Chapter 4:
Some considerations
That's about all there is to say about the game and how it plays. It all seems very simple, don't you think? And to be honest, I was more interested in the fact that I had bought a game that appeared brand new than in the fact that it was such a rare game. It wasn't the first electro-mechanical head-to-head game that I had ever seen. During my quest to track down Bally pinballs I found a lot of them. They were all electro-mechanical of course, made by German and Italian manufacturers. They all looked like they had been copied from the same game with slight differences between them. For example, the graphics differed slightly, but I don't know which machine was the original. The first generally known head-to-head game was Gottlieb's Challenger, built in 1971. So, isn't it possible that these games were copies of American games? It was common practice in those days for pinballs built outside the USA to be copies. And, by the way, Challenger was very different from all these other games, with scoring etc.
At this point I started to believe that the head-to-head game was an Italian invention. The dominant theme of all these games is soccer, (and today it still is. Just look at the A.G. Soccer Ball game). That was a popular theme throughout Europe, especially in Italy. The first Italian game of that kind of which I have news is Elettrogiochi "Calcio Italia" (see picture #1 in the section below). It had four bumpers and twelve flippers, a layout similar to a lot of head-to-head games built before. There was a portion of text on the game explaining that this was a new kind of game. This was important as in 1965 an Italian law was passed which prohibited all flipper games that awarded replays. Only non-replay games were allowed and Italian and foreign manufacturers started to think of new types of game, like these soccer games. After "Calcio Italia" there were several head-to-head games, such as "Selencup" and "Bowlingirl" (see picture #2 in the section below). The latter was themed on bowling, and I believe this to have been the only head-to-head game not to be based on soccer. The choice of this theme may have been dictated by the fact that the playfield and cabinet graphics were copied from the 1973 Gottlieb game, Ten Up, which was the Italian version of King Pin. The same manufacturer had already built a copy of the original Gottlieb pintable. I recently received from my friend, Bernard Marrou in France, a copy of the flyer of a French head-to-head game, Star Foot. The playfield was different from the others with only two bumpers and one pair of flippers for each player. The date of the magazine from which the flyer had been taken was January 1964.
So far I've not found any evidence of any older head-to-head games. There can only be one conclusion: head-to-head games originated in France. Unless anyone else out there knows better! Obviously, other games could have been built without the benefit of a flyer to accompany them. However, these games were quite different from the standard type of pinball machine and are therefore likely to be remembered, even by those who saw them once only.
Illustrations mentioned in this chapter:
- Calcio Italia made by Elettronolo (Italy)
- Bowlingirl by Artigiana Ricambi, their only game.