Vacation America

Vacation America, manufactured by Chicago Gaming Company in December 2003, is a home-model pinball machine designed by John Trudeau and Steve Kordek, with art by Paul Faris and software by Ken Krone. Explicitly built as a 'Non-Commercial Machine' for home use, it takes players on a family vacation theme, visiting stops such as New York, Cape Canaveral, Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Hollywood, among many others.

One of the standout features of Vacation America is its streamlined, budget-conscious engineering. Players get 3 balls per play across a layout with two flippers, three pop bumpers, two slingshots, seven stand-up targets, two kick-out holes, a captive ball, and a spinning target, with both 2-ball and 3-ball multiball modes. Notably, the game has no rollover switches at all - it instead uses infrared LEDs bounced off the ball to detect its position, and relies on large circuit boards mounted directly under the playfield rather than extensive wiring harnesses.

The playfield itself is single-layer with no ramps, keeping the design uncluttered, and its display consists of two rows of ten-digit 7-segment displays showing only basic information - ball number, score, extra ball, and game over. According to the owner's manual, Vacation America was designed to give consumers a reliable, state-of-the-art pinball machine built specifically for home use, with Harold Washington credited for the processor and PC board design.