Fire up the atom smasher — Bally’s 1986 Strange Science is a mad-scientist fantasy of a machine, and it’s packed with genuinely inventive physics-lab mechanisms that make it stand out among its mid-’80s peers. Designed by Dan Langlois with art by the great Greg Freres, this confirmed run of 2,350 features an impulse-exchange atom smasher that enables a two-to-five-ball multiball, an anti-gravity up-loop that sends the ball looping in a vertical plane, a particle-separator ramp, and even a unique neon-display topper.
The layout leans into that laboratory theme with real flair: three flippers, three pop bumpers, a kick-out hole, the vertical up-loop, and a player-controlled kickback in the left outlane that puts your fate in your own hands. The star is that big multiball — up to five balls unleashed through the atom smasher’s impulse-exchange mechanism — a genuinely exciting payoff that turns the playfield into a whirl of silverballs. That vertical up-loop is a mechanical showpiece, sending the ball on a gravity-defying journey that few machines of the era attempted, and the neon topper crowns the whole mad-science spectacle.
Strange Science is a wonderfully inventive Bally, the kind of machine that shows the company experimenting boldly with mechanisms and presentation. Freres’s art gives the mad-lab theme a vivid, comic-book energy, and that five-ball multiball provides serious thrills. For the collector who loves the creative, boundary-pushing side of mid-’80s design, it’s a real treat. Fire the atom smasher, ride the anti-gravity loop, and unleash the five-ball multiball. It’s science gone gloriously, chaotically wrong, and it makes for a terrific game. Strap on your goggles and let the experiment begin.