Back Backbox Playfields

Edit History

  1. By Flipcommons AI Descriptions (GameplayFeature)
    description
    A backbox playfield is a second, upright playing surface standing in the backbox above a machine's ordinary sloping one. The game has both, and the ball travels between them — up to the vertical surface for a spell of play there, then back down to the main one. [[manufacturer:genco]] built the idea mechanically in the early 1950s, as something to watch rather than to play. On *[[title:double-action-2]]* (1951) a ball settling in a Double Action hole stays put and "activates a flipperless vertical playfield in the backbox where the next captive ball is mechanically lifted to the top and released to fall through pins",[1] scoring on its way down before the held ball is returned to play. *[[title:springtime]]* followed three months later with the same arrangement, and carried its result further: "the scores from the flipperless vertical playfield carry-over to the next game".[2] ## Made playable The solid-state era handed the upper surface its own flippers. [[manufacturer:williams]] prototyped it in 1987 on *[[title:wreckn-ball]]*, where "a vertical moving track lifts the ball in play to the vertical playfield in the backbox" and returns it below when it drains.[3] That machine never shipped; retooled with a motocross theme it became *[[title:banzai-run]]* (1988), which raises the ball the same way, by "a magnet on a moving vertical track".[4] The result is a game played on two surfaces at right angles to each other, and the best-known machine of this shape.
    1.
    Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) — Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) #706
    activates a flipperless vertical playfield in the backbox where the next captive ball is mechanically lifted to the top and released to fall through pins
    2.
    Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) — Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) #2326
    The scores from the flipperless vertical playfield carry-over to the next game.
    3.
    Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) — Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) #6167 Homepage
    A vertical moving track lifts the ball in play to the vertical playfield in the backbox.
    4.
    Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) — Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) #175
    A magnet on a moving vertical track lifts the ball in play to the vertical playfield in the backbox.
  2. By Flipcommons Catalog
    gameplay_feature_parent
    Parent
    Vertical Playfields
    name
    Backbox Playfields
    slug
    backbox-playfields
    status
    active