DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL REVEALED

Multimorphic have today reveal not just one, but two new titles, with the first being Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Both Dungeon Crawler Carl and the second title, Ender’s Game, use the same playfield layout and gameplay mechanisms, but are independently themed with their own design teams creating bespoke artwork, rulesets, voice, sound and music packages, display graphics, and lighting effects. Check out our in-depth Ender’s Game article for full details of that title.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is a sci-fi series written by American author Matt Dinniman which began as a self-published short story but has since expanded to eight full-length books. It got picked up by publisher Ace Books in 2024, with the eight book series selling more than ten million copies. There are a further two books planned to wrap-up the story, as well as a TV series, card and tabletop games, audiobooks and graphic novels.

The story begins with the instantaneous flattening of all structures on Earth (the collection) by an alien resource mining company, killing the vast majority of life on the planet, but leaving a few million survivors who could choose to either scratch out a living on the now desolate surface or enter an eighteen-level AI-generated underground dungeon where, as crawlers, they would compete in an intergalactic reality show in an attempt to escape to the next level before the current one collapses, and ultimately reach the elusive exit on level eighteen.

Along the way they form alliances with other crawlers or non-player characters, collect various spells and power-ups, and battle assorted mobs and enemies, all the while boosting their popularity with the audience to ensure they remain in the show.

Carl happened to be outside when the collection happened, along with his ex-partner’s cat, Princess Donut. Together they entered the dungeon, with Princess Donut immediately devouring an enchanted pet biscuit which grants her magical power, human-like thought processes, and the ability to speak.

The series introduces readers to a large cast of characters, including Princess Donut’s pet velociraptor, Mongo, Psamathe (a.k.a. Samantha), along with Carl and Donut’s manager and dungeon guide, Mordecai. These, and many more, are represented in the pinball with sculpts of Carl, Donut, Mongo and Samantha.

The game covers the storyline as it develops across the first seven books. Books one to six form the player-selectable modes while book seven is used as the basis for the wizard mode.

As with previous Multimorphic P³ titles with their own playfield module, Dungeon Crawler Carl is available as a kit for existing P³s or as a fully-branded P³ machine. When purchasing the kit, magnetic artwork is available for the cabinet, backbox, bottom apron and speaker panel.

The full Dungeon Crawler Carl P³ machine costs $12,350 while the game kit for existing P³ owners costs $5,250.

Here’s now the machine looks with Dungeon Crawler Carl artwork installed.

The cabinet and backbox art is by Luciano Fleitas, an artist recommended to Multimorphic by the author Matt Dinniman. Among his many other projects, Luciano had previously created the cover art for Dungeon Crawler Carl books.

Playfield art comes from Brad Albright who created the designs for Portal as well as for Winchester Mystery House. He also designed the art package for the Ender’s Game machine.

So, let’s take a look at that playfield.

The game design adds a couple of new features to the lower part of the playfield, both aimed at bringing physical ball interaction closer to the flippers.

It had been an oft-cited critique of P³ game designs that most of the targets, lanes, locks, ramps and other physical mechanisms have been packed into the playfield module behind the row of walls and scoops with fewer assemblies found lower down towards the flippers. Portal‘s extended option addressed this by introducing a ramp, kickback, diverter, and a player-controlled wall plate and inlane feeds, amongst other features.

For Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender’s Game, the design teams have incorporated a large clear rotating disk which is mounted over the screen part of the playfield. The stepper motor-controlled disk contains a range of features including full RGB lighting using more than 180 LEDs, ball guides above and below the disk, a curved, illuminated standup target bank, a single illuminated standup, and a cannon which can be loaded and fired at playfield-level shots – one of the two cannons featured in the game.

The disk is held in place by grooved bearings while an overhead arm carries the wiring for the motor, LEDs, switches and the cannon solenoid. Electrical connections are made through the motor’s hub using slip rings, allowing the disk to rotate to any angle in either direction without having to rotate back to untwist the cabling.

Less obvious perhaps, but also adding to the lower playfield features, both inlanes now incorporate blockers which can be used to lock and release balls. Instead of needing switches, the locked balls are detected by the infra-red grid which criss-crosses the display.

Before we look at all those though, let’s examine the upper playfield module.

There are four character sculpts – Carl, Samantha, Donut and Mongo, along with a giant sculpt for the dungeon. All the sculpts in the game are produced by Davey Price of Stumblor Pinball Mods.

Starting at the bottom left, there is a left orbit lane which goes all the way around the back and exits into the right orbit lane.

Next to that are two illuminated standup targets which sit below the end of a ramp with a magnet. This magnet can grab the ball when certain features, such as the boss battles, begin. It then uses the magnet to fling the ball off the ramp’s end towards the upper right flipper. When not grabbing the ball, the magnet can also help accelerate it to give a cleaner feed towards the upper flipper.

The left ramp feeds onto a wireform which runs down the right side of the playfield, onto the clear plastic ball guide and into the right inlane.

The centre ramp is a 180 degree turn (a.k.a. reverse-o-matic) which turns into a wireform. This points down the centre and sends the ball over the top surface of the disk and, usually, down to the left inlane.

In the very centre is a Safe Room scoop with an upkicker which is protected by a drop target and flanked by standup targets.

The ball is ejected from this upkicker into one of two ball stackers on the left and right.

These ball stackers can each hold up to six balls with each side used differently. The left side stacker is used as a visual indicator of the player’s MANA level – the amount magical energy and intelligence they currently possess – while the right side one is used to quickly kick balls out towards the left flipper with quite some force.

The centre right lane is a shallow ramp with a diverter which can either feed the ball towards the magnet next to Donut or can send it into the right orbit lane and onto the upper right flipper.

Next to that is the right lane which U-turns into the right orbit lane.

The Mongo Cage is next, which starts closed with a bank of three illuminated standup targets on the front edge which, when completed, cause the cover to lift up, exposing the Mongo Cage.

This area consists of six round standup targets with a central player-controlled disruptor magnet, allowing the ball to be flung around to complete all six targets.

With a ball inside, the Mongo Cage can also act as a captive ball, or it can become a ball lock when building towards multiball.

Finally, the right orbit lane exits onto a short wireform which joins the centre ramp’s wireform and feeds onto the top surface of the disk. The ball can then, depending on the position of the disk, be diverted to the inlanes or be sent to the disk’s cannon to be fired either automatically or by the player at their selected shot.

The regular row of six illuminated wall targets and pop-up scoops runs across the playfield, below which we have the disk mechanism.

The disk has to be installed together with the playfield module and requires the removal of the left side target bank.

As with all P³ playfield mechanisms suspended over the display, the modular target bank is mounted on the side slide rails, so removing it and replacing it with the disk is a fairly quick and simple process.

The right side target bank is unaffected and remains in place.

There is a clear acrylic ball guide over the top of the disk which directs balls from the centre wireform to either inlane or into the cannon.

One side of the disk features a curved bank of seven illuminated standup targets.

This bank of targets can be turned to face the player to give some short-range shots. When not facing the player, the rear of the target bank becomes a movable ball guide, directing the ball towards required shots on the upper playfield module. The disk also turns at times to move the target bank out of the way so you can see the animations on the playfield screen more clearly.

Also on the disk is the cannon. This is loaded from the central wireform, with the disk turning so that the acrylic top ball guide sends the ball into the cannon mechanism.

With a ball loaded in the cannon, the disk sweeps left and right, either making one of the lit shots automatically or sometimes allowing the player to fire the ball at their chosen shot themselves.

The list of battles and your progress through the game is shown on the playfield display just above the flippers.

The activation armatures for the floating slingshots are standard parts of the P³ machine, but they have been modified for Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender’s Game to have a small post added.

When the slingshot is activated, the armature pulls in towards the bottom apron. The post mounted in the rod can then be used to stop and hold the ball in the inlane while mode introductions take place or to help set up shots. The power to the coil can be reduced to hold it in the activated position until it is time to release the ball.

These new slingshot activation arms can be retrofitted to existing P³ machines without impacting gameplay.

To find out more about Dungeon Crawler Carl and the co-release with Ender’s Game, Pinball News spoke to Multimorphic head, Gerry Stellenberg.

We started by asking about that simultaneous release of two different titles. While the idea of releasing new games for existing P³ playfield modules is a well-established practice, launching two games created from the same basic design is a first for Multimorphic. How, we asked, did this idea develop?

Gerry told us, “We originally planned for two separate designs for these games, but when we got into the details, we realized we were discussing similar physical feature concepts for both. Once we proposed the idea for a dual release on the same design, we had immediate buy-in from both teams. It made perfect sense.”

Developing two games in parallel might appear to stretch the design teams, but Gerry explained how they typically have separate teams working on the current and the next releases.

He said, “While a few of us have worked on almost all of our games, the bulk of a game development team usually works on every other game, as the development cycles of multiple games overlap. That’s still the case here, but the teams are basically running in lockstep.“

One member of the team who worked on both titles is artist Brad Albright. For Dungeon Crawler Carl he created the playfield graphic design with Luciano Fleitas designing the cabinet artwork. We asked Gerry whether it was a licensing requirement to use an authorised artist or approved assets.

He told us there were no restrictions, but working with an established Dungeon Crawler Carl (DCC) artist made a lot of sense. “The DCC licensor didn’t insist on any particular style or artist. Matt Dinniman actually sent us referrals to two artists with very different styles, but he didn’t insist we use either one. We thought Luciano Fleitas’s style, which he used on the DCC book covers, fit our vision for the game perfectly. So, we had him do the cabinet artwork. Brad was already familiar with decorating the playfield features from his work on Ender’s Game, and his ability to adapt his style to match the needs of the game made him a great fit for the under-glass elements of DCC. So, that’s where you’ll find his artwork.“

Each new title typically has what has been called a ‘Lead Game Designer’ – a team member who is already an uber-fan and is thoroughly familiar with the title, ensuring every game element remains true to the theme. We asked who that was for Dungeon Crawler Carl and how, with so much source material, they decided which characters to include in the game.

Gerry said that they don’t use terms such as Lead Game Designer as the final game is the result of the whole team’s contributions. He told us, “The entire team absolutely loves the series, but Wesley (Johnson), Ian (Harrower), and Stephen (Silver) have each read the full series many times. Our design meetings are notorious for having long discussions about the smallest details and making sure we do the theme justice and get the details correct.“

And for the choice of characters? “The same way… endless discussions and debates! For the artwork, we developed a prioritized list of characters and had Luciano work down that list. We also picked out the Rage Elemental scene from book 1 and Faction Wars from book 7 for the cabinet sides.“

Basing a game on a book series means you don’t have access to any video or audio assets you might get included with a movie, music or video game licence. There was some help though thanks to the collaborative approach taken by other Dungeon Crawler Carl licensees who were able to share some of their work for use in the pinball.

Gerry explained. “Matt has fostered great relationships between licensees of DCC and encourages them to share assets with each other. That was a lifesaver, as Renegade Game Studios gave us access to the images they had created for their tabletop RPGs. Brad drew the base playfield artwork for each book, and we use elements from many of Renegade’s images during gameplay. Another example is Playmates Toys, who helped us develop concepts for the sculpts. While Davey (Price) modelled almost everything from scratch, we were given permission to share some of Playmates Toys’ designs for reference.“

Another potential source of video and audio assets could have been the recently-announced Dungeon Crawler Carl TV series being created by Seth McFarlane’s Fuzzy Door production company. We asked Gerry if he was tempted to wait for that and try to use material from that series in the game.

He said the timing didn’t work, plus it wasn’t the take on the story the team wanted. He said, “The TV series was a possibility when we were designing the game, but it wasn’t official yet. Even then, we really wanted to lean heavily on the audio book readings by Jeff Hays, who delivered amazing performances for almost all of the characters throughout the series. We also have a whole script’s worth of custom callouts from Jeff for many of the characters. So, players will hear the characters saying a lot of new lines.“

On the subject of callouts, the content in the book series is certainly adult-level. So, we asked, is it possible to create a more family-friendly version of the game. Gerry told us that, while he didn’t think the content could ever be considered ‘family-friendly’, there is an option in the game to bleep the more adult speech.

Along with the new upper playfield module, one of the biggest new additions is the disk which sits over the video screen part of the playfield. There are multiple playfield features built into the mechanism, so we asked Gerry how they got them to work on a rotating platform.

He explained, “It’s an amazing mech with top and bottom-side diverting ball paths, 10 switches, 183 RGB LEDs, and a cannon! Obviously we can’t connect individual wires to the disk for each feature, so we do some data serialization and connect the endpoints through a slipring, which ensures electrical circuits stay connected through a rotating device.“

While undoubtably impressive, the disk is another game-specific mechanism which needs installing along with the playfield module, just like the Portal Extended kit. Does this, we asked, mean the concept of easily swappable P³ playfield modules is being sidelined in the push to provide enhanced gameplay features?

Gerry told us, “Not at all. The playfield module, flippers, and side targets were designed to be easily replaceable. Portal Extended added an additional module that mounts over the lower playfield (4 screws and a couple of connectors) and adds only a minute or less to the swapping process. The extension module for Ender’s Game and Dungeon Crawler Carl mount the same way, but now the left side target module needs to be removed first, but it’s just 2 screws and two connectors.“

Another new lower-playfield feature is the ability to lock balls in both the inlanes. These even have their own name. “We call them SlingLocks (or StevieStops for Stephen Silver fans), and yes, they’re fully backwards compatible with existing P³ flipper assemblies. We simply add a small mechanical device to each slingshot armature and then activate the slingshot coil to lock a ball on either side. Then we use the matrix of infrared light beams to determine if and when a ball is locked. Presto – two new inlane ball locks that any P³ game can use.“

Multimorphic have released a promo video for Dungeon Crawler Carl which you can watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95SKuPLagXo

Here’s the full list of game credits for Multimorphic’s new Dungeon Crawler Carl:

Creative Director: Stephen Silver and Ian Harrower Rules: Wesley Johnson Mechanicals: TJ Weaver and Trey Jones Voices: Jeff Hays Music and Sound Design: Matt Kern Software: Ian Harrower, Josh Kugler, and Michael Ocean Cabinet Artist: Luciano Fleitas Playfield Artist: Brad Albright Art Direction: Stephen Silver and Brad Albright Sculpts: Stumblor Pinball Digital Assets: Renegade Game Studios Animations: Stephen Silver and Ian Harrower Special Thanks: Playmates Toys

Production of Dungeon Crawler Carl is currently planned for late 2026.

Once production begins, orders for full machines and game kits will be fulfilled in parallel. Gerry told us that the current lead time for full P³ machines is 10-12 weeks, but new game releases typically bring in a flood of new orders which can extend that time quite significantly.

The upcoming Pinball News and Pinball Magazine PINcast, which looks back to events in the pinball world throughout July, plans to feature an interview with Gerry, Stephen and Brad about the two new Multimorphic releases. Check that out when it is published at the start of August, catch it here in our PINcast library, or subscribe to the Pinball Industry News PINcast through your favourite podcast supplier to automatically get notified when it becomes available.