A tale of snakes and flippers

Some people following the project have noticed that on a prototype drawing there was a “foot pedal” at the bottom of the cabinet.  Similar to how a gas pedal on old arcade games such as Outrun had.

This pedal was intended to trigger a mechanism that was taken out of the prototype games such as the one at the Pinball Hall of Fame currently.

First, lets examine a photo of the flippers on the existing prototype.

One of the things most people remember about the game if they have played it is that the two main flippers are not on the same horizontal position.  Meaning the left flipper is lower down the playfield than the right flipper.  What most people don’t know is that is NOT how the game was originally designed.

One of Python’s trademarks was always to incorporate the flippers into the playfield artwork.  For instance on Bad Cats, the flippers are the tails of the cats.  On Fish Tales, the flippers are the jaws of the fish.  On Pinball Circus the flippers are the tusk of the elephant, the fingers of the clown.  Look closely at the photo of the main flippers again.  One flipper is part of the seal, the other flipper isn’t.  If you look even close you’ll see that there is a hole where the flipper was originally part of the seal.

Why was the flipper moved?  Well, originally there was supposed to be an additional mechanism between the flippers.  A snake head that would extend and bounce the ball back into play.

Originally the flippers were much father apart, and this mech was between them.  The foot pedal that people have noticed in the prototype drawing would have been used to extend the snake during gameplay.  You can see a little sticker on the playfield just below the sun graphic.  That sticker is covering up a plugged hole where the mech originally resided.

So of course people are going to ask if the new games will include a foot pedal?

Well, it will include the snake mech, but most likely the foot pedal will not be the way you will trigger it.  The reason? There is another new feature that is not in the original games that would make the foot pedal unlikely to be the preferred method of triggering the snake.

And besides, Python always wanted it to be a Pelvic button that you had to “bump” to extend the snake, but that is another story altogether.