WIDE BODY! Plays pretty fast considering the size. Easy to pick up rules but damn I sucked at this...don't know if its that hard or not but I played about ten games on it and it ate me alive. Fun game.

Great art, a crazy theme, can't imagine where the idea came from but it is as original as it gets.

Future spa is not bad but is a pale copy of paragon. Worse theme, worse artwork, worse gameplay. I cannot find a single gameplay element for which I would prefer future spa. it has everything people tend to dislike about wide bodies.
I like the inline drop targets (I like them too on Paragon). Game score is bonus heavy as for many Ballys from the same period. The left outlane door is cool.

Fun with a nice wide-body layout. Challenging without a sense of panic, relatively long ball times. Compared to Paragon there are less satisfaction shots and more of an all-over necessity to play the whole game.

Future Spa is a very good game, similar to Paragon. Early widebody at it's best. A really unique inlane/outlane configuration with an important gate on the left. This game is every bit as good as Paragon. It just doesn't get as much love due to the theme.

I spent a lot of time rehabbing a Future Spa for a customer. In that time, I got the game running the way it should run, cleaning and waxing it, and rebuilding the drop target assembly.

I had to spend time testing it, and found that after I put three-inch leg levelers on the rear legs, jacked all the way up, and put shorter than normal legs on the front, the game got more interesting!

I'm not a fan of widebody pins. I find them to be slower and more plodding games. Future Spa was no exception. It has some nice aspects to the game. I like the in-line drop targets, and how you have to be more and more accurate to hit the targets in the rear of the assembly. The flippers, thumpers, and one slingshot are nice and strong, but there's just so much open space on this playfield...

Not bad, but not a winner...

The backglass is the highlight of this game. Every time I see it with a friend I have to ask when are we going to hit the gym and do some laser curls. My biggest complaint about the FS playfield is the location of the spinners. Its freaking hard to get a good shot at those spinners because they are so far to the left and right on the playfield. Collect future spa letters for bonus and crank the inline drops. Decent game but nothing special

Not a bad pin from that early SS era, Future Spa is a fun and campy pin. It's not a perfect pin by any means, but when I see one on route, I'd play it.

Future Spa is a game that I had played only a few times before and it felt slow and boring. I noticed it recently after tiltwarning put a video up of it. Flipper McGill's in Idaho Springs (R.I.P.) had one on site and I sat down with it (just had my left knee rebuilt) for an afternoon.

The Pros:
A different layout with two of my favorite artists Mr. Christensen and Mr. Faris doing the honors. Different artistic styles, but I never really noticed the discrepancy until it was pointed out to me. I always thought it was another Faris package. When I had an idea of what to do... this game is alright. It plays much better than I remembered. Upper rollovers to open the gate are your skill shot and once the spinners are lit, you have to go for them. The sparkle vision BG is a nice touch. I don't remember seeing it on any other games. Inline drops are always a plus.

The Cons:
This game must be fresh, waxy and steep or it will feel deader than a Osama Bin Ladin's bodyguards. Pop Bumpers on the lower right must be active. Standard issue deathshot standup target is in full effect. Do not shoot for it. ever! The rollover and saucer on the upper right only score a few points. These are really cool shots (esp. the u-turn rollover shot) but because their value is so low in the big picture of this game, it makes the whole middle of the PF rather worthless.

The Takeaway:
Boy this game feels wider than it is longer. I mean, it's got a buh-donk-a-donk. Your shots are the inline drops and the spinners once you get this game up and running. To make this shots you are shooting all the way across the PF. If you miss... the ball starts bouncing back and forth toward the sides. Now every shot you make can be a real risk. This game is all about the inline drops to multiply your bonus. Once you build your bonus, it carries over. In this sense it has a semi-paragon strategy to it. Ball 1 is crucial to score the 18k/36k bonus and keep it for every ball. The outer left lane is incredibly important to building bonus and makes any ball in that area of the PF a risk/reward consideration. Very different and the only game I can think of with a lane like this one. An interesting game that plays better than expected IF properly maintained.

Had this one in the collection some years back.Not bad for a Bally wide body,but no Paragon.

Has a whacky theme and some good shot variety.Shooting the inline drop targets can lead to certain drains.

See PAPA tutorial on youtube for a properly set up and playing Future Spa. This game is fast, fair and fun..what more do you want in a pin especially from 1979! Had the chance to buy THE Future Spa I played back in the day, it was one of my favorites along with Silverball Mania, so I bought it. When tuned properly, waxed and thoughtfully programmed, game is challenging with lots of classic Bally angles. The in line drops for bonus multiplies, see Paragon, saucer, spelling game with "spa" requiring risk/reward straight up the middle shots, the side gate (as a kid that was a real draw when deciding how to spend those precious quarters) Bally flippers are super strong, so you can crank those back legs right up...this is a 1979 machine, put it up against an EM and it's like a model t and a ford 150, sounds where cutting edge for the time. Art work, to me, is awesome awesome awesome, it's pure late 70's as only Bally could do it. Like most games from this era, maintenance and tuning makes all the difference in game play. Find a great machine and buy it if you can...

The least fun of the super widebodies Bally's by far in my opinon. Inline drop targets are very hard to hit since you have to hit the pinball on the move or try risky flipper moves to get the ball to the right flipper. Shot angles are somewhat akward. Hard to play and hard to love. But they do get attention at pinball festivals. Backglass is odd but interesting. Lower right bumper arrangement and drain lane are very irritating (Paragon is similiar).

My first widebody game. Very slow, the ball spends a lot of time moving around but not doing anything. Backglass and playfield art are great but since they were done by two different artists, don't really match. The cabinet artwork could have been done better. What does a ringed planet have to do with a gym? How about a chick in a bikini? The background noise is a continuous "flying saucer" sound. Annoying, but at least you can turn it off.