What games have displays in the playfield?

Was thinking about the different ways games communicate information to players, and how most games rely on inserts or backbox displays. It's pretty rare to actually put more discrete information right into the playfield itself.

Not sure what was the first, the earliest that's coming to mind for me is Medusa:

Medusa (resized).png

Was there one before that?

Scott used a similar idea in TNA:

spooky_tna2 (resized).jpg

Not thinking of other segment displays at the moment, those are the obvious ones for me because I owned them both. There must be more though.

Then there's straight up LCDs in the playfield.

Obviously Alien comes to my mind (and Full Throttle):

37123c77b16c4bfdb5a0ddccacdd9b24ec3c35fb.png (resized).jpg

but the first time I remember seeing the idea done in this kind of way was Captain Nemo:

cn03b (resized).jpg

Can anyone think of more examples? It seems less common that you'd think.

#2 1 year ago

SED

Steve_d71

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Bally's Vector

#3 1 year ago

ABB

Aurich

Quoted from Steve_d71:
Bally's Vector

Right, good call, forgot that one. Only played it once at Banning (RIP).

a91028ffdef5ce8955cf3792637b160d (resized).jpg

Vector is 82, Medusa 81, so Medusa came first.

#4 1 year ago

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ForceFlow

Full Throttle

There's a couple Gottlieb games that have a display in the apron: Time Line and Black Hole

@zacaj's homebrew Poker game had small displays in front of drop targets.

#5 1 year ago

ODENONMYSIDE513

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Stern Lightning has a display, also from 1981 but I'm not sure if it was before Medusa

#6 1 year ago

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SantaEatsCheese

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Rick and Morty

#7 1 year ago

FJB

FrankJ

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Gottlieb/Premier - Lights, Camera, Action 1989

#8 1 year ago

DUG

trilogybeer

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Black Hole has one. Also 1981.

#9 1 year ago

ABB

Aurich

Black Hole is a great example, because it has the apron too, good call ForceFlow and trilogybeer

file (resized).jpg

And right, Rick and Morty, Scott knew it was a good idea and kept it.

#10 1 year ago

ABB

Aurich

Quoted from FrankJ:
Gottlieb/Premier - Lights, Camera, Action 1989

Ooh, good call, even earlier than Medusa. I could have sworn I've played that, but looking at the playfield that huge display is not feeling familiar now.

16454476357_7ff045ee21_b (resized).jpg

#11 1 year ago

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ForceFlow

WoZ crystal ball, then LCD screens on Hobbit, Wonka, DI, GNR TS4, Houdini

#12 1 year ago

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#13 1 year ago

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Torpedo Alley and Bad Cats also have under playfield features. Sinking ship.

#14 1 year ago

BMC

athens95

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Gottlieb Haunted house

#15 1 year ago

MXZ

truemagoo102

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I mean I guess we can consider all of the Atari gamea....

#16 1 year ago

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ForceFlow

More: TSPP, Shaq Attaq, Monopoly, Spirit, Caveman, Gottlieb One on One prototype

Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:
Torpedo Alley and Bad Cats also have under playfield features. Sinking ship.

Those aren't displays, though--just lower playfield areas.

Quoted from truemagoo102:
I mean I guess we can consider all of the Atari gamea....

Technically, that's not an additional display. That's the primary scoring display.

#17 1 year ago

III

TreyBo69

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Fathom Mermaid Edition has the LCD screens in the apron in lieu of instruction and pricing cards. Rob Zombie had an official mod to replace the instruction card

I’m whatever about a display in the game (also Stern Star Wars and Batman 66), but I really like the idea of an instruction card that is dynamically updating.

Stranger Things projector is something unique too.

I love the idea of using little OLED screens as inserts instead of the typical mode inserts.

Also how has no one said P3? Gerry really needs to get to more shows.

#18 1 year ago

ABB

Aurich

Quoted from ForceFlow:
WoZ crystal ball, then LCD screens on Hobbit, Wonka, DI, GNR TS4, Houdini

I was kinda arbitrarily only thinking of actually built into the playfield not secondary displays above it. So wasn’t counting say TSPP either.

But any secondary display you can see without looking up could count I guess.

#19 1 year ago

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minnesota13

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Atari - The Atarians 1976 - Displays in the apron

#20 1 year ago

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zacaj

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Black hole, haunted house, and spirit all have bonus displays in the playfield

Bit of a stretch, but some 60s williams like the El Toro I picked up have a score reel under the playfield plastics to display a changing award. Not quite a "display" but considering that their "score displays" we're also reels....

There's also stuff like Gottliebs Masquerade where they project different stuff onto the undersides of inserts in the playfield to change what they say

Quoted from ForceFlow:
zacaj's homebrew Poker game had small displays in front of drop targets.

24 mini displays and a regular 9" lcd display, gotta be the record

I think the Airplane! homebrew also used 2-3 separate phone sized lcds for stuff....

Greek Gods has a see through screen in its playfield with another playfield underneath the screen which I believe is a first

#21 1 year ago

DSS

Haymaker

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What about whodunnit's slot machine in the playfield, does that count?

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#22 1 year ago

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wolverinetuner

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Technically, Hot Line had an early dot matrix on the playfield, probably the first, that lights up the letters H-O-T-L-I-N-E in sequence as the lit rollovers in the matrix displaying each letter are completed.

9C3856B2-4BC0-4A74-B1A4-D12BF824D379 (resized).jpeg

#23 1 year ago

MarkG

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'34 Rock-ola World's Series counted the outs on the playfield. Some say it was the first score reel.
See: https://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2815&picno=14487

#24 1 year ago

EJS

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Egghead and Square head have projected displays of X or O onto a plain insert on the playfield.

#25 1 year ago

III

TreyBo69

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Speaking of first “dot matrix” display, should it be Space Shuttle’s middle inserts? It does a countdown display effect.

#26 1 year ago

TBM

Zablon

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No one mentioned Circus Voltaire yet? Technically the display is on the pf.

And then you have the Pin2000 games as well.

#27 1 year ago

???

Yoko2una

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OP
Quoted from Aurich:
I was kinda arbitrarily only thinking of actually built into the playfield not secondary displays above it. So wasn’t counting say TSPP either.
But any secondary display you can see without looking up could count I guess.

Whoa Nellie now enters the conversation if you have a microscope.

#28 1 year ago

ABB

Aurich

Quoted from Yoko2una:
Whoa Nellie now enters the conversation if you have a microscope.

lol I forgot about that mini LCD screen

#29 1 year ago

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Eskaybee

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P3 count? They probably do it best with ball tracking, no?

#30 1 year ago

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sunnRAT

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Night Moves and Caribbean Cruise (International Concepts/Gottlieb, 1989)

9397779a79e35f0ed43cbd54b5069a19e47be3fe (resized).jpgd486dda0677d8ab41fddc58ea71ed8a88e781375 (resized).jpg

#31 1 year ago

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GoldenBeard

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I thought I saw a new game that was coming out or recently released has displays in the apron. I feel like it was the new Fathom Seawitch Mermaid game but I also could be making that up. And no I’m not googling it.

#32 1 year ago

PGR

VALIS666

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Haven't seen Celts or Wheel of Fortune mentioned yet.

#33 1 year ago

JAY

dirkdiggler

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#34 1 year ago

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Zablon

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Quoted from GoldenBeard:
I thought I saw a new game that was coming out or recently released has displays in the apron. I feel like it was the new Fathom Seawitch Mermaid game but I also could be making that up. And no I’m not googling it.

The Primus game has a LED scoring display on the apron.

#35 1 year ago

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Zablon

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Quoted from Zablon:
The Primus game has a LED scoring display on the apron.

And now that I think about it

Simpsons Pinball Party has a display on the pf
Ripleys Believe it or Not does as well
So does Monopoly

#36 1 year ago

???

littlecammi

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Starship Troopers.
SST playfield (resized).png

#37 1 year ago

ABB

Aurich

Quoted from TreyBo69:
Also how has no one said P3? Gerry really needs to get to more shows.

Technically I said displays in that playfield, not displays that are the playfield.

#38 1 year ago

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ForceFlow