every game you listed is considered a classic pin by many pinheads including myself. out of that list the only pins i have not played are bsd and fire. i agree he is an underrated talent. and as for sales,well many of the pins he designed sold well over 10,000 units.

I like his games a lot. I really like Cosmic Gunfight and Defender, which were made in pinballs wilderness years. I'm sure he isn't underated in the pinball industry. I think it is a shame that he didn't see JY through to the end of the design process. It is one of my least favourites despite a great layout.

I like his games too, in fact two of my top ten highest rated are his - Fire and Jokerz. Fire is hugely unappreciated, play one in really good condition and it's just brilliant, possibly the fastest orbit shot in a game I've owned.

Every game of his that I have ever played, I really love. The titles I have played are limited but only because most of his are quite old and if I didn't play them long ago, they aren't common in the wild.

Sorry, I was busy hunting again and missed this post.

And the the 4 legged creatures I hunt are all machines...

I loved comet and cyclone but have not been able to play either now for about 2 yrs. sadly. A friend of mine had them but, due to his loss of a job he was forced to sell to meet the bills. I can't imagine why Ousler was so underappreciated except that they didn't seem to put the game designers on front street so much back in the day......

You forgot Popeye .. DH is the best imo.

Jim

I didn't realise it, but Oursler is probably my favourite designer, having Gorgar, BSD and Fire! ... not sure if I've more than 3 pins by any other designer... and if he carried on with the Pinbot trilogy, that makes 4 cos I've got BOP too...

Trudeau and Anghelo

But still a great pin!

I agree that Oursler is probably underappreciated by the average pinhead. The guy has some fantastic games under his belt. I personally think DW is his best, but Pin*Bot will always have a special place in my heart as the game that made me fall in love with pinball.

Well I do agree with you that he doesn't seem to get the respect the other guys get. I have owned 2 of his games - really enjoyed both (BSD & Pinbot)

Didn't realize Defender is an Oursler game, so I guess I have two of them. DW is awesome. I'd like to play a DH some time or even own one because I am a big Clint fan.

I really like cyclone, BSD, and DH. But don't always enjoy the center drains present on most of his titles.

Definitely under appreciated. I like DW the best of all his designs but DH and BSD are pretty sweet as well.

I had a chance to meet Barry and also if you listen to This Old Pinball podcast with Barry, he explains a little about why he doesn't get respect maybe as much as Richie or Lawler.. He explained that especially during the busier times, he could design and crank out a pinball MUCH faster than those guys could... He said in some cases Steve Richie would be working on a game for up to a year, while he could get a game out and done in less than 6 months. Remember, it's a business and the production lines had to keep going. I'm not pitting the two against each other, but that was the reality. Barry also explained that especially in the mid 80's up through close to his final game, he often tried to make games and themes that were a little easier/more family friendly in general, because many of the other guys were working on more of "Macho" themes... ie High Speed, F-14, Black Knight 2K etc... Oursler was doing Cyclone, Police Force, Bad Cats, Space Shuttle/Station Fire etc... He said this was also intentional... as was not having multi-ball in some of his games. Keeping it more simple.

So just something to think about....

Barry designed some of the best pins ever, for a LONG time. Oursler prob had the most games by far at williams that made it to production, not sure on overall production numbers. Let's not forget Barry also desinged Joust - One of the coolest pins ever!

I have ALOT of his games. My collection at 1 point consisted of mostly Oursler and Ritchie (still does for the most part, but I have branched out a bit!) games. He has some awesome titles!! Cosmic Gunfight, Solar Fire, Star Light...Bad Cats, Space Shuttle. I was lucky enough to meet him at Expo a couple years ago, and he is a very nice, quiet guy. I had him sign several of his pins that I had with me that year...

Phoebe

Whodunnit is one of my favs, I think his games are awesome!

I don't know about him making easy games - ....Pinbot, BSD, Jokerz - all hard games that kick my ass all the time.

I love his games. Easy to understand, hard to master. He currently holds 3 spots in my 7 game collection.

http://www.ipdb.org/search.pl?any=barry+oursler&search=Search+Database&searchtype=quick

here is a list of the titles he worked on.

Holy thread resurrect!

Dang Dave, I hope you have found an Oursler pin or two since your post to see if you still feel the same way about him...

oursler probably has the patent on killer outlanes.

Has anybody talked to him lately? I tried to contact him maybe a year ago and never got a response. Is he active anywhere? What's he doing these days?

Fire!

I think he did Time Warp too which sold a shit ton of games. Also pretty fun once you get the damn banana flippers off the game.