Combination Rotation

Combination Rotation is a solid-state electronic (SS) whitewood prototype designed by John Trudeau for D. Gottlieb & Company. It was never placed into production, and the playfield was later stripped and no longer exists, so its exact design year is not documented.

The widebody machine featured two flippers, four pop bumpers, two slingshots, a 4-bank drop target, a 3-bank drop target, a horseshoe lane, and two sets of in-line "messenger balls" -- one set of three, one set of two. By Trudeau's own account, the multiple in-line captive balls were meant to carry the game's billiards-inspired theme through into play, with rules modeled after a real game of Rotation pool: players earned credit for lit balls, mirroring how rotation pool is scored.

As with many of Trudeau's unproduced prototypes from this period, no artwork or further documentation survives, but the pool-inspired captive-ball mechanic makes Combination Rotation a distinctive design experiment among Gottlieb's late-1970s and early-1980s whitewoods.