Check Mate

Check Mate, produced by Taito do Brasil (a division of Taito, Japan), is an electro-mechanical (EM) replay pinball machine with a chess-themed backglass and cabinet art, built for up to four players. Its backglass closely resembles that of Recel's 1975 'Check Mate,' though it isn't known which manufacturer's game came first or whether one copied the other.

As a replay game, the machine awards free games for high scores rather than cash payouts, in keeping with typical EM pinball conventions of the era — gameplay revolves around standard flipper-and-target scoring rather than any literal chess mechanic, with the chess theme expressed purely through the artwork and naming rather than the ruleset.

Little further information is available about Check Mate's designer, exact release date, or specific playfield features, but its connection to Taito's international operations and its visual echo of Recel's similarly-named machine make it an intriguing footnote in the global spread of pinball manufacturing during the mid-20th century.