Face your fears in the underworld — Gottlieb’s 1982 Devil’s Dare is a fantasy four-player designed by Tom Szafransky with art by David Moore and Doug Watson, and it’s a busy, aggressive early-’80s machine with twelve standup targets, multiple banks of drops, dual spinners, multiball, and a distinctive player-controlled kickback. With a confirmed run of 3,832, it offers a meaty layout and a couple of clever wrinkles that reward an engaged player.
The strategy starts with understanding that the kickback here isn’t automatic — a second left flipper button controls it, so you actively decide when to fire your save, a satisfying bit of player agency that demands attention and timing. Completing the red drops on the far right lights an extra-ball or hundred-thousand shot in the middle of the playfield, a valuable target worth prioritizing. There’s even a quirk worth knowing for tournament settings: if extra balls are turned off, that EB award becomes a repeatable hundred thousand, which is exactly why some tournament directors leave extra balls turned on to prevent endless farming. The dozen standups, the dual five-bank and three-bank drops, and the two spinners give a skilled player plenty of scoring avenues to weave together.
Devil’s Dare is a characterful, slightly underappreciated early-’80s Gottlieb that rewards a player who masters its manual kickback and works toward that lucrative center shot. The fantasy theme and busy playfield give it real personality, and the controllable kickback is a genuinely fun mechanic that puts your fate in your own hands. Work the drops, time your kickback, light that center shot, and stare down the devil. The underworld rewards the bold and punishes the careless — exactly as it should.