word mining central
Eight Ball Deluxe, Bally, standard edition, 1980.
A tough looking cowboy shoots a cue ball at the eight ball in the center of the backglass. To the left, a cowgirl rides a mechanical bull. To the right, a cowgirl and two cowboys stand leaning their backs on the bar. Rope is used as the border of the various designs.
Bad Girls, by Gottlieb, 1988.
This backglass is a giant photo of a bar or possibly pool hall.Front and center is a small pool table with chrome stripes around its table walls. Women are playing pool – one in black stockings and a pink strapless dress, one in a black strapless leather shirt and pink shirt (and again with the stockings) and one in a black bikini top and pink skirt. Some random men stand around in the background watching the girls. “Bad Girls” is written in a handwriting script up in the top right corner.
All I can say is between the stilettos and the tight clothes, that’s a hell of an uncomfortable way to play pool.
Dragon, Interflip 1977.
First of all, the color scheme is red, lime green, hot pink, and a saturated blue.
A pink woman with green hair and exposed breasts lay on the floor, presumably unconscious.
A pink man with a green ponytail, wearing a green scaled thong / banana hammock / whatever you would like to call it stands over the woman.
A five-headed dragon with the body of a snake is… attacking the people? Being forced to attack the woman by the man? Has a really frantic case of the zoomies? Its tail coils down the hall behind them. Its heads look like my dogs when they’re total baffled by a squirrel. The man is holding one of the coils in one hand and preparing to throw a fireball with the other.
Did I mention the walkway they’re on looks like it falls off a cliff on both jagged sides?
I love this era of just wacky-ass art.
Bonus: when you knock down a dragon target on the table (and there’s a bunch of them) the machine tries to roar like a dragon but it really sounds like it’s yelling BAAAOOOOOWWWW
Dialed In, 2016, Jersey Jack. The first Jersey Jack on this list, it’s an ultra-modern machine with a 26 inch flatscreen monitor in the backbox which serves as both the scoreboard and a guide to the game.
The conceit of this machine is that you are saving a SimCity-like town from destructive forces such as aliens, volcanos, whirlwinds, EMP pulses, etc.
Because of the screen there’s not much art directly on the backbox, just a few aliens and monsters and people pointing up and screaming at them in alarm.
The monitor features animated clips that function as backbox art to pull players in when the game isn’t running.
The video above opens with the Jersey Jack logo, then fades to a computer animated city in the background and an animated tutorial for inserting a coin and hitting the start button in a bubble in the foreground. When in free play mode it goes on to stress that up to 4 players can play and no seriously hit the start button already.
When that fades out an animated sign that reads “Welcome to Quantum City” displays. “We’re probably here… and so are you!” is the town’s physics-joke tagline.
After that we swap to the title card: a city skyline behind the title “Dialed In!” Below that the subtitle “What would you do if you had *the power*” displays and a small splash of “Chaos in Quantum City” decorates the corner of the title.
Meanwhile, that beautify city skyline has switched from blue skies to clouds to a meteor bombardment.
So there’s that.
After that the game warns you that it might take your photo and how to shut that off. Then (not shown) it loops through top scores of various types and starts the process over.
Cyclone, Williams, 1988.
Remember Comet? This is the sequel, which means more weirdness. Now the backboard includes not only the scoreboard but also a spinning Mystery Wheel that spins to show you what you’ve won for the mystery shot, and a “test your strength”-like display on the far left for the current value of the jackpot.
Oh, and another rollercoaster of imminent death, this time with caricatures of Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the front seats. She’s wearing a “say no to drugs” tee and he’s wearing a suit. There’s a bunch of others on the rollercoaster including a punk and a couple of kids. And the rollercoaster has a murderous face. And it’s spiraling out of the word Comet through some loops in the fireworks and up to the front.
And a creepy clown with a large duck or small goose standing on his foot. Because why not.