Little Chief

The Little Chief, designed by Steve Kordek with artwork by Christian Marche, was produced by Williams Electronics in September 1975. This four-player, American West-themed electro-mechanical game had a healthy confirmed production run of 6,300 units under model number 458, arriving in the final years of the EM era before solid-state electronics transformed the industry.

The playfield offers two flippers, two pop bumpers, two slingshots, a standup target, a kick-out hole, and a mid-field ball return gate. An end-of-ball bonus adds a layer of strategy, rewarding players for building value during each ball, and the replay wheel maxes out at 37. Sound comes from three chimes and a knocker, the classic EM audio package.

The pairing of designer Steve Kordek, the Williams veteran famous for popularizing the two-flipper bottom layout back in 1948, and artist Christian Marche, whose angular, stylized figures defined the look of 1970s Williams games, makes Little Chief a characteristic example of the company's mid-1970s output. Amusingly, the manufacturer's flyer included the grammatically baffling line: "Little Chief is a superb action game with exciting skill shots, astonishing rebound ball action and balanced top to the bottom of the playfield appear."