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- description
- Magic Squares is a backglass mechanism of [[manufacturer:bally]]'s [[game-format:bingo-pinball]] machines: blocks of four numbers on the game's [[gameplay-feature:bingo-cards]] are mounted on wheels behind the glass, and buttons on the cabinet's foot rail turn each block a quarter-turn at a time, rearranging the card itself.[1] A ball already resting in a numbered hole stays put while the card moves around it, so a player can rotate a near miss into a paying line after the shooting is done.[1] The squares sat in the corners of the card at first, and players took to calling the feature "turning corners".[2]
## Origins
The first Magic Squares game was *[[title:broadway-3]]* (1955, Bally).[3][4] Like most things on a bingo, the rotation ran on money: whether the buttons worked at all, and how deep into the game they stayed live, were features the player bought with additional coins.[5][6]
## The arms race
Magic Squares was one round in an arms race — through the 1950s Bally's bingos grew steadily more elaborate, each new machine adding another way to work the card.[7] It followed the moving numbers of [[gameplay-feature:magic-lines]], introduced on *[[title:variety-2]]* (1954),[8] and was answered in turn by the [[gameplay-feature:magic-screen]] in 1958 and [[gameplay-feature:mystic-lines]] in 1965. The wheels earned their keep for two decades — Bally was still building Magic Squares games as late as *[[title:bonanza-4]]* (1976).
1. Bingo Pinballs — https://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/bally/broadway Some of the numbers on the bingo card are are mounted on wheels (behind the backglass), and pushing buttons on the foot rail allows you to rotate the wheels to rearrange the numbers into paying combinations.
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- name
- Magic Squares
- slug
- magic-squares
- status
- active