Ramp Warrior

Ramp Warrior was a prototype pinball machine built by Bally/Midway just before the company's merger into Williams; only three units are confirmed to exist. Designed by Dan Langlois with additional input from outside designer Steve Kirk (brought in by then-president Joe Dillon), the game evolved from an earlier, more edgy concept nicknamed "Diesel Demon" - featuring a zombie-like trucker and demon-themed rig artwork by Pat McMahon - that management considered too intense for family arcades and truck-stop locations. After the Williams/Bally merger, the project was revisited by committee and ultimately released in modified form as Midway's 1988 'Truck Stop'.

As a truck-driving themed machine, Ramp Warrior embodied the spirit of American roads and highways. Little specific documentation of its playfield layout or notable features survives beyond its truck-driving theme and its lineage as the direct predecessor to Truck Stop, but Pat McMahon's artwork gave it a distinctive 1980s trucking aesthetic.

One quirky piece of trivia: designer Steve Kirk placed a personal design number on the backglass of each game he worked on, in the order he designed them. Ramp Warrior carries "SK-13" on the truck's license plate, while the production version, Truck Stop, shows that same license plate crumpled in the street as an in-joke nod to the prototype's fate.