Jokerz: Stereo Sound… and not much else
Python began to develop the concept for his next game, Jokerz! with Barry Oursler. This was Williams’ first game featuring stereo sound. In a money-saving move, Barry and Python recycled the motorized backglass wheel mechanism from Cyclone to show the King’s hand, which the player had to try to beat. Python’s concept for the game was meant to be a much more subtle satire of how the capricious whims and careless, selfish power wielded by world leaders who hold sway over the destiny of the general population.
In the world of Jokerz! The life and death of all their tiny subjects are but a mere parlor game for the giant King and Queen. I’m not sure if that message really came through more than it just being a silly card game theme, but whatever. Artist John Youssi worked on the backglass, while Python focused on the cabinet and playfield art. Python rendered the playfield once again by employing his birds’-eye-view of a kingdom peppered with mischievous little joker peasants goofing off all over the place while the rotund, Santa-esque King played poker with his buxom young Queen. It was a mild success.
Police Force: Batman without Batman
In August of 1989, Barry Oursler, Python and Mark Ritchie were really clicking by now, so the next game would feature all three of them together. No way it could be bad right? Well… the result was Police Force. That said, the game was probably DOA thanks to licensing issues. In the early development stages, Police Force was actually supposed to be a licensed theme: that Summer’s box office smash hit, Batman!
It marked the first time Python would be working from someone else’s idea and had already drawn up a basic playfield sketch including a Batcave, the Joker and a toy Batmobile mechanism. But Williams had not finalized negotiations with Warner Bros and unfortunately, Joe Kaminkow, who was now working for Data East swept in, pulled the rug out from under their feet and locked down the Batman movie license for his own game.
Python said, “Without a theme a pinball game is a wet dream.”
So as a backup, Python quickly developed the idea of a fantasy world of animal cops who busted animal criminals in the “Urban Jungle.” Yeah, we dunno either. The layout of the backglass art was intentionally referential to the composition of High Speed, with the player’s perspective seated behind two anthropomorphic animal police officers looking through the windshield and firing their massive guns at a coked up, machinegun toting shark and crocodile robbing a bank while a drug smuggling rat slips down a sewer grate and a sly weasel tries to sneak out of a storefront with some stolen jewelry. PHEW
In the far background, one can see the stretched limousine Taxi cab from Python’s previous game and a tiny snail crossing the street (Python was always fascinated with the golden ratio!) so snails became his personal version of a Brian Eddy “cow” Easter Egg. That’s about all we can say positively about Police Force TBH.
