Metro
About This Machine
The Genco Manufacturing Company's Metro, designed by Harvey Heiss in 1940, is a single-player, flipperless machine with an automobiles/city-skyline/travel theme. As an early EM machine, it showcases gameplay ideas that would recur decades later.
Of its 17 passive bumpers, five numbered purple bumpers are the centerpiece: hitting them 1 through 5 in sequence lights each one, and once all five are lit, further hits award a free play. A center purple bumper is always lit and scores 1000 points. Hits on lit bumpers advance a car on the backglass and climb a Bonus ladder up to 15 steps, with alternating yellow and green rollovers also contributing to scoring. As IPDB notes, Metro's bonus ladder is only awarded via a bottom rollover during play, not at the outhole, so unlike later machines it does not have a true end-of-ball bonus.
The game's city-skyline and travel-themed artwork, by Roy Parker, evokes a sense of movement fitting its automobile theme. Metro stands as an early and inventive example of bonus-scoring design in pre-flipper pinball.
Images (25)
Technical Details
- Theme:
- Automobiles - City Skyline - Travel
- Notable Features:
- Passive bumpers (17). Hitting numbered purple bumpers 1 through 5 in sequence lights each one. When all five are lit, each subsequent hit of a purple bumper awards a free play. The purple bumper in center of playfield is always lit and scores 1000 points. Hitting any lit bumper advances lit car on backglass and advances the backglass Bonus ladder up to 15 steps. The lit car steps twelve times on the backglass to award 1000 points at the twelfth step, and each step alternates the yellow and green rollovers for 1000 points when lit. Scoring either yellow or green rollover when lit lights correspondingly colored bumpers for 1000 points which can then also advance car. The white bumper at bottom of playfield sits between two rollovers and not only advances the car when hit but alternately lights these rollovers to score the backglass Bonus value of 1000 to 15000 points depending on Bonus ladder position, then the Bonus resets. If A-B-C were already made in sequence, scoring a lit bottom rollover awards free plays instead of points.
Credits
- Designer:
- Harvey Heiss
- Artist:
- Roy Parker