It is not a prototype it is a NOS second run. By law, they had to keep parts available
for a proximately Five years. Good Find.

The coin-op industry had to keep parts available for their games.
In California, CA Robinson had to keep parts available for five years.
I had to order ramps for Jokers and I placed an order after three years
almost four years after the game was released. I had to wait six months
but the parts finally came in. I have ordered parts for games five years after production
and got the dreaded NLA. My friend ordered parts to turkey shoot and could not get
any because the game never really went into production. Ordering parts for Gameplan
was always a touch and go situation. Sometimes you were lucky and sometimes you were
not lucky.

Its the same kind of regulation that the car manufacturers have....
You don't by a car and thirty days later the windshield breaks and
you go to the dealers and order the parts and to have NLA.

And there you go... two years after the game was in production.
Sadly they just did not care about the color quality/consistency.
I did a playfield swap with a FirePower 2nd/rejected nos playfield. The colors
were silkscreened out of sequence... it ended up having a lot of olive green
color stuff everywhere. The game just looked wonky but clean.
Remember, back in the day they did not waste stuff....the manufacturers just
sold rejected 2nds as NOS.

From what I could see from your photograph, it looks like it is missing another screen.
There seems to be more dark stuff on the original playfield; on the left side of the planet.
As compared to the right playfield. I am going to assume they forgot a screen. Again, the
line that controlled parts availability did not have a good quality management. They were just
making stuff to meet the demand. The playfield is a neat find. Congratulations.

O.K. here is that color on the original Firepower, it is not blue, it is a dark gray purple.
Aporximent color combination of...
Purple 66.7
Ref.Blue 22.2
Black 11.1
Your Firepower playfield NOS was silk screened in Dark Magenta.

gmkalos
Thanks for posting a closeup of the center playfield.

1) Faceted inserts..... the supplier to Williams electronics went out of business.
---- 4 point emblem on clear transparent rollover lanes, Ribbed posts, Faucettop/starburst
---- bottom posts, aka "1/2 and 1/2 posts", jewel-cut inserts and arrows aka "Black Knight"
---- inserts. Gone in 1981/1982. All trademarks of the prior supplier.
---- Foremost plastics "starburst inserts" replaced what Williams had, starting with
---- the game 1982 Solar Fire.
2) Clear coat... Manufactures were experimenting mid 1985/1986 on forward... Bally very much so.
---- eg. "Plastic playfield" Speak Easy. Premer/Gottlieb plastic overlay, eg. Transporter and
---- Diamond Lady. Williams had "Diamond plate". Heck, I even complained and sent in the Williams
---- score/data card to the Comet pinball I had... and Williams sent me a new playfield. They were
---- testing a new silk screening company to go under contract with... needs to say, the
---- silk screening company lost the contract.
3) Star Rollover cap was customary in all manufacturing process; period.
---- The manufacturers do not have the time to "clean out" each star rollover.
---- Take a hammer tap it out the insert plug and insert the white star part of the assembly
---- and you're good to go to the next step on the assembly line.
Note: examine your playfield star rollovers you can see where the clearcoat tears have been on the
----- surface of the plastic.
4) No dimples. Of course not... The NOS playfield is not part of the current assembly line.
---- When Bally rereleased Eight Ball Deluxe you were able to get a playfield
---- that had its holes drilled and dimples put into place... but after a while...
---- The NOS playfield would be missing the pre-drilled holes and dimple stampings.
---- Why? Because Bally moved on to a new game.

You have starburst insert lenses, not faceted inset lenses.
By 1981 Foremost plastics is supplying all pinball manufactures.
Alien Poker would be the last production pinball to have flat regular inserts
Black Knight would have the faceted inserts.
Sometime after Black Knight, the company supplying Williams would go under.
Pharaoh pinball has starburst inserts.
Baracoa pinball has starburst inserts.
Firepower reissued playfields would have been made with what was available
at that particular time..1981-1982... = starburst inserts.
I looked at the IPDB and even the "prototype Firepower" had regular plane insert lenses.
Classic playfields reproductions started the starburst lenses thing on their reproduction
Firepower playfields because that was the sample playfield they had. Williams must have
had the copyrights to the "hotdog" lenses. Bally must have had the copyrights to the
small rounded arrow lenses. Neither used others inserts until they merged. eg. Police force.

Curious question? Did you get the Game Plan Loch Ness Monster pinball from FabFan?

That's the game designer Jon Norris.

I got to play the proto Tommy when it first came out.
I do not know if the program was ever finished and corrected.

Very nice.

I was able to get the extra pieces when I bought a set from the Bally distributor.
One needs six metal bell spacers to finish the pieces plus the extra screws.

The wonky kicker setup reminds me of Comet.

I recall a preorder group you could join for Laser War.
It was a limited time to join before the game was made.
You got the bomber jacket and any patch that came out.
That was all I could remember.
Data East gave long term employees some great perks.
Sadly, Sega canceled a lot of the things that Data East offered.