Black Knight
Digital Era Pinball
Class of 2025 Inductee
Black Knight is a 1980 pinball machine designed by Steve Ritchie (who also provides the Knight’s voice) and released by Williams Electronics.
This game is known for its two-level playfield (a first for a pinball game), and introduced the patented “Magna-Save”, in which a player-controlled magnet is used to prevent outlane drains.
This was the first of a series of four games that were both two-level and featured magna-save. The later games (Jungle Lord, Pharaoh, Solar Fire, Grand Lizard) feature a variable type magna-save in that the magnet is energized as long as the player likes (up to the time they have earned); on Black Knight the machine controls the magnet time (adjustable by the operator from three to ten seconds).
Magna-save was activated by pressing one of two buttons placed on each side of the cabinet, just above the flipper buttons.
The sequel to Black Knight abandoned the variable magna-save which had become standard at that point and reverted to a fixed time. Balls drained down the outlane in spite of using magna-save caused the machine to laugh at the player, reinforcing the theme of the game as an evil knight vs. the player.
Black Knight was not the first game to have electromagnets installed – an earlier example is Williams’ Electronics Gorgar (the first “talking” pinball game), which features an area of the playfield that when hit, holds the ball on an electromagnet for a second or two while a speech call plays.
Other notable features of Black Knight are a loud riding bell instead of the old familiar knock when a special (free game) was won, three ball multi-ball that did not require any previous targets to be hit before allowing balls to lock, and random score targets.
Wikipedia Link:
Credits:
Concept, Game Design, Engineering, Mechanics: Steve Ritchie
Software, Electronics: Larry DeMar
Artwork: Tony Ramunni
Sound: John Kotlarik
Callouts: Steve Ritchie
Pinside:
https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/black-knight
Overall Rating: 7.716
Game Design: 7.863
Artwork: 8.059
Sounds/Music: 6.771
Other Aspects: 7.799
Internet Pinball Database:
https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=310
Average User Rating: 7.96 / 10
Art: 8.09 / 10
Audio: 7.49 / 10
Playfield: 8.16 / 10
Game Play: 8.04 / 10