I spotted this image in the Japanese trade magazine Game Machine:
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| Game Machine - 1977-02-15 |
It's obviously a composite photo, given the two perspectives. Some editor with a blade lovingly cut out the guy playing Atarians and put that Sea Avenger shot behind him.
What was this game Sea Avenger? There's not much out there on it.
A few months prior, this advertisement from Meadows Games appears in Play Meter magazine:
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| Play Meter 1976-11 |
cropped:
Meadows Games, Inc181 Commercial St, Sunnyvale, CA94086(800) 538-1515
Sea Avenger was mentioned twice in Cash Box magazine:
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| Cash Box 1976-11-13 |
This next quote mentions how Lila Zinter went to the ATE show (London tradeshow) with Atari's pinball machine Atarians. It is ambiguous as to if Sea Avenger was with her, but we have other confirmation that Sea Avenger was indeed at the ATE show.
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| Cash Box magazine, 1977-01-29 |
Lila Zinter would soon after go to work for Exidy. She unfortunately passed away in 2016.
Back to the Japanese magazine Game Machine, which included a writeup on the ATE show and not only confirms that Sea Avengers was present, it also gives us a description! You will not be ready for the surprise:
The following is a machine translation, prepped by my friend tweakbod of Gaming Alexandria fame, who also provided some of the research for this article!
Game Machine No. 68 – Feb. 15, 1977 (page 2)Japanese and U.S. Industries Making Great StridesNew Flippers in the SpotlightATARIANS & SEA AVENGERAtari's Atarians and Meadows' Sea Avenger attracted particular attention in this ATE, as neither of them had attempted a flipper until now. The first machine is an IC flipper from the U.S. TV game machine manufacturer, and this machine attracted attention for its ambitious entry into the flipper market, which was gaining momentum on the back of its strength in TV games.The main features of Atarians are first, that there is no score display etc. on the backglass, rather all scores are displayed digitally in front of the field, and second, the area of the play field is now much larger than in the past, both vertically and horizontally. The content of the game incorporates many aspects of the flippers, but the feedback we received was that the level of perfection is not good enough.Sea Avenger, on the other hand, is significantly different from the conventional flipper, with the playfield tilting to the left and right. In addition to the flipper buttons, this feature is activated by pressing a button on the front, which allows a ball on the right to be brought to the left by tilting.It was unveiled at this ATE as the first machine with its own ingenuity, and it will be interesting to see how it develops in the future.
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| Game Machine 1978-11-01 says Lila Zinter went from Meadows to Exidy "last month", so perhaps in September or October 1978. |
It's a bit hard to believe it, but that's what it says: TILTING PLAYFIELD.
This isn't entirely unprecedented, as the 1970s saw a handful of other pinball machines with playfield novelties like this. Challenger was a long 2-player table and the playfield would tilt between two players.
Allied Leisure had two "shaker pins" where you had more freedom to jostle the playfields. This isn't quite the same as tilting, but I'd be remiss to not note their impact here.
The trail on Sea Avenger goes dry after this. I hope to discover some photos are or videos from the ATE show as I don't think the game made it to other trade shows, nor ever made it to production. A button to tilt the playfield left and right was never attempted again by a manufacturer, and perhaps that's a reasonable decision.
The PR quote was that solid state was more reliable? Who knows, but a tilting playfield sounds like an engineering nightmare.
Someone did make a playfield that tilts left and right: TILTY FLASH! In this video, starting at the 18 second mark, you can see a 1978 Flash by Williams that has been modified to tilt back and forth.
Here is a few seconds of gameplay:
It was also pointed out to me that the 1987 game Wolf Man by Peyper has the "El Movimiento" feature, with handles to move the playfield.
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