Table Intro
Growing up the only places that had pinball were pizza joints and bowling alleys. I wasn't often at the bowling alleys (as you could still smoke in them at that point) so i played tons of pinball at pizza parlours.
It always struck me as odd that there weren't any pinball tables about pizza when so many tables resided in pizza places. Plus pizza is awesome.
The idea really started to grab me when I heard the local (Denver) band Pizza Time play their song "Pizza Time". First they are awesome, second it was the perfect link. A vision of a crusty pizza joint, pizza party took shape and I knew this table had to be made.
It's always important to me to build upon all that is great in pinball. It needs to be equal doses of innovation and homage as the rich history of pinball tables is something I find very worth building upon.
In this cases the biggest inspiration was definitely Diner.
I love that in this table there are orders you are given at the start of the ball and it's your job to fulfill them. That idea is great. Where Diner fails (in my opinion) is no matter what the order is you just hit the exact same targets to fill it. So it doesn't actually feel like the order itself matters. You aren't required to change your play based on the order. So i wanted pizza time to take this idea and make it right. You get an order and that changes your entire gameplay and shot selection based on the random order. This was the main kernel of the design approach i took in designing this table.