Lucky Strike

Lucky Strike, produced by the Genco Manufacturing Company of Chicago in February 1940, is a flipperless electro-mechanical game that turns pinball into a game of ten-pin bowling. Standing 22 1/2 inches wide, 48 inches long, and 60 inches high, it is a clever example of how prewar designers borrowed the rules of other pastimes to give pin games structure and drama.

The bowling conceit runs through the whole design. Ten bumpers are arranged to look like a rack of bowling pins, and all of them are lit at the start of the game; hitting a bumper turns it off and lights the corresponding pin on the backglass, whose light animation shows the player's progress frame by frame. Each game lasts three frames, and the two gobble holes carry the biggest rewards: the first ball of a frame into a gobble hole scores a strike, while the second scores a spare.

With its pin-rack bumper layout and animated backglass scoring, Lucky Strike shows how inventive flipperless-era design could be, delivering a recognizable bowling experience years before flippers gave players direct control of the ball.