Mark Ritchie Back After 25+ Years with Pulp Fiction – List of His 16 Pinball Creations To Date

Taxi is one of my wife and my most favorite pinball machines. Typically, I don’t pay much attention to designed pinball machines, but through the research of this article, came to realize it was Mark Ritchie that designed Taxi. Kind of a mindbender, finally realizing after all these years who designed a machine you love to play. Relational sidenote: Mark’s brother, Steve Ritchie, is another popular, prolific pinball designer who as of this writing works for Jersey Jack Pinball, but previously worked for Stern and other companies (Steve was responsible for the early Atari pinball machines like Superman). Steve could/should also be spotlighted someday for his breadth and depth of work in designing pinball machines. This is a pinball family, through and through.

Back to Mark. Recently, I played Big Bang Bar and enjoyed that, too, only to find out, guess who designed that? Mark Ritchie. Throw in another iconic pinball: Indiana Jones – The Pinball Aventure, also designed by Ritchie, and he’s reached, at least in this author’s opinion, pinball designer master status.

Since 2005, Ritchie has worked for Raw Thrills, founded in part in 2001 by legendary Eugene Jarvis (Robotron, Defender) that makes many popular modern arcade games including ticket redemption and non-ticket redemption games. Raw Thrills teamed up with Chicago Gaming Company to make the new pinball Pulp Fiction based on the Quentin Tarantino movie.

I played Pulp Fiction one time at the NW Pinball & Arcade Show back in June and enjoyed flipping it. It has a very 70s feel and yet it is modern, as well, which is unique. Will definitely play this more once they start hitting arcades. It’s on my list of “maybe buy” if/when I should return to buying pinball machines. But let’s get back to Mark Ritchie. What are all the pinball machines he’s designed to date?

Below, you’ll find an indepth video covering Pulp Fiction that makes me even more interested in buying one.

Along the right, and thanks to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Ritchie_(pinball_designer)), there’s a complete list of Mark Ritchie games to date.

As far as pinball goes, below I’ve assembled a list of these games with links to Pinside and if there is a Virtual Pinball version, links to that as well.

1. Thunderball (Williams 1982)
   Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/thunderball
   Virtual Pinball: no current version found as of this writing, do see a VP9x version here
2. Firepower 2 (Williams 1983)
   Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/firepower-ii
   Virtual Pinball: https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/7485-firepower-ii-williams-1983/ (Goldchicco) | Other Versions
3. Sorceror (Williams 1985)
   Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/sorcerer
   Virtual Pinball: https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/8504-sorcerer-williams-1985-w-vr-room/ | Other Versions
4. Road Kings (Williams 1986)
   Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/road-kings
   Virtual Pinball: https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=11963 | Other Versions
5. Big Guns (Williams 1987)
   Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/big-guns
   Virtual Pinball: https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=11675 | Other Versions

6. Taxi (Williams 1988)
   Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/taxi
   Virtual Pinball: https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/7074-taxi-williams-1988-vpw-mod/ | Other Versions
7. Police Force (Williams 1989)
   Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/police-force
   Virtual Pinball: https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/15712-police-force-williams-1989-vpw/ | Other Versions
8. Diner (Williams 1990)
   Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/diner
   Virtual Pinball: https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/10699-diner-williams-1990-vpw-mod/ | Other Versions
9. Fish Tales (Williams 1992)
   Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/fish-tales
   Virtual Pinball: https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15741 | Other Versions
10. Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure (Williams 1993)
    Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/indiana-jones
    Virtual Pinball: https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/8568-indiana-jones-the-pinball-adventure-williams-1993-vpwmod/ | Other Versions
11. Pinball Magic (Capcom 1995)
    Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/pinball-magic
    Virtual Pinball: https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/9831-pinball-magic-balutito-reskin/ | Other Versions

12. Airborne (Capcom 1996)
    Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/airborne
    Virtual Pinball: https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/14791-airborne-capcom-1996/ | Other Versions
13. Breakshot (Capcom 1996)
    Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/breakshot
    Virtual Pinball: https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=14361 | Other Versions
14. Big Bang Bar (Capcom 1996)
    Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/big-bang-bar
    Virtual Pinball: https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/13634-big-bang-bar-capcom-1996-vpw/ | Other Versions
15. Kingpin (Capcom 1996)
    Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/kingpin
    Virtual Pinball: https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=14376| Other Versions
16. Pulp Fiction (Chicago Gaming Company 2023)
    Pinside: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/cgc-pulp-fiction-se (SE)
    https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/cgc-pulp-fiction-le (LE)

The following podcast interview with Mark Ritchie goes deep behind the creation of Pulp Fiction. How the project actually began as a NARC side scroller arcade game (see pictured above right) and at the advice of Eugene Jarvis, became a pinball (“Why don’t you guys just make a pinball? – Eugene Jarvis):