Challenger

Meet the Challenger, a pioneering electromechanical pinball machine from D. Gottlieb & Company's 1971 lineup. This unusual game is a head-to-head competition in which two players stand at opposite ends of the playfield and play simultaneously, each with flipper buttons that control only the flippers facing their opponent. The ball enters play from between the flippers, and with eight flippers in total, players must carefully time their shots while trying to defend their own end of the table.

The machine's "head" is just as unusual as its playfield: it carries two backglasses, one side showing the Red Team then the Yellow Team, and the other showing the Yellow Team then the Red Team, so each player faces their own display. Artwork was by Gordon Morison.

The Challenger's origin story is famously tangled. Wayne Neyens had the original concept, and the game ended up being designed by committee -- the patent (No. 3,675,927, filed in 1970) names Alvin Gottlieb, Wayne Neyens, Robert T. "Bob" Smith, and Roman F. "Doc" Garbark as inventors. Ed Krynski was long credited as the designer, but by Neyens' own account Krynski had little if anything to do with it. Only 110 units are confirmed from the original run, with an additional 100 games later made on special order for a single Canadian buyer, making the Challenger a genuinely scarce piece of pinball history.