Data East’s Time Machine, released in 1988 and designed by Joe Kaminkow and Ed Cebula, is a clever time-travel adventure with one of the most charming gimmicks of the early DMD era. As your game journeys through the decades, the machine actually transforms: reach the 1950s and the digital displays emulate old electromechanical score reels, while the electronic sound effects give way to a real chime box mounted under the playfield — a delightful nod to pinball’s own history, played out within a single game.

The scoring rewards a player who learns its key shots. The center “STAR WARP” ramp is the engine of the game — shoot it repeatedly to spell STAR WARP, then hit it again for big points, a simple and rewarding loop. The right ramp spots standups and locks balls, and during multiball the left ramp pays the jackpot. The right ramp and left orbit relight the kickback at the left outlane, and during multiball you build your jackpot by hitting standups, though you can’t simply hammer the same target repeatedly since it lights solid.

A thoughtful, theme-driven machine with a genuinely novel mechanic, Time Machine is an underrated late-80s gem. For collectors who appreciate inventive design — and especially the loving tribute to the EM era hiding inside its rules — it’s a charming and historically clever table that rewards a player who enjoys traveling through pinball’s own past one decade at a time.