Future Spa

Future Spa, designed by George Christian and manufactured by Bally in December 1979, is a widebody solid-state machine with one of the more unusual themes of its era: a fantasy blend of fitness and relaxation, a refreshing departure from the sci-fi and licensed themes dominating the market at the time. The artwork was a collaboration - Paul Faris painted the backglass while Dave Christensen finished the playfield as the deadline loomed, and Christensen's preliminary drawings reveal the game's working title was 'Bon Vivant'. A confirmed 6,400 units were produced.

The four-player game runs on Bally's AS-2518-35 MPU and features two flippers, five pop bumpers, a single slingshot, two spinning targets, a kick-out hole, a star rollover, a left kicker lane, and a left outlane detour gate. Its signature shot is the 4-in-line drop target bank, a mechanism for which Bally filed a patent in June 1979.

Future Spa also holds a genuine place in pinball audio history: it was Bally's first game to use continuous background sound, a technique pioneered a year earlier by Williams' 1978 'Flash'. Bally had quietly tested the new sound board on a few specially modified units of 1979's 'Voltan Escapes Cosmic Doom' before rolling it out here. Between its widebody layout, distinctive theme, and sound innovation, Future Spa is an intriguing entry in Bally's late-1970s catalog.