Rock Encore

Rock Encore is a 1986 solid-state pinball machine from Premier Technology (under the Gottlieb trade name), designed by John Trudeau with concept work by Don Marshall, Ken Hale, and Jeff Walker. It's a musical-themed follow-up to Gottlieb's earlier "Rock" (1985) - in fact, Premier originally sold Rock Encore as a "Booster-Pack," a fifteen-minute art-and-sound conversion kit consisting of a replacement translite and new sound ROMs that let operators convert an existing Rock machine into Rock Encore. According to designer John Trudeau, a smaller number of units were also produced in a dedicated Rock Encore cabinet with distinct art, rather than as conversions.

Gameplay-wise, Rock Encore carries over Rock's four flippers, two slingshots, two spinning targets, and a mix of 5-bank and 4-bank drop targets, along with a roll-under lane. Its photographic translite - depicting Ken Hale, the game's music composer, as the keyboard player - was created by Don Marshall, while Larry Day handled the playfield and cabinet art.

With only 245 confirmed units produced, Rock Encore is a genuinely scarce machine today, made scarcer still by the fact that many were built from Rock conversion kits rather than as dedicated cabinets. For collectors, tracking down one of the rarer dedicated-cabinet versions - reportedly finished in black with confetti-like pastel geometric shapes - remains an especially elusive pursuit.