Thunderball

Thunderball, designed by Mark Ritchie and built by Williams Electronics in 1982, is a two-player solid-state talking pinball machine that never reached full production — only 10 units are known to exist, making it an extremely rare prototype-era game.

The game's design is built around a horseshoe lane, where a fast-moving ball can exit the far end while a slower ball may disappear beneath a raised center ramp and out of play. Two spinning targets mark each end of the horseshoe lane. Thunderball offers replays and extra balls for high scores, and a timed multi-ball mode allows up to six balls in play at once. A notable feature is the dual entry button next to each flipper, letting players choose which side the ball enters the playfield from.

Thunderball's fantasy theme features artwork by Constantino and Jeanine Mitchell, with sound and software both credited to John Kotlarik. Some of the game's sounds are shared with earlier Williams titles Black Knight (1980) and Hyperball (1981) — rather than being among the first talking pinball games (a distinction that belongs to Williams' own Gorgar, released in 1979), Thunderball continued that speech-synthesis tradition. Williams reportedly experimented with drop targets on the upper ramp before settling on standing targets, and produced only a handful of test units and backbox toppers before the project was shelved.