ENDER’S GAME REVEALED

Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is the second game revealed today by Multimorphic. It shares the same playfield and mechanism design with Dungeon Crawler Carl, but is otherwise a very different game, having its own design team, artwork, sounds, music, graphics, rules and callouts.

The playfield design was originally developed for Ender’s Game – as we shall call it from now on – with Dungeon Crawler Carl being developed separately but in parallel, until the similarities of the physical requirements for the two titles led to them being unified into a single design.

Ender’s Game is another science fiction story, this time written by American writer Orson Scott Card and first published as a short story in 1977. Like Dungeon Crawler Carl, Ender’s Game depicts a battle between the inhabitants of Earth and an alien force.

The story is set after two narrowly failed attempts at invasion by an insectoid species known as Buggers and follows the progress of Andrew ‘Ender’ Wiggins as, alongside his supportive sister Valentine and antagonistic brother Peter, he develops his personal and tactical leadership skills to become an elite officer in Earth’s International Fleet defence force as it prepares for an inevitable third invasion attempt.

Starting when he is just six years old, Ender’s success in defeating a school bully marks him out as having exceptional skills which could prove invaluable in defending the planet. So it proves. After attending Battle School, at age ten he is promoted to off-Earth Command School where he excels at numerous simulated battle scenarios on his way to becoming a fleet commander.

Published as a full-length novel in 1985, Ender’s Game is poignant in its depiction of Ender’s conflicting emotions which run throughout the story and find their way into pinball’s gameplay too.

As usual with Multimorphic releases, Ender’s Game is available as either a fully-branded P³ machine with game-specific artwork on the cabinet, backbox and speaker panel, or as a kit for existing P³ owners.

The full Ender’s Game P³ machine is priced at $11,750 while the game kit for existing P³ owners costs $4,400.

This is how the full Ender’s Game artwork package looks.

Brad Albright created the entire art package for Ender’s Game. He previously created the art for Multimorphic’s Portal game, before working for Barrels of Fun on their Winchester Mystery House.

Brad has also created the playfield artwork for Multimorphic’s other new release, Dungeon Crawler Carl. While the cabinet artwork for that game is by Luciano Fleitas, Brad’s experience using the same physical design in Ender’s Game made him a natural choice to create the playfield art for that title too.

So, let’s take a look at the playfield for Ender’s Game.

The upper playfield module for Ender’s Game is more open and visible than the sculpt-clad Dungeon Crawler Carl module. If you haven’t yet checked out that game, head over to our Dungeon Crawler Carl article for more about the design and the processes behind the title’s creation.

Ender’s Game doesn’t feature any sculpts, relying instead on display and plastics artwork to depict the main characters.

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 battles begin and then fling it off the ramp’s end towards the upper right flipper. Alternatively, the magnet can be used to accelerate the ball’s velocity off the end of the ramp, providing a faster, more reliable feed to 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 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.

In Ender’s Game, the two ball stackers are integrated into ruleset as representations of Valentine’s empathetic character (left stacker) and Peter’s much more sociopathic nature (right).

Accordingly, the left stacker ejects the balls gently, while the right one violently expels them. Keeping these two either in balance or weighted more towards one character or the other is an important aspect of the gameplay.

The centre right lane is a shallow ramp which can either feeds the grab magnet on the raised ramp, or a diverter can send the ball back down the right orbit lane to the upper right flipper.

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

The Fight Ring 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 Fight Ring arena.

This is where Ender fights and attempts to defeat his personal enemies. The 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. While it is possible to simply take part in a fight, destroying your opponent is key to preventing future fights and building your character.

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 by the player at their selected shot.

As with all P3 modules, at the bottom is the familiar row of six illuminated wall targets and six pop-up scoops.

Then we have the biggest single mechanism in the game – the disk.

This is a clear acrylic disk suspended over the playfield and is rotated by a stepper motor. The disk is held in place by grooved bearings around the edge, while an arm carries the cabling for the motor, switches, solenoid and LEDs.

There is a clear ball guide on the top surface which directs balls fed to it by the central wireform, sending them to the inlanes or into the cannon assembly.

The cannon is one of the features on the underside of the disk. Once a ball is loaded into the cannon, the disk rotates to either allow the game fire the ball towards a required shot or, at other times, allow the player to choose their shot and fire the ball themselves.

Also on the underside of the disk is a curved bank of illuminated standup targets. The front of this bank can be shot like a regular bank of standups, but the curved rear is a ball guide which can be rotated to direct the ball towards specific shots in the upper part of the playfield.

The outer of the disk is illuminated by a ring of RGB LEDs. Including the standup target lighting and general illumination, there is a total of 183 RGB LEDs mounted in the disk.

As the disk can rotate freely to any angle in any direction, the individual devices mounted on it can’t be hardwired to the rest of the game as the cabling from the arm would soon become twisted. Instead, there are slip rings built into the hub which carry the power and control signals to ensure everything stays connected.

Further down the playfield, another new feature has been added to the existing hardware to give extra functionality.

This simple change adds small posts to the armatures which control the slingshots. When a slingshot is activated, the armature is pulled down and the post moves into the inlane, blocking the ball. As long as the slingshot is energised, the ball is held in the inlane. This can be used to hold it during a mode introduction, to help the player align their shots, or longer term as a ball lock.

The P³‘s display area is criss-crossed by a grid of IR LEDs which track the ball movements. This array can be used to identify when a ball is being held in the inlane without the need for any additional physical or optical switches.

These passive inlane blockers can be retrofitted to earlier P³ machines by simply replacing the slingshot armatures.

To discover more about Ender’s Game and the co-release with Dungeon Crawler Carl, 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.“

Each new title typically has what has been termed a ‘Lead Game Designer’ – a leading team member and uber-fan of the theme who ensures every game element remains true to the theme. We asked who that was for Ender’s Game and how, with so much source material, they decided which characters to include in the game.

Gerry told us that the company typically eschews titles like ‘Game Designer’ because every aspect of their games are the result of contributions from the whole team. He said, “This is my ultimate dream theme, but a few of us know the theme really well, and the rest did their homework. As far as theme integration goes, that is the job of our creative directors, and Stephen Silver and Josh Kugler and did a fantastic job of making sure we delivered a game that nailed the theme.”

The other title released today, while having the ability to bleep the swearing in the callouts, is certainly an adult theme. So, we asked, is Ender’s Game the more family-friendly title?

Gerry certainly believes so. He told us, “Absolutely. Ender’s Game is a book many of us first discovered as kids, and while it covers some dark topics it’s generally appropriate for kids. We’ve designed the game with kids in mind, even having children voice many of the characters.“

Although it is best known as a novel, there was also a 2013 movie of the book starring Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford, which would have provided many of the audio and video assets pinball games require these days. The team, though, opted to stay with the book as their source, as Gerry confirmed.

“Correct – as many movies based off of books don’t deliver the full impact of those books, we felt this movie didn’t capture the story the way we wanted to tell it. We see the characters and events of Ender’s Game as they were described in the book.“

That choice obviously impacted on the quantity of assets the team needed to develop themselves.

“It was a huge challenge, but we developed everything from scratch. Brad (Albright) took the lead on creating the characters and environments, and Glenn (Waechter), Aaron (Williams), and Paul (Farrer) created an amazing audio package with futuristic / high-tech sounds and music that connects perfectly with Ender’s (and therefore the player’s) emotions as the game progresses.“

Did, we asked, the author, Orson Scott Card, have any involvement in the approval of the assets? Gerry explained, “We asked him up front for some guidance (which he gave) while also making it clear we knew the source material extremely well. He basically let us run with our ideas, offering quick approvals throughout the process.“

The two games released today look very different. This, in part, is because Dungeon Crawler Carl has four character sculpts and a large central dungeon sculpt, whereas Ender’s Game doesn’t feature any sculpted characters or environments.

We asked why this is. Gerry told us, “Dungeon Crawler Carl is heavily focused on the characters and environments, and there’s a lot of wonderful published artwork showing many of the characters in ways we now just expect to see them. So, sculpts representing some of those characters and the dungeon wall fit into your mind’s eye of the story really well. Ender’s Game is more focused on the coming of age story and the psychological struggles Ender encounters throughout the story. So, we leaned heavily into that instead of a specific set of items that wouldn’t really carry much weight visually.”

It’s clear that the two ball stackers are much more visible and work very differently in this game. Together, they are referred to as the ‘Balance Mech’.

Gerry explained the mechanism’s role in the game.

“The Balance Mech represents Ender’s psychology. The left side represents his sister Valentine’s compassion. The right side represents his brother Peter’s aggression. Ender is the perfect commander because he’s the perfect balance of his brother and sister. Balls are added to the mech by a center VUK. Up to 6 balls can be loaded into each side (therefore 12 balls total in the mech), and individual balls can be transferred from one side to the other, regardless of how many are on each side.

Further, the right side has a cannon (like Final Resistance) that can aggressively (because… Peter) fire balls out into play, and the left side has a softer (because… Valentine) release mechanism that can release a ball forwards into play or backwards into a hole that goes into the P³‘s ball trough.

During gameplay, the player will want to sometimes transfer more balls to the Valentine side in order to collect friends (which of course requires compassion) and other times to the Peter side to win fights (which of course require aggression). During battles, the player will want to balance the mech with equal numbers on each side, representing the perfect commander.

In that way, the state of the Balance Mech has constant influence on the game, and the player is incentivized to add balls and move them back and forth to optimize gameplay.“

After the final battle, the book is fairly open ended. So, we asked, how far does the game go through the story?

Gerry told us, “We don’t want to spoil anything about the story for those who haven’t read it, but the game goes through the entirety of the book.“

And when you reach the end?

“Keeping in mind the previous statement about not spoiling the story, the game will end, just as many other P³ games end when you complete the story.“

Multimorphic have released a promo video for Ender’s Game which you can watch here:

https://youtu.be/YkOB05jwjhQ

Here are the full game credits:

Creative Director: Stephen Silver and Josh Kugler Rules: Colin MacAlpine Mechanicals: TJ Weaver and Trey Jones Music: Aaron Williams and Paul Farrer Sound Design: Glenn Waechter Software: Josh Kugler, Steve Shoyer, and Ian Harrower Artist: Brad Albright Technical Artist: Rory Cernuda Animations: Stephen Silver and Rory Cernuda Voices: Glenn Waechter, Lucas Pepke, Sam Tucker, Aline Allen, Alana Johnson, Cash Bailey, Tyson and Eli Silver

Production of Ender’s Game 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.