Still Crazy

Still Crazy, designed by Eric Erickson and Dan Langlois for Williams in 1984, is a highly unusual single-player, vertical pinball machine built around an American-history, hillbilly/rural-living theme. Running on Williams' System 8 hardware with software by Ed Suchocki, it was built only in small numbers — 12 confirmed prototype units, of which reportedly just three are known to survive today — after a planned 100-unit sample run was cancelled when test results proved disappointing.

The gameplay is built around four flippers, whimsically named the boot, the fry pan, the pipe, and the cannon, which players use to knock balls into a moonshine "still" at the top of the tall vertical playfield. The more balls that land in the still, the further a group of climbing "revenuers" tumble back down the hill; if the revenuers reach the still before enough balls accumulate, the game ends. According to former Williams executive Ken Fedesna, the game was originally meant to have four independently controlled flipper buttons, but engineering problems led to pairs being wired together, which made the large vertical playfield too difficult to control and hurt earnings in testing.

Still Crazy's Prohibition-era moonshine theme — complete with hillside cabin artwork — makes it one of the more distinctive and rare entries in Williams' 1980s catalog, prized today by collectors for both its rarity and its offbeat design.