Nifty

Nifty, manufactured by Williams in November 1950, is a single-player electro-mechanical machine with an ice-skating theme, credited to designer Harry Williams with contributions from Gordon Horlick and artwork by George Molentin. Interestingly, the game's original playfield drawing was dated September 1950 and signed with the working title 'Sam's Song' before being revised the following month and renamed Nifty.

Gameplay centers on two flippers, two pop bumpers, eight passive bumpers, and two kick-out holes, giving the layout a dense, bumper-heavy feel typical of Williams machines from this period. A notable mechanical detail is its tilt handling: rather than ending the ball outright, a tilt puts the ball in play, and the tilt condition is reset only when the ball passes through a roll-under wire near the bottom of the playfield below the flippers.

With its ice-skating theme and colorful period artwork, Nifty stands as a solid example of early-1950s Williams engineering, blending straightforward electro-mechanical scoring with a distinctive tilt mechanic that added an extra wrinkle to strategy. Its maximum displayed score of 9,990,000 points gave players plenty of room to chase high scores.