Hey gang, I recently shared this on my store's FB page but figured you guys might get a kick out of it as well. Story time- back in 93 Gottlieb had licensed a Legend of Zelda Pinball table that never happened. They lost the rights and it was switched over an American Gladiators theme. They lost the rights to this as well and settled on their own Gladiators table. I wrote an email to Jon Norris, designer of the playfield for this table and other well known ones like the Super Mario pin. Jon was pleased I wanted to follow in his footsteps and gave me his blessing for attempting to rebrand this table to its original design. Not much he could tell me as far as the art work design aside from the fact he would have played Link to the past to model the gameplay and rules. We finally got a table and will be doing a full conversion to the Zelda Pin it was supposed to be. It'l be a lengthy process as not only are we redoing the artwork but we are also reprogramming the game.

Sounds amazing! I don't follow pinballs much, are conversions like this "common", like they are with arcades?

Conversions arent too common in the pinball community as so much has to go into it. The majority of the ones Ive seen are old EM machines that have a score reel but no dot matrix. Re programming all the animations on the dotmatrix will certainly be a challenge. Ive seen a museum turn a Simpsons pinball into a game that teaches you about the brain- pretty interesting.

Very cool idea.

It's pretty easy to see how certain art elements were directly adapted for LoZ, though (the multi-headed dragon, for instance -- or the morning star)


I'd go with heart-pieces instead of the chicken, personally.

Noted! I think it would be neat for the machine to give off a few low health beeps on your last ball.

"Complete the pyramid" could be repainted as "collect the pieces of triforce"

Multi-ball could be accompanied by the dot matrix graphics saying "It's dangerous to go alone!"

http://pinball.org/rules/gladiato...

A link to the existing table rules, for anybody brainstorming about ideas.


The pyramid rounds should definitely be converted to legend of zelda dungeons with "beast challenge" replaced with fighting Gannon.

MULTI could be about getting the power of the master sword.

The Acu-spin should probably be something silly, like the chicken, since it sounds ridiculously hard to get right, so it is more of an easter egg than a main table feature.

Im excited to see the Progression on this *Eagerly awaits*

You get the chance to spell 3 different words on the table

Multi
Weapon
Double


Power and Wisdom both fit but Courage does not sadly

You only need to spell two of the three, depending on whether you look at it from the standpoint of:

(1) link already HAS the triforce of courage

OR

(2) you are defeating Ganon to seize the triforce of Power in one fell swoop



Alternatively, you could do a serious hack of the game and reprogram  Weapon or Double to have enough letters to spell Courage...

Very good point!

A few ideas:

Have a chicken target and if hit a certain amount of times would give you a big score bonus.
When you sink a ball,the sound effect of link dying plays.
Make one of the inlanes/outlanes a place where you can get a life potion (extra ball) if you meet certain stipulations.

I'm saying this knowing nothing about the rules of the table being converted,so some or all of these may not even be applicable.

some of the drop targets should be pots

Omg this is freakin AWESOME!

Definitely.  Smashing pots for the drop targets is an awesome idea.

Im loving the feedback guys, keep it coming, they are all great ideas whether they are used or not!

Maybe paint the board overlay into segments, representing the different lands in Hyrule. The background blue mountains are clearly death mountain. Open area in front is Hyrule Field, the different paths/ramps to take to Kakariko Village or Lake Hylia, Zora Domain, whatever locations you think will fit. Ramp ideas: if one was to say Lake Hylia, fill Lake Hylia 5 times for rupee (score) bonus, something like that. The three drills above Calm Before The Storm could be redone to look like silver arrows, and those 3 bumpers right next to them could need to be hit for boss fights for rupee bonuses. Call all the points rupees too. Maybe a digital rupee on screen that changes color based on how high the score is (if that's possible). Green for less than a million, blue for 1-5 million, yellow or red for 5-20 million, silver and gold and so on. The three golden girls in the second pic (3rd just barely head visible) could represent the three goddesses and be repainted as Din, Farore, Nayru. Just a few ideas while I'm bored at work. I'll pop in with more as I think of them.

Get that OOT crap out of here

This will be awesome when it comes to be! I love me some pinball and I think this Zelda layout will be amazing. Good luck dude!

What is your plan for actually fabricating a new back glass and play-field?

Are you intending to add any figures/toys under the glass?

Most of the ones from this era were probably silk screened once the final design was made. Gladiators has a blank piece of glass with a thin plastic film on the back of it (likely a replacement for a broken one). Im working with an artist to help me with the design and painting. Ill be handling a most of the body work and programming.

For the playfield- all the lines of the table were mathematically designed to keep the ball flowing so we wont be moving any ramps or drilling new holes anywhere. The field will be completely stripped, repainted, lacquered and re populated with fresh parts.

As far as figures or toys we will have to see. Some tables do it well like Lord of the Rings, sometimes the toys are too much and make the table feel gimmicky.

I didn't figure you'd actually MOVE anything on the playfield.  That just seems crazy, since at that point you'd might as well build a new table from scratch.

I was referring to refurbing and repainting the existing playfield to be themed appropriately.



In terms of "toys", you should figure out what might be an appropriate replacement for the arch over that left M ramp to make it look like a dungeon entrance, at least.

Or maybe a boss monster of some kind -- (think about the ball as a magic attack that you're reflecting back at Agahnim)

Yeah the existing playfield will lose its original Gladiators design and be hand painted with completely new Zelda art to reflect LttP. That means creating new plastic pieces for the playfield as well since the Purple/Yellow accents around the table will likely clash with new design. 

I agree!  Every inch of the table will need to be rethought  

Yeah, I figured you'd be replacing the plastic accents with something that blended in with the LTTP concept.


I'm really looking forward to watching your progress, and seeing whatever art concepts you're willing to share.