Epic Pinball
A 1993 shareware pinball game programmed entirely in assembly.
Back in 1993, James Schmalz built Epic Pinball for Epic MegaGames, before he founded Digital Extremes. This MS-DOS pinball game ran entirely in x86 assembly language, displaying its 2D top-down action through plain raster graphics in a scrollable 320x240 window.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Digital Extremes
- Publisher
- Epic MegaGames
- Platforms
- MS-DOS
- Released
- November 1993 (NA)
- Genre
- Pinball
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
- Designer
- James Schmalz
- Joe Hitchens
- Terry Cumming
- Artist
- Robert G. Depew
- Joe Hitchens
- Mikko Iho
- James Schmalz
Facts from the source article.
Tables
Epic Pinball first came on floppy disks, split into three sets of four tables. The shareware and early retail releases featured just the original Android table. Later versions swapped in an updated Super Android table, though the game still calls it Android. The CD-ROM Full Edition added the African Safari table to the existing lineup.
Development
Tim Sweeney sent Mark Rein to Finland to recruit members of the demogroup Future Crew; only Misko Iho traveled to the US, bringing an unfinished pinball game. Unable to have Epic finish it, Sweeney showed the game to James Schmalz in Canada. Schmalz developed Epic Pinball from scratch in nine months while in college, using Deluxe Paint II for graphics and Scream Tracker for music.
Releases
The first registered game in 1993 included only the first two pinball packs. In 1994, xLand Games distributed that version as Fliper, and B&N Software and Strange Ranger released five individual tables. A 1995 CD release combined all three packs plus African Safari. Blockbuster Video gave away individual tables on floppy disks for a few months in the mid-to-late 1990s. A 2011 partial remake titled Retro Pinball appeared on Apple iOS devices, and the game was re-released on GOG.com in 2017.
Reception
Epic Pinball was a huge hit for its creators, ranking third among all-time best-selling shareware titles by their own count. Designer James Schmalz made over a million dollars from shareware royalties in its first year, and Epic's Tim Sweeney confirmed it was the company's top-selling shareware game, with over 200,000 copies sold. In 1994, Computer Gaming World judged it better than the team's commercial Silverball and praised the $45 registration fee for eight boards as excellent value.
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