Media Platforms Design TeamChallengerBally, 1971Media Platforms Design TeamMultiplayer pinball usually involves players taking turns. This game sought to cut out the waiting. This double-long table features flippers on both ends, allowing (in fact, requiring—there was no single-player mode) players to do all they could to sink balls past their opponent’s flippers. In effect, it had as much in common with foosball as with pinball.Orbitor 1Stern, 1982Media Platforms Design TeamObritor 1 is one of the strangest—and most minimal—games around.Obritor 1 is one of the strangest—and most minimal—games around. The sparse playfield is populated with little more than two spin bumpers. When a ball gets close to one of them, a series of magnets kick in, hits one, it causes the ball to orbit in circles around the bumpers before shooting off in an unpredictable direction across the invisible sloping playfield. The strikingly designed playfield creates the illusion of a 3D lunar landscape by running the ball over a transparent layer that covers craters.Haunted HouseGottleib, 1982Media Platforms Design TeamOne of the most complex games ever made, Haunted House was packed with eight (count ’em: eight!) flippers, and three playfield levels. The most striking feature: Knock the ball into the right hole, and it falls into a hidden sublevel where you can kick it around with backwards-facing flippers.Night MovesInternational Concepts, 1989Media Platforms Design TeamThe vast majority of pinball machines are stand-up affairs. This “money machine of the ’90s” (as its marketing flyer calls it) took its design cues from a Ms. Pac-Man machine—it’s built into a sit-down table, perfect for pizza parlors. Super Mario Bros. Mushroom WorldGottleib, 1992Media Platforms Design TeamThis miniature game was built for children—pinball operators could switch its height between a 30- and a 38-inch setting, bringing it down to a more kid-friendly level. It was also the first pinball that could be set as either a standard game or a redemption machine (meaning it spewed out tickets that could be exchanged for trinkets).Revenge From MarsBally, 1999Media Platforms Design TeamIn 1999, pinball giant Williams (which had since gobbled up big names such as Bally and Midway) developed a last-ditch project that it hoped would save the company’s floundering pinball division. The result: Pinball 2000, a creative pinball and video game hybrid where the ball interacted with holographic animated targets that were projected onto the playing field. Only two Pinball 2000 games were ever made: Revenge From Mars, and Star Wars: Episode 1.
