INFORMATION SHEATS

Story dated 31st January, 2003.

The latest in a long line of former Williams employees has joined Stern Pinball Inc.

Lyman Sheats Jr has started work at the Melrose Park company and his first project is to design the operating system for the company's new hardware platform. He will then program the software for the first game to use the system.

Sheats is no stranger to software design. He worked at Data East in 1993 designing software on Tommy, WWF Royal Rumble, Ritchie Rich, Guns N Roses and Maverick before moving to Williams to work on Steve Ritchie's No Fear. He remained at the company and lead the software design team for the first Pinball 2000 game, Revenge From Mars, before the company closed its pinball division. He even had his own mode - Lyman's Lament - in Monster Bash.

Since the closure, he has been working for the company's Midway division as Senior Programmer, developing software for home games consoles.

But now he's back in pinball. He said: "Programming pinball games has been the most enjoyable and gratifying work I have done in my career as a software developer. It is a rare opportunity that one is able to combine their hobby with their work, and I am thrilled once again to be working on pinball."

Company owner Gary Stern is pleased to see Sheats back: "Lyman's work in pinball speaks for itself. He has an outstanding track record of programming pinball games that are both entertaining for novices and challenging for experts. The games he has programmed are some of the most entertaining and collectible pinball games of the 1990s. We are extremely happy to have him back working on pinball again."

Apart from his game work, he is also a skilled player of the game and has won many competitions including the Pinball Expo tournament last year.

 

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