Zen Pinball Table Designers

[jaredmorgs]

Something Bobby from Zen Studios highlighted to me was that she keeps a public list of the designers and what tables they worked on.

http://forum.zenstudios.com/showthread.php?12318-Table-Designers

I've already discovered why I like most of the Star Wars tables: the same table designer worked on practically all of them.

Thought it might be interesting to share this here so you can work out your favourite designers on the tables you love.

TABLE DESIGNERS

Thomas Crofts

Dec 13, 2011 X-Men
Jun 19, 2012 The Avengers (w/ Mate Szeplaki)
May 01, 2014 Droids
Jul 30, 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy
May 27, 2015 Portal
Oct 21, 2015 Bob's Burgers
April 26, 2016 Aliens
Sept 27, 2016 Marvel's A-Force (w/ Peter 'Deep' Grafl)
Dec 12, 2017 Adventure Land
Feb 20, 2018 Jurassic World
Sept 12, 2018 Calrissian Chronicles
2021 My Little Pony

Peter "Deep" Grafl

May 17, 2011 Fantastic Four
Jun 19, 2012 The Infinity Gauntlet
Feb 19, 2013 The Empire Strikes Back
Oct 16, 2013 Return of the Jedi
May 01, 2014 A New Hope
Apr. 29. 2015 Star Wars Rebels
Oct 21, 2015 American Dad
Jan 12, 2016 Star Wars Pinball: The Force Awakens
Dec 6, 2016 Skyrim
Sept 26, 2017 Back to the Future
Dec 12, 2017 Son of Zeus
April 17, 2018 Star Wars: The Last Jedi
May 2021 The Mandalorian
2022 Curse of the Mummy

Viktor Gyorei

Apr 26, 2011 Sorcerer's Lair (w/ Balint Ats)
Jun 28, 2011 Captain America (w/ Agoston David)

Ivan "Mad_Boy" Nicoara

Jul 21, 2010 Mars
Dec 08, 2010 Iron Man
Dec 13, 2011 Thor
Jun 19, 2012 World War Hulk
Feb 19, 2013 The Clone Wars
Oct 16, 2013 Darth Vader
Dec 17, 2013 Doctor Strange

Tamas "Ypok" Pokrocz

Oct 16, 2013 Starfighter Assault
Apr 22, 2015 Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron
Jun 26, 2014 Deadpool
Oct 21, 2015 Archer

Zoltan Somorjai

Oct 27, 2010 Pasha

Tamas Stephen

Oct 27, 2010 Rome

Mate Szeplaki

Mar 25, 2010 Earth Defence
Dec 08, 2010 Spider-Man
Feb 15, 2012 Epic Quest
Nov 21, 2012 Civil War

Imre "Emeric" Szigeti

Oct 27, 2010 Biolab
Dec 08, 2010 Blade
Dec 13, 2011 Moon Knight

Zoltan Vari

May 14, 2009 Shaman
May 14, 2009 Tesla
May 14, 2009 El Dorado
May 14, 2009 V12
Apr 15, 2010 Excalibur
Oct 19, 2010 Paranormal
Oct 27, 2010 Secrets of the Deep
Dec 08, 2010 Wolverine
Dec 13, 2011 Ghost Rider
Jun 19, 2012 Fear Itself
Feb 19, 2013 Boba Fett
May 01, 2014 Han Solo
May 01, 2014 Masters of the Force
Dec 10, 2014 Venom
Jul 15, 2015 Ant-Man
Jan 12, 2016 Might of the First Order
Sept 27, 2016 Marvel's Champions
Feb 02, 2017 Rogue One
Feb 20, 2018 Jurassic Park
Sept 12, 2018 Solo
2021 How To Train Your Dragon
2022 Noir

Gabor "coltos" Andrassy

Aug 27, 2014 The Walking Dead
Feb 25, 2015 CastleStorm

Szucs "ndever" David

Feb 25, 2015 Wild West Rampage
Oct 21, 2015 Family Guy
April 26, 2016 Alien vs. Predator
Dec 6, 2016 Doom
Sept 26, 2017 Jaws
April 17, 2018 Star Wars: Ahch-To Island

Peter Horvath

April 26, 2016 Alien: Isolation
Dec 6, 2016 Fallout
Sept 26, 2017 E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial
Feb 20, 2018 Jurassic Park Pinball Mayhem
Sept 12, 2018 Battle of Mimban

Peter 'Pewet' Kovacs

2021 Kung Fu Panda
2022 Sky Pirates: Treasure of the Clouds

Daniel 'Dolby' Vigh

2021 Snoopy
2022 World War Z

Anna Lengyel

2021 Trolls
2022 Curse of the Mummy

 

[wolfson]

STAR WARS and MARVEL are my faves,what a great job they have done !!!!

 

[IGoFirstIndy]

Awesome find!

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

Zoltan Vari and Deep are my two favorite designers. The former because of how much physical pinball plays into his machines, and the latter because he creates machines with the depth and physics of a physical machine.

Ypok is definitely an honorable mention though. Starfighter Assault and Deadpool were great tables, the other two he designed weren't the best IMO.

 

[Pinballfan69]

Zoltan Vari and Deep are my two favorite designers. The former because of how much physical pinball plays into his machines, and the latter because he creates machines with the depth and physics of a physical machine.

Ypok is definitely an honorable mention though. Starfighter Assault and Deadpool were great tables, the other two he designed weren't the best IMO.

Yep Zoltan has some nifty mechanics in his tables. Lot's of magnetic aspects in his tables. Looks to be the same in Might of the First Order. Fear Itself is still one of my top 5 tables.

Deep does so many interesting things with stacked modes, Stacked Multiballs, and that he tries to make the table a bit like a real machine.

Honorable mentioned to Ypok as well. Star fighter assault was a such a surprise. Then he did a great job with Deadpool. Age of Ultron was a miss to some but It's challenging as heck. Archer is my second fav in the recent Balls of Glory Pack.

runner up Ndever. His first table South Park: Butters' Very Own Pinball Game was very well done. Wild West Rampage was great too IMO. Love the challenge and was hoping for something like that with Family Guy. Family guy being a stop back IMO but still a good table for newer players I think. All you do is start each mode and then you can get to the tables Wizard mode.

Some other great designers I like too is Ivan "Mad_Boy" Nicoara. He made some challenging table with Iron Man and Thor but started getting into the this what I call "Ramp Spam" mode with Darth Vader, Clone Wars and World War Hulk. Darth Vader being the worst of them. The only saving grace I felt was the difficulty of the missions, but it was overshadowed by the ease of just doing hurry-ups and Multiballs and stacking those.

I could say Doctor strange is that kind of table too but I found it less obvious with very interesting Missions to capitalize on.

Thomas Crofts too with X-men, Bob's Burgers, and Avengers (1st one not Ultron)

 

[wolfson]

just played the 2 new tables,great feel and the best tables yet !!! ( only my opinion )

 

[jaredmorgs]

just played the 2 new tables,great feel and the best tables yet !!! ( only my opinion )

Will be downloading now in preparation for kids in bed in an hour.

EDIT: Not yet released on Android in Australia.

 

[shutyertrap]

This wound up sorta being a topic in the next BlahCade podcast. The main thrust was a discussion of all the Star Wars tables and my ranking of them. Of course this then led to who designed them, at which point I discovered designers I like and dislike. For the sake of spurring this thread along, here's how I ranked the tables:

1. For Awakens
2. Clone Wars
3. Rebels
4. RotJ
5. Empire
6. Droids
7. A New Hope
8. Han Solo
9. Darth Vader
10. Boba Fett
11. Starfighter Assault
12. Might of the First Order
13. Masters of the Force

If you know your designers, you'll see that my least favorite tables were done by Zoltan Vari for the most part, while most of my faves were done by Peter "Deep" Grafl. My main criteria here are does the ball have bounce and how accessible is the main mission hole. Deep's tables have a nice bouncy feel to them and the mission holes tend to be placed much like a Williams table would, easily gotten to. Zoltan on the other hand has the lead weight ball and not only are his mission holes often obscured or overly complicated to start, but along with ramps, exceedingly narrow.

Been interesting spending a week exclusively playing Zen, the majority of it Star Wars. Tables like Clone Wars and Rebels really give me that "just one more time" sensation, while Masters of the Force is like suffering through the worst Gottlieb Premiere table.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

Update:

- A-Force is a Croftinator / Thomas Crofts design
- Champions is a Zoltan Vari design

 

[Xanija]

Update:

Peter Horvath: Fallout
(he has only designed Alien Isolation yet)

Szucs "ndever" David: Doom
(last table: Alien vs. Predator)

Peter "Deep" Grafl: Skyrim
(last table: SW: The Force Awakens)

 

[Kaibun]

Update:

Szucs "ndever" David: Doom
(last table: Alien vs. Predator)

Peter "Deep" Grafl: Skyrim
(last table: SW: The Force Awakens)

Given those designers, this is gonna be so good. I'm looking forward to it more now!

 

[HotHamBoy]

More specifically:

Peter "Deep" Grafl
May 17, 2011 Fantastic Four
Aug 31, 2011 Ms. Splosion Man
Jun 19, 2012 The Infinity Gauntlet
Feb 19, 2013 The Empire Strikes Back
Oct 16, 2013 Return of the Jedi
May 01, 2014 A New Hope
Oct 15, 2014 South Park: Super Sweet Pinball
Apr. 29. 2015 Star Wars Rebels
Oct 21, 2015 American Dad
Jan 12, 2016 Star Wars Pinball: The Force Awakens
Dec 6, 2016 Skyrim


Szucs "ndever" David
Oct 15, 2014 South Park: Butters' Very Own Pinball Game
Feb 25, 2015 Wild West Rampage
Oct 21, 2015 Family Guy
April 26, 2016 Alien vs. Predator
Dec 6, 2016 Doom

Peter Horvath:
April 26, 2016 Alien: Isolation
Dec 6, 2016 Fallout

The new pack is looking very promising! Grafl and David have great track records and Grafl is a beast. These are some of my favorite tables in Zen. I'd really only call Ms. Splosion Man and American Dad clunkers.

 

[mmmagnetic]

I´m kinda curious what the story behind these "one-off" designers are. One dude is making Pasha out of the blue and then nothing else?
Or the guy who made the very nice Sorcerer´s Lair, or the Rome designer? These tables are all very solid, I wonder what happened. Judging by some of other companies atrocious pinball games, designing a nice layout isn´t something that just anyone can do.

Viktor Gyorei
Apr 26, 2011 Sorcerer's Lair (w/ Balint Ats)
Jun 28, 2011 Captain America (w/ Agoston David)

Zoltan Somorjai
Oct 27, 2010 Pasha

Tamas Stephen
Oct 27, 2010 Rome

Talking about active designers, turns out that I like that ndever guy quite a bit. There´s something to these rather simple spelling tables that I really enjoy (Butters, Wild West, Family Guy). It´s great that those designers get recognized by name, after a while you really get a feel for how they think and approach a new design.

I actually would love some more variance in the designs - one kind of table that is absolutely outrageous and complex (like those Bethesda tables), and then simpler, clearer ones, inspired more by 80s and early 90s designs (like Street Fighter, even if it was a bit boring). As it is, tables tend to mostly lean towards the more complex and cluttered side, that´s why I like Butters so much for example - it´s a very easy to understand table, with a simple layout and easy to see LEDs.

 

[Gorgias32]

Very interesting - Sorcerer's Lair and Captain America are two of the best tables in Zen. Interesting that Viktor Gyorei didn't make any others. Maybe he got promoted or something...

 

[Xanija]

https://blog.zenstudios.com/?page_id=5101

Viktor Györei

Head of Studio

Viktor is an industry veteran with more than 17 years of experience working in the video games space, having worked for companies such as Digital Reality, Philos and Eidos in various roles. Viktor joined Zen Studios in 2010, and in addition to managing the studio’s office space and development team, oversees the company’s pinball division, including the Zen Pinball and Pinball FX franchises.

Yep, looks like he got promoted indeed.

 

[mmmagnetic]

For some odd reason it didn´t even occur to me to research this myself - but that´s good to hear

 

[haj]

I think I'm very late to join the party but I've been really enjoying these tables much more than Williams table. I wasn't impressed at all many years before when I got Captain America, Wolverine, Thor, Rome, Tesla, etc... (still not so fan of those). So I almost ditched Zen pinball until Williams table came. After playing Williams tables I got intrigued other Zen tables and slowly buying newer tables. Tables made at around 2014-2015 and afterwords, get really complex rules, features, gimmicks and game play that I'd play for many years! Currently I play on an iPad but at some point I'd like to make a dedicated machine to play them, for iPad screen is still small and flipper sometimes gets funky probably because of the skin to hold the pad touching the screen, and nudge on the device is so poor. Anyways I'm so happy to have these incredible collection of tables now.