Williams’ Tri Zone, released in 1979 and designed by Tony Kraemer, is a clean and fast solid-state machine built around a tidy set of drop targets and a rewarding spinner. With three pop bumpers, four drop targets, a kick-out hole, and a spinning target, it’s a compact late-70s table that delivers the kind of straightforward, skill-driven scoring that makes early Williams solid-state games so satisfying to learn.
The strategy is direct and engaging. A drop target showing a flashing light in front of it is worth a juicy 10,000, rewarding accurate, targeted shooting. Completing the A and B lanes scores a bonus multiplier — with the base bonus maxing at 19,000 and the multiplier at 5X for a top bonus of 95,000 — while completing the Z-O-N-E drops once lights the spinner. Additional ZONE completions raise the value of the top hole and the drops before finally lighting the Special, giving the game a clear, escalating ladder of goals to climb.
Brisk, well-built, and rewarding to a player who learns its flashing-target rhythm, Tri Zone is a likeable and underrated entry from the early Williams solid-state era. For collectors who appreciate a clean drop-target-and-spinner game with a satisfying bonus-and-Special progression, it’s an enjoyable and handsome classic that plays sharper than its modest size suggests. Chase those flashing targets and ride the ZONE all the way to the Special.