Williams’ Banzai Run, released in 1988, is a genuine landmark — the very first machine designed by Pat Lawlor, who would go on to create Twilight Zone, The Addams Family, and a string of all-time greats. Co-designed with Larry DeMar, it announced his arrival with a jaw-dropping innovation: a fully-featured vertical playfield mounted on the backbox, complete with its own flippers, kickers, and sinkholes. While earlier games had tucked simple bagatelle minigames into the backbox, Banzai Run was the first to let you play a real, flipper-driven game up there — a magnet on a moving track lifts the ball from the main playfield up to the vertical “hill” for a motorcycle-racing showdown.

The game is a race to the top. You challenge rival racers and ultimately The King in a battle staged on that vertical playfield, with the ball returning to the lower horizontal playfield when it drains between the vertical flippers. Completing any three of a color down on the lower playfield lights the upper one, and the cliff jumps up top are worth 50K plus 25K each, up to 200K — doubled if you hit A-B-C first. The ramp is your workhorse, building bonus, racking up laps (worth 750K at twenty-five laps), and increasing the captive ball value.

The deep play is all about The King. Hit A-B-C before defeating him in multiball to light an extra ball, then collect it on the same trip — and after the victory, catch the ball on the upper flipper and pound the captive ball up to three more times for victory laps worth 250K apiece. Audacious, innovative, and unlike anything before it, Banzai Run is a thrilling debut that hinted at the genius to come. For collectors and players who love a true original, it’s an essential piece of Lawlor’s — and pinball’s — history.