Beach Queens
About This Machine
Beach Queens is a flipperless one-ball game from Bally Manufacturing Corporation with a beauty-pageant theme. The player gets a single ball per game, and powerful slingshot kickers propel it around the upper playfield in place of flippers. The object is simple to state and hard to achieve: light all eleven girls on the backglass to win replays.
Hitting numbered bumpers 1 through 9 lights the corresponding girl, but girls 10 and 11 can only be scored through the kick-out hole, whose value varies with 2, 3, or 4 numbers lit at a time. Hitting the lit pop bumper lights the "Double" feature, doubling the replay award if the player wins. Depending on how the operator sets the 100/180 jumper plug in the backbox, lighting all eleven girls with Double lit can pay out as many as 360 replays in a single game. The maximum displayed point score is 94,000 points, limited by the 94-step scoring stepper inside the game, and unusually, the machine has no bell or replay knocker.
As a replay-awarding one-ball game, Beach Queens sat on the gambling side of the coin-op business; Bally also issued a non-replay version of the same game as Tropic Queens in 1960. Its playfield layout and general strategy had appeared earlier in Keeney's 1960 Eleven Belles, which had flippers. For collectors, Beach Queens is a vivid reminder of the era when pinball and payout games were close cousins.
Images (12)
Technical Details
- Theme:
- Pageantry
- Model Number:
- 651
- Notable Features:
- 1 ball per game. Pop bumper (1), Kick-out hole (1), no flippers. Powerful slingshot kickers propel the ball to the upper playfield. The object is to light all eleven girls on the backglass for replays. Hitting a numbered bumper 1 through 9 lights the corresponding numbered girl on the backglass. The kick-out hole value varies, with 2, 3, or 4 numbers lit at at time. When lit, numbers 10 and 11 are always lit together and the kickout hole is the only way to score girls 10 or 11. Falling into kick-out hole will lite its current values onto the backglass. The kick-out hole propels ball to the outhole. Hitting lit pop bumper lights "Double" light on backglass; this doubles the number of replays awarded if the player wins. Depending on how the "100-180" jumper is set in the backbox, it is possible to win up to 360 replays in a single game if the player lights all 11 girls and hits the "double" pop bumper when lit. Replays can be "knocked off" of the replay register by cycling the power to the game. Maximum displayed point score is 94,000 points. While the glass shows that it might be possible to display 99,000 as the maximum score, the stepper inside the game only has 94 steps, making 94,000 points the maximum point score for the game. Operator-adjustable plug in backbox has settings for 100 or 180 replays for lighting all 11 girls. Game has no bell or replay knocker.