Time Trap

Time Trap is not a physical pinball machine at all, but concept artwork created by artist Doug Watson that never became a game. Watson drew it during his early career at Advertising Posters in Chicago, the silkscreen shop that produced pinball art for manufacturers from the 1940s until Bally acquired Lenc-Smith in the early 1970s.

At Ad Posters, artists typically worked from a blank whitewood playfield with light inserts already placed, often without ever meeting the game's designer or learning its intended theme — leaving artists free to invent titles and concepts of their own. Watson used his spare time to sketch original game ideas, hoping a client representative might spot one and greenlight it as a real title; none of these ever were picked up, but he kept producing them regardless.

Time Trap, envisioned around 1980, played on a popular pinball trope of the era: a countdown timer creating urgency and drama for the player. The concept depicted women trapped inside giant hourglasses in need of rescue — a stylistic departure from the Frank Frazetta-influenced artwork that characterized much of Watson's earlier work. Despite its evocative Fantasy - Time Travel premise, Time Trap remains only a piece of unrealized pinball art, never manufactured as a working four-player Solid State Electronic machine.