Queen's Castle

The Queen pinball machine, manufactured by Zaccaria in April 1978, holds a notable place in company history as Zaccaria's last electromechanical (EM) game before the company transitioned fully to solid-state design; its design was later reused for the 1978 four-player solid-state title 'House of Diamonds.' This Italian-made, single-player machine boasts an impressive array of features for an EM game, including four flippers, two pop bumpers, two slingshots, twelve standup targets, a kick-out hole, a rollunder spinner, and a horseshoe lane.

The Queen's design emphasizes card and gambling-themed elements, with artwork by Lorenzo Rimondini evoking the glamour of casinos. A distinctive feature is its bounce-back outlanes, which allow the player to nudge a drained ball back into play, alongside an end-of-ball bonus that rewards accumulated play.

As one of the more feature-rich EM titles from Zaccaria's catalog, the Queen is an interesting example of how EM design was pushed to its limits just before the shift to solid-state electronics.