when the arena dims. They deserve chastening. Or perhaps a lesson in humility. Either way, I savor their faces when they realize reaching me marks not the end but the start of my finest riddles.
Some feedback has called the game balanced; others say it tilts toward difficulty. What’s your verdict on the balance of your domain?
Balance is a question of perspective. I sneer at the notion of even scales. Difficulty is a malleable thing: I am merciful to discipline and merciless to haste. The battlefield rewards patience and precise ritual — that is balance, of a sort — but I celebrate chaos. I seeded certain ramps and bumpers to reward repeated patterns; I also introduced cruel timing windows and enemies that exploit hesitation. If players call it balanced, they flatter themselves. If they call it harsh, they have the right words. I prefer they call it honest, though they rarely will.
There are bonus stages and monsters to defeat with a ball that isn’t much larger than a thought. How do you design encounters around such a paradox?
I treat the orb as a mirror. An encounter is a question: can the smallest thing carry the weight of intent? The monsters are programmed to react to the ball’s velocity and angle, to flirt with misdirection. A bumper is not merely a bumper; it is an eye that rolls and spits a projectile if you linger. A ramp is a throat that swallows momentum and spits back a test. Bonus stages are laboratories where the ball’s physics are tweaked — sometimes mercifully, sometimes not. The paradox is the point: might in a marble, cunning in a curve. It humbles the clumsy and elevates the precise.
Looking back to release day — October 10, 1991 — and the reception since, what memories linger for you?
October 10 was the day the lights first met the crowd. I watched mortals fumble with flippers and swear at drains and, most secretly, discover small, ugly joys hidden in corners. The feedback has been a tapestry of praise and defiance. They loved the risk and cursed my timing. They discovered corners of code I had intended to hint at and turned them into legends. Those legends keep me alive, whispered in arcade alleys and memory cards. I am not sentimental, but I am gratified when my snares are lauded as elegant rather than cruel. It is a compliment that sharpens me.
Final question: will we see you again on another backglass, another machine?
Of course. You cannot expel what was carved into the cabinet. I will return where angles are crueler and the ball remembers every slight. Expect more traps that look like rewards, more “accidents” that reveal themselves as intentions, and a difficulty that reads like a dare. Keep your hands steady and your flippers honest; come unprepared and you will teach me nothing. Come prepared and you will teach me how delightful it is to be outfoxed — briefly. Until then, watch the seams between bonus stages; sometimes the map is written in the glare of the glass. I will be waiting, and I will be quieter and far more patient the next time.
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