New World

Here's a fascinating piece of pinball history: the New World. Manufactured in October 1976 by Playmatic of Barcelona, Spain, this electro-mechanical (EM) machine is a four-player game with a historical theme, part of the wave of EM pinball still being produced by European manufacturers well into the 1970s.

The gameplay on the New World is characterized by fairly typical EM mechanics for its time: two flippers, two pop bumpers, two slingshots, two spinning targets, two drop targets, and six standup targets, along with an end-of-ball bonus and a three-chime sound package. A one-player version of the same game was also released by Playmatic as 'Conquest 200.'

From a thematic perspective, the New World's historical theme and Playmatic's distinctive Spanish design sensibility make it a notable example of the company's mid-1970s output. Playmatic operated from 1968 to 1987, producing EM and later solid-state machines primarily for the European market, and today its games are less commonly encountered by North American collectors than those of the major U.S. manufacturers of the same era.