History of Bell Games

by Federico Croci, written in 1990

A history of Italian pinball kit refurbishments

Bell Games manufacturing facilities (1984)
Bell Games manufacturing facilities (Bologna, Italy, 1984)

Maybe not everyone has played or even heard of a pinball from BELL GAMES; they were one of the more famous manufacturers of kits for pinballs. They changed their name from the original BELL-COIN-MATICS , inspired by the name and the bell logo of a famous slot-machine manufacturer to BELL GAMES, the most well known version, and finally to NUOVA BELL GAMES, (New Bell Games). They produced their last pin, "UBOAT 65", in 1988. Since then they have been producing special coin-operated games for amusement parks, under the new name, ALPHA. This is a short history of their company and products. If you have some comments to make or something to ask, please feel free to write to me at the address wiz@tilt.it.

What is a kit? Something to transform an old pinball into something more interesting to the players, giving them the illusion that they are playing a brand new game, but without the expense to the operator of buying a new game. Kit manufacturers can be divided into two groups: those who only copy another existing game, maintaining the same playfield layout of the bumpers, targets, etc., and those who not only change the artwork, but also try to make the game more interesting, with a different playfield layout.

Usually, a kit consists of:

(1) A new backglass designed to use the same lamps and displays of the game being modified. For example, the "GAME OVER" lamp must be in the same position as it was in the backglass designed to originally fit that backbox. It is to be noted that while a kit produced for electro-mechanical (EM) games was usually dedicated to convert one particular game only (the backbox lites, for example, were almost never in the same position from one EM pinball to-another); kits built for solid-state (SS) games are easily installable on all similar cabinets. Bally pinballs manufactured from 1976 to 1985, for example, used almost identical cabinets and backboxes, with little or no changes between them. There are exceptions, such as machines like "Six Million Dollar Man" (1978),"Space Invaders", "Xenon"(1980) and backboxes with the 'infinity' effect or "Mr. & Mrs. Pacman" (1982), featuring a very different backbox design. Where the new kit has 7-digit scoring and the pinball to be converted has the old 6-digit scoring system Bell Games gave away a dummy zero digit to be added to the right of the score displays, and lit by a normal lamp.

(2) A new playfield, to be installed in the old cabinet after removing the original one. The playfields are usually available both with the components (bumpers, lamps, wires, etc.) installed or with only the bare painted wood. In this case it is necessary to remove the old components from the redundant playfield and install them on the new one. The new playfield is usually a perfect copy of another original game, but with different artwork and graphics. Almost every time it is completed with a set of new plastics, (isles, top arch, bumper caps, etc.), but sometimes the old ones can be used. However, it is possible that the playfield features are arranged differently, or even that there are some differences in the gameplay or in the scoring, etc. In this case the kit consists also of a different memory chip to replace the original one. Note that to change the gameplay it is not necessary to study and program a new memory chip, but it is possible to use a different chip removed from another game; usually an old one previously modified.

But Bell Games went a step further: together with the changes described above they also gave operators the possibility of changing the cabinet external appereance, by applying special metal masks to cover all the old cabinet and backbox sides. This was a quicker and more economical alternative to repainting the whole game; also, usually the result was better looking.

A lot of factories in Italy, during the years 1960 - 1979, used to produce kits to upgrade an older pinball into something new, by changing only the backglass and the playfield, using the same circuitry as the old game. This was the destiny of a lot of interesting, (from a collector's point of view), Gottlieb games and often they were rare Italian versions, as they were more popular here in Italy. Some old Bally and Williams' games also met the same fate. Usually, the game resulting wasn't very good as far as playability went! It was far more interesting for its artwork, as the playfield and the rules of the game were obviously very similar to the game which inspired that kit. ZACCARIA, now Mr.Game, still based near Bologna, in the North of Italy, the major Italian manufacturer of those years, started in this way by supplying kits to upgrade old Williams' pins. Usually they consisted of Gottlieb games adapted to run on Williams' hardware. Then they continued producing original games, but still today you can see the Williams' influence in their hardware, if not in the game rules. Some information about their current production: their latest pinball is the not very successful "WORLD CUP '90", with artwork, game design and rules by Tony Ramunni . It is rumoured it will be their last, as some people are saying they are going to close and stop the production of pinballs.

RMG , founded near Bologna (as were the majority of all the factories), maybe was the leading manufacturer of electromechanical kits. They were very organized in the full reconditioning of used pinball games, being able to completely change playfields by closing the various existing holes and re-silkscreening them, together with cabinets and even backglasses. Today they produce well-known cabinets for video-games, but their warehouses are still full of thousands of bare Gottlieb playfields, discarded cabinets and piles of coils.

Almost all these manufacturers stopped their production of kits and copies of original games with the advent of electronics. Some of them, like EUROPLAY (again based in Bologna), produced some EM versions of the very first SS pinballs. Their major success was a one-player EM version of the Gottlieb SS pinball "SINBAD". However their destiny was sealed: no one was able to use the electronic technology.

In 1978 Mr. Cavazza founded BELL GAMES, at that time called Bell-Coin-Matics. This factory was also based in Bologna; at one time there were more pinball factories in Bologna than in Chicago! (It is stated erroneously in "Pinball: the lure of the silverball" in the European manufacturers section on page 121 that Bell Games was a Spanish manufacturer.! Bell Games specialised in producing kits for Bally pinballs, but occasionally they made something for Zaccaria and Williams games. Their first kit called "THE KING" was produced in 1978. I've never seen that game, apart from it's backglass which is hanging in one of their offices, and features a character very similar to Elvis Presley. (You' 11 be able to see it in Keith Temple's new book "Pinbal Art" , due out in the next few months.) It was a kit to modify the first electronic Bally games that were appearing at that time. No more than 60-70 were made but despite the limited production it was a big success. They were entirely made by hand at that time as their marketing policy was to offer big discounts off the price of a new kit if the operator brought them an old EM Bally game, or even one of the latest SS pinballs, working or not! Why they did this is obvious if you look closely at the majority of their games: the cabinets (and the last EM games had the same cabinet as the SS ones for some years), were recycled by repainting or covering their external sides with metal painted parts. The same went for the electronic components. In this way Bell Games was able to go on producing new kits by only using used parts brought in by the operators in the form of old games. They only made from new the backglasses, the playfields and the plastics.

The next game was "WHITE SHARK" (1980). Originally, it was a 1-player kit manufactured by EUROPLAY to upgrade old EM Gottlieb games. It's playfield was inspired by "Playboy" (Belly, 1978). Bell Games modified this Europlay production, converting it to a 4-player kit, maintaining exactly the same playfield and graphics.

In 1980, after "COSMODROME" came "SEXY GIRL", another "Playboy" inspired game, featuring an area, just above the flippers with a small projector showing X-rated photos of girls. Very often this feature was turned off, or the pictures removed by the operators.

"THE HUNTER" (1980) was a simplified version of Gottlieb's "Sinbad" (1978). This can be easily noted by its playfield and the design of the bottom card-holder, identical to the Gottlieb original.

The three kits which followed, again in 1980, "FRONTIER", "FIREBALL II" and "FLASH GORDON" , were exact copies of the Bally games of the same name. Obviously they were more simplified from the economic and production point of view. For example there was no center bonus capsule in "Fireball II" ; and in "Flash Gordon". the stroposcopic light was removed and the double-eject saucer hole replaced with a normal one. These kits were also produced throughout 1981.

In 1982 there was only one new kit manufactured: "FANTASY" , a copy of Bally's "Centaur" (1981). As in this case, all the copies of Bally games featured almost the same artwork as the original, apart from the fact that every woman casually appearing in the original usually lost a lot of her clothing during the copying process!

In 1983, for the first time, Bell Games produced a kit copying a non-Belly game: "PINBALL CHAMP '82", a great 1982 hit from Zaccaria. It was followed, one year later, by "PIN BALL POOL" , inspired by "Eight Ball De Luxe" (Belly, 1981). The playfield of "COSMIC FLASH" (1984) was built with several elements taken from Bally's "Flash Gordon" like the two different bonus systems. From "Centaur" the one-way gates in the two outer outlanes which permit the ball, with sufficient 'English', to return to the flippers, were borrowed. Two other kits built in 1984 were "SUPER BOWL" (from "X's & O's", Bally 1983) and "TIGER RAG" ("Kings of Steel", Bally 1984). Of the latter you can read a review by John Whyatt. "NEW WAVE" , built in 1985 and featuring a punk in the backglass, was a copy of Bally's "Black Pyramid" (1984).

"SATURN II" which copied the gameplay of "Spy Hunter", (Belly, 1984) sold more than 1200 kits. Usually Bell Games built no more than 350-400 copies of each game. "Seturn II" was their best-seller, and for the first time they were forced to build their own printed circuits to meet the increasing demand from operators. All the games built up to this time used recycled parts from the Bally SS games they took in part exchange. In their warehouse you can still see hundreds of Bally backglasses, cabinets, legs and coin doors. They all came from EM & SS games from "Freedom" up to "Cybernaut". But now, for the first time, they were suffering a cabinet shortage so they made 12 cabinets for "Saturn II" from new. A real collector's item, these 12 "Saturn II"!

"WORLD DEFENDER" , made after the success of "Saturn II", sold about 700 units. ln the backglass, there was a good reproduction of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a 'terminator'. The playfield was a mixture of Williams' "Laser Cue" (1984) and "Alien Poker" (1980), and some other elements taken from various other pinballs. "SPACE HAWKS" (1986) was a good game, with the playfield copied from the 1985 Bally game "Cybernaut".

A great change occoured in 1986 with "DARK SHADOW" . Not only did it have an original playfield, but the entire run of complete games featured a brand new cabinet and coin door, not a recycled one! By the way, this and all subsequent games prodeuced were also available as kits. "SKILL FLIGHT" (1986), again an original pinball with a new style cabinet, featured a good playfield with a small working helicopter on it. It also had a short but nice soundtrack of completely digitized music. Complete with a rotating light on the head it was in some way reminiscent of the big Williams' success of the same year, "High Speed". "COBRA" (1987) featured a police-theme playfield, inspired by the movie with Sylvester Stallone starring the policeman Marion 'Cobra' Cobretti. "FUTURE QUEEN" with two car-lights on the backbox, was another good original game. It is to be noted that these last three pinballs, "Skill Flight", "Cobra" and "Future Queen" used a new style cabinet and backbox. They were different from all the other previously released games as they were available only as complete games.

"F1 GRAND PRIX" (1987) introduced some industry firsts; some of them still unique today. With no shooter spring (like in the 1987 Gottlieb game, "Spring Break"), the ball was launched into play by pressing the right flipper button. Three horizontally revolving targets and a disappearing spinner target make this their most complete and complicated game, but unfortunately with very little playability.

With "TOP PIN" (1988), a perfect copy of Williams' "Pinbot" (1986),only the left drop target bank was replaced by three standing targets; Bell Games returned to the production of kits. This one was available with two slightly different backglasses, one suitable for installation on Bally games and one for the conversion of old Zaccaria pinballs. Their last kit, "UBOAT 65" (1988), with a sign on the top of the backbox representing a submarine, was only a different arrangement of the same "Top Pin" playfield and features.

In conclusion, BELL GAMES made some interesting and due to the low production quantities, very rare, original games. Unfortunately the poor quality of the parts built by them, (for example thin plastics which were easy to break) was always present. But they always tried to keep their prices low, as their good fortune was the rise of the Dollar with respect to the European currencies. This made the original American games much too expensive to buy in Europe. As soon as the Dollar value began to drop, their games were no longer attractive to the operators, as the original games became more affordable. This is, although in a minor degree, also applicable to Zaccaria-Mr.Game products.

Click here to see a description of a Bell Games' kit, as shown in one of their manual.

You can also read a review of Tiger Rag, a Bell Games' kit, written by John Whyatt.