An Interview with Stern Pinball’s John Borg

Cowabunga! With the latest release of Stern Pinball’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball machines going gangbusters, we grabbed ourselves a deep-dish Chicago-style cheesy pizza to tempt John Borg, Lead Designer of this bodacious new pinball title, to have a quick virtual chat with us about his creation and to give us some delicious behind the scenes scoops!

Ready, set, here we go!

AUSRETROGAMER: How long did it take to design and make TMNT (from concept to finished product)?
John Borg [JB]: I started the layout last year (February 2019) around the time The Munsters LE was running down the line.

ARG: Do you have a favourite feature (or features) from the TMNT Pinball machine?
JB: I love the underlying features, like the 123 combo challenge – Training – Weapon – and of course Pizza Multiball!

ARG: What was the biggest challenge in designing/making TMNT Pinball?
JB: Everything was hard! Speech was the scariest thing late in the project. Mike and Tom (The Super Kyzivat Bros.) pulled off the Krang and Shredder speech. Best in the game. I scripted so many lines through so many episodes. I loved it like I loved Speed Racer as a kid.

Dwight Sullivan’s hand did not make the final cut!

ARG: We need your complete honesty here – who is your favourite Turtle and your favourite villain from the TMNT series?
JB: Donatello – I love that he’s a tech driven mad scientist. Krang is my favourite villain. I practised his voice for weeks, but Tom Kyzivat sounded so much like Krang, it absolutely floored me.

ARG: Lastly, since you are a big BMX fan, we wanted to ask – there is a famous Australian movie from the 80s with a young Nicole Kidman called BMX Bandits, would this ever make the cut as a pinball machine in the future? Hypothetically speaking, if you did make such a machine, what would be the first is the first feature you would include in the game?
JB: BMX is awesome, but It won’t be a pinball in the near future. Watch the Youtube videos of the BMX in the Olympics – it is so amazing!

And just like that, we polish off our pizza, wipe our mouth clean and thank John Borg from afar for taking time out from his busy schedule to talk to us about some of his experience in making TMNT Pinball.

Whiteboarding TMNT with John Borg and the team!