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Die Hard Trilogy (VPW Original, Data East Style)

An original VPW table covering all three Die Hard movies on a single playfield, designed in a Data East style inspired by Lethal Weapon 3. Built from scratch by astronasty (creative lead), mysda (layout), oqqsan (lead coder), scampa123 (PUP pack), cyberpez (3D modeling), and fluffhead35 (rules programming). Notable as a full original-design lifecycle and for establishing community precedent around modding ethics.

Build Story

Development began October 2021 with initial layout design by mysda, progressing through 100+ WIP versions before public release at v0.98.1 in early 2024. The team followed the recommended build order for original tables: rules and insert layout first, physics and Fleep in parallel, then artwork, then rules programming, with Blender toolkit work last.

Post-release, version management moved from the VPW Discord to astronasty's personal server, which became problematic when the lead coder (oqqsan) left the community and file links expired. This demonstrated the importance of centralized version management for long-term table maintenance.

Table-Specific Details

Mechanisms & Hardware

  • Nakatomi Tower -- Building toy modeled after the Stern Godzilla Pro's building toy as reference for openings, art-on-plastics-with-screws approach, and metal ball guides. Ball enters from the main ramp, exits via diverter or straight through to the upper playfield area. Tower was made collidable for ball interaction off ramps, requiring iterative opening-size adjustment.
  • Airplane -- Toy mounted in the corner of the lower playfield above the captive ball and scoop used for Die Harder virtual locks. Captive ball hit qualifies the lock; shooting the 90-degree scoop locks the ball. Plane bounces up and down during multiball with an "explosion" sequence.
  • Taxi -- Rail-mounted taxi that advances with lane completions for Die Hard 3 multiball. The taxi spins and drives back to indicate ball saver duration.
  • Vault -- Metal vault toy acting as a bash toy during regular play. Hit the vault to open it; shooting into the open vault awards a mystery prize. Completing all three regular multiballs opens the vault for Super Multiball.
  • Upper Playfield (Central Park) -- Die Hard 3 themed area with cycling rollovers (BK2000-style) and three exits, one of which feeds the pop bumper area. Pop bumpers themed as Central Park trees.
  • Detonator -- 8-state prop rendered in Blender as separate frame images for PUP pack display.
  • Cop Cars -- Two police vehicles (badge numbers 6991 and 110 from the films) placed as non-collidable sling decoration with working lights, each consisting of car body + two light primitives.

Rules & Modes

Three-movie multiball structure: - Die Hard (Nakatomi): Main ramp locks balls in tower. Three locks start Nakatomi Multiball. Tower VUK uses variable launch timers (3s for random shots, 8s for multiball start). - Die Harder (Airplane): Hit captive ball under the plane to qualify lock, then shoot 90-degree scoop for virtual lock. Locks start multiball (original design called for three locks; implementation may differ). - Die Hard With a Vengeance (Taxi): Light all three upper PF lanes to move taxi. Three moves start multiball.

Villain mode system with two difficulty levels per villain: - Die Hard mode: Standard. Failing lets you retry. Bullets reset at mode start. - Die Harder mode: Drain on fail ends the game. Grants extra reward on completion. - Completed modes cannot be replayed; failed modes can be retried.

Art & Visuals

  • Dark grey playfield background mimicking movie poster aesthetics, with keylight highlights (white outlines) added for readability against dark backgrounds.
  • Plastics use generic smoke/explosion backgrounds with character art as separate clear floating overlays above (Jurassic Park and Medieval Madness sling knight technique).
  • Cityscape backwall effect achieved by placing flashers behind clear plastics with cloud imagery, inspired by LOTR's Mordor plastic approach.
  • Movie-accurate details: taxi number 2T94, cop badge 6991, Carl Winslow badge 110.

PUP Pack

The PUP pack is integral to the table (not a standalone addon). Key design principle from astronasty: "the DMD is about delivering information, not focusing on assets." Background video clips serve as atmosphere; text overlays are large and floating, styled like movie posters. The villain select screen uses flipper inputs to cycle through options with PUP returning the selection to the table script via constants.

Distributed separately from the VPX file (~260-284 MB vs ~88-96 MB for the table). Both must be updated together for features to work.

VR Integration

  • Mirror primitive technique (iaakki) for backblade reflections, requiring blocker primitives to prevent VR players from seeing the duplicate game behind the cabinet.
  • "Hider primitives" needed because VR players can walk behind the cabinet and see objects placed there.

Techniques Developed Here

See Also