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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PiN WiZ" data-source="post: 25603" data-attributes="member: 31">UPDATE Today's bio features The Addams Family mastermind, Pat Lawlor (Co-founder of Pat Lawlor Designs).Pat Lawlor is widely considered the Godfather of pinball. Having spent an impressive 28 years at the top of the pinball industry making redemption games, video games and the bestselling modern pinball machine of all time; The Addams Family. Lawlor's pinball career began as an engineer for Williams in 1987, when he co-designed a dual-playfield machine called Banzai Run with Larry DeMar. Lawlor, who had previously been a video game designer entered the World of coin-operated game design in 1980, working for Dave Nutting Assoc. In 1988, he was given the reins of his first individual design project, a machine entitled Earthshaker, which was released in January 1989.After establishing a noted style in his designs at Dave Nutting Assoc. Lawlor moved to Midway (under the Bally label) and designed what is the best-selling pinball table of all time; The Addams Family.  The table sold a record breaking 20,270 units and was the first move into deigning around a brand rather than an original concept. The Addams Family table included several groundbreaking new features, including the computer-controller mini-flipper that could "learn" how to hit a particularly difficult shot after numerous attempts; if the player activated the "Thing" flipper, the game automatically attempted the shot with no user control. In 1994 a limited-edition Gold version was produced to commemorate the record-breaking sales of the original. His next design for Midway, under Bally, was another licensed theme based on a popular television show: The Twilight Zone. This project gave Lawlor complete creative control and while The Twilight Zone didn't sell as many units as The Addams Family  it is one of the most popular tables amongst pinball enthusiasts; due in part to its complicated ruleset.In 2001 Lawlor founded Pat Lawlor Designs with partners John Krutsch, a mechanical designer Lawlor had worked with on all of his previous games, and Louis Koziarz a respected software programmer. The trio agreed to terms with Stern Pinball to distribute pinball machines and in September 2001 released a traditional pinball machine based on the world's most popular board game; Monopoly. Lawlor has since designed RollerCoaster Tycoon, Ripley's Believe it or Not!, NASCAR (also known as Grand Prix in Europe), Family Guy, and CSI pinball machines for Stern. Lawlor is now has joined forces with one of the Wolrd's most respected pinball video game developers and has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the revival and remastering of the legendary Pro Pinball® series; the campaign will see Lawlor designing a brand new table for the series.Today is the LAST DAY to post your questions for Adrian Barritt and Pat Lawlor before I submit them early tomorrow morning. Don't miss out!</blockquote>

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