Dark Shadow (conversion kit)

Dark Shadow is a solid-state conversion kit produced by Italy's Nuova Bell Games in 1985, built around a fantasy theme. It was created both as a standalone kit — applied here to a Bally 1979 "Dolly Parton" as the source game — and as a complete machine that Nuova Bell also released in full the same year. The artist and designer, Stefano Baronti, signed the backglass ("Baronti '85") and is credited on the playfield as well.

The conversion is built on a Bally MPU AS-2518-35 and packs a busy playfield for a four-player game: three flippers, two pop bumpers, four drop targets, four standup targets, a spinning target, a swinging target, and a rollunder, along with a left-side kickback lane and a right outlane gate that routes the ball to the inlane. This dense mix of shots and mechanisms reflects the kind of feature-rich layouts Italian manufacturers like Nuova Bell used to differentiate their conversion kits.

Specific trivia about Dark Shadow's reception or history is scarce, but as a well-documented example of a 1980s Italian conversion kit — down to the artist's signature and specific source game — it offers collectors a clear window into that corner of pinball manufacturing.