Spent the last week combing through all the pinside threads, business records, old videos, interviews, etc. in an attempt to construct a cohesive timeline of events for reference. Feel free to email or PM if there's anything major missing.

https://www.kineticist.com/post/timeline-of-the-haggis-pinball-collapse

**the link above has been updated on 7/26/24 with new info.

Link updated 8/2 with new info

This is a rough timeline with some images of the events from my perspective...

The Lead Up

Damian and I met at a local pinball tournament. I had been doing my own custom machine for a while and we talked about Celts and other stuff. He seemed nice.

Oct 2019 -
Went out to his factory (small one at 1/49 Industrial Cct, Cranbourne West) - Pic120191005_120502_HDR (resized).jpg
He showed me the current state of Celts and I told him I could 3D model a better castle for him. (before)20191005_115229 (resized).jpg 20191207_123942 (resized).jpg (after)

Late 2019 - May 2021 -> I made around 20 visits to the old factory (1+hr drive) plus a lot of work at home

Damian had very little knowledge of Fusion 360 so I ended up updating a bunch of the Celts models over that period.

Early 2020 a team formed to work on a War of the Worlds machine - Codename Alice
This team was...
Damian - Conman
Marty - Rules, playfield layout, 2IC
S - Creative Director
C - Sound
G - Programming
Me - Mechanical and later most of Electrical

The plan was to release around 2022 with each team member getting $250 per machine sold. Obviously D would handle manufacturing. We met weekly over zoom and there was a lot of excitement around the title.
Progress on this (around June 2020)20200619_153254 (resized).jpgPinside_forum_7580210_0 (resized).png There was to be a lot of toys, 4 flipper game. Very feature packed.

Around Nov 2020 there was a decision (I wasnt part of it) to switch to building classics machines as a way to bring in money quicker and that it would lead to the team being employed by Haggis earlier. At this point non of us were paid.
I was working madly (while full time employed elsewhere) to get a cabinet and playfield designed for Fathom.20210313_153520 (resized).jpgIMG_20210203_162830_052 (1) (resized).jpg

Early 2021 - I remember talking to a friend who suggested I ask Damian about compensation. I was doing the bulk of the work at the moment compared with the other team members to get Fathom ready for an announcement, including fielding phone calls while on holiday and then jumping on my laptop to update CAD files. Damian got super defensive when I asked about getting any money to cover off all the work I had done up till this point. Said it was part of the process of making it into a successful business and that he was going to pay me at the same wage I was currently being paid (software dev).
Meeting with him left a super sour taste in my mouth and was definitely a red flag. I kinda ignored it though because I was enjoying making pinball stuff much more than my paid work at that time.
In a team meeting soon after he suggested that the team members would each get their own Fathom machine so that sorta quelled any doubts that I had at that time.

March 2021 - Had a bbq to celebrate the new bigger factory.20210508_123344 (resized).jpg

At The Factory

Tue 1 June 2021 - New Factory - The core team started full time at the new factory at Atlantic Drv

My role was meant to be design of new parts especially for Fathom and CAD/Electrical design (LED boards etc...). My salary ended up being $40k less than what was originally quoted.
But I started working on parts inventory and determining BOM for Fathom. A lot of just Factory type tasks had to be done.

T started late June as floor manager and came on as part of the core 'leadership' team with the intent that he would ensure the factory/line staff were doing what they were meant to
I think another 10 or more staff came on around July to start building machines, however...
Mezzanine and factory were still being fit out for probably a month. Things like screen printer, cable maker and other important big tools were also still arriving.
Along with waiting for parts orders and not having a documented process or instructions to work from the line staff were kinda twiddling their thumbs.
At this point we were meant to be getting out 50 Celts a month but we were yet to make a single one from the new factory.

I was fighting fires and problems with Celts. The ball trough and autoplunger did not work well. Unfortunately Dr John was playing beta tester for us and I think we sent him multiple versions of each.
I begged Damian to let me spend half a day or so to make a mini test bed that I could slot parts in that would then run 24/7 so we could have some kind of confidence. But he said there was no time for 'doing things properly' (my words)
At least a month or 2 (maybe more) had passed in the new factory and we still didn't have a single Celts finished. Damian let go about all except for 2 of the line workers as it was burning too much money.
He kept telling everyone we just need to get one out and wasn't interested in making it sustainable(i.e. doing things in batches). He was also micro managing everyone. The amount of parts we had to bin was staggering as he wouldn't check any of my drawings or allow us to get a single item made to verify its dimensions or how it functioned. Every order minimum was probably about 50x on the off chance that it worked and then we saved some time by not having to go back and order more (little did that help when we had to iterate on a design and throw those 50 out)

He also blamed anyone else that was nearby for any mistake that he or Georgia made and by the same token took the credit for anything that happened to be a success. One youtube video he made was of the star rollover that I designed and manufactured not mentioning me at all. IMG_20211029_093404 (1) (resized).jpg

Oh, we also had a safety inspection as a requirement. I remember a bunch of safety things that Damian/Georgia were meant to action but that never happened.
Most of the core staff were avoiding him as much as possible for fear of being yelled at. I was a bit luckier than the others and sometimes managed to work a couple days a week from home because my surface pro 2 laptop couldnt handle the large Fusion files and the desktop machines for the office were still a work in progress.

Despite not being in my initial role description I picked up the Electrical work on Fathom. This was mainly designing simple LED pcbs and the optos for the drop targets. I remember at times having issues with the Fast boards or Multimorphic boards but I wasnt allowed to contact either Aaron or Gerry respectively because they might realise we werent as far along as what Damian wanted people to believe.

I think by October/November most of the core team were doing assembly line work to get Celts machines out the door. I was trying to slice away as much time as I could to iterate and refine parts for Fathom so that we could get a flipping playfield. We were forced to skip straight over this though and rather than testing individual components or groups of components we were working towards a single finished machine.

I'm not sure exactly when S left but it was possibly September/October. He had copped a lot of abuse and ended up walking away, leaving a a $10k+ spray booth he had effectively donated to the factory (another instance of Damian promising money or a machine he never intended to deliver)

Early December I gave my 1 week notice - traditionally it is 4 weeks in Australia but Damian wrote in 1 week thinking that he would be able to make it easier when he let people go. It felt good using that against him. He pleaded to stay on, go part time knowing that he had a big knowledge hole to fill. Fathom design was basically done though and I trained up one of the remaining line workers on how to develop the bend programs using the brake press.

This was the state of Fathom around December when I left. Largely done but still not flipping or in a cabinet (though the cabinet was finished). Note that this is the FIRST playfield and how to build them at scale had not been established.IMG_20211202_093654 (resized).jpg

Multiple playfield tops were cracked during assembly of Celts machines. Hence my warning earlier. Damian cracked multiple himself tightening down parts. He also set the laser cutter on fire when he left spare acrylic inside the machine at its home position.

After I left my stress level greatly reduced and I never regretted leaving. I didnt have a new job to go to at the time but my wife insisted that that didnt matter and I just had to get out of there.

T left early 2022 and G also left around mid 2022.