Alien Poker

Alien Poker, designed by Edward Tomaszewski and manufactured by Williams Electronics in October 1980, is a solid entry from the heart of Williams' solid-state era. Running on the System 6A board with 7-digit score displays, the four-player game blends an outer-space fantasy with pinball's long-standing love of cards and gambling, and it enjoyed a healthy confirmed production run of 6,000 units.

The playfield features three flippers, four pop bumpers, three kick-out holes, a 5-bank of drop targets, and a spinning target, providing fast-paced action and challenging shots for experienced players. Paul Dussault handled both the software and the sound, including the game's speech processing, which at Williams in this era was a separate task from software programming.

Tony Ramunni's artwork gives the game its futuristic, otherworldly setting, an extraterrestrial world where poker is king. Ramunni evidently kept a fondness for the title: years later he gave a collector a promotional pack of Alien Poker playing cards, very likely produced for Williams, while visiting the Mr. Game pinball factory in 1991. Tomaszewski's layout has aged well, and Alien Poker remains an enjoyable representative of early-1980s Williams design.