Wreck'n Ball

Wreck is a fascinating unreleased pinball prototype conceived and designed by Pat Lawlor at Williams, with software by Larry DeMar, though it was never officially released and never went into production. It used a one-of-a-kind MPU built specifically for the prototype.

The machine's gameplay mechanics were highly unusual, featuring three horizontal flippers on the lower playfield and four vertical flippers on an upper vertical playfield housed in the backbox, connected by a vertical moving track that lifts the ball between the two levels. Three pop bumpers, a ramp, two kick-out holes, two spinning targets, a captive ball, a left outlane kickback, and an up-post between the bottom flippers added further strategy and complexity.

Wreck's Construction theme was ultimately never used in a production game. Instead, Williams reworked the underlying hardware and gameplay concepts, changing the theme, into 1988's Banzai Run, built on the Williams System 11B platform. As a never-produced prototype, Wreck remains a unique artifact of pinball design history, of particular interest to collectors and historians for what it reveals about the creation of Banzai Run.