Critical Mass was made by Jim Capp, Joe Cicak and Jerry Yingst at the end of 1981. This was their 3rd follow-up pinball machine to the Black Hole prototype.
Their second prototype was Dragon's Lair.
What's left of the game is pictured here.
It was a 3 level game. Since Gottlieb was making Haunted House, designing on this concept game was stopped.
Getting back to Critical Mass, this is what the Critical Mass playfield looked like in December of 2001, when Jerry uncovered the game. It had been sitting in a barn since 1982. The lower playfield has a mice nest in it and a dead mouse. His little foot was pressed against the clear round window.
I took the playfield to Rick Mason, a friend of mine since high school. Rick and I copied the design from the original playfield. This took a very long time. Then Rick cut, bored, and slotted every detail into the new playfield surface and gave it back to me.
All parts including lamp sockets, switches, flippers, and boards were put into place.
I did this on the fly. The hard part of designing the game had already been done, however I added more features and cleaned up some areas.
Take the playfield, flip it upside down, plug and mask every hole, and primer the underside.
Let the wiring begin. Original Gottlieb color coded wire was used from other playfields.
As I wired each item, I updated the schematics, just in case I have to troubleshoot this game down the road. Yes, I made a complete manual for this game.
I printed out each letter onto cardstock, then cut out each letter and detail using a steel ruler and razor blades. The cabinet was painted blue, then the black 'ball and stick' atoms were added, finally the name in white. The original cabinet did not have any artwork, the machine was built in a James Bond cabinet.
The backglass layout was done by myself. It was a hand drawn sketch of where the display cutouts had to be, the spinning atom, and the words like Game Over. The artwork design was done by Bob Narber on his computer. He came up with the design just by talking to me on the phone for 5 minutes. The original artwork for the backglass is in Jerry's pile of paperwork somewhere. From what he told me, there wasn't much to go off of anyway, but it featured a female sitting at a computer with big boobs and a lab tech standing behind her. The lab guy had one eye looking at her cleavage while the other eye was looking at the extra smoke escaping from a cooling tower outside.
Since I ran out of code for the game, I purchased a PLC, programmed it, and wired it to various devices such as lamp chaser boards, relays, solenoids, and sound boards. (PLC stands for Programmable Logic Controller) For the Power Supply board, each item was stripped down, cleaned, and remounted.
Notice the blue cooling fan on the left, the 3rd speaker, and the 3 volume pots with chrome knobs.
This is the playfield before it was stripped down for clearcoating. The plastics are not pictured. The metal rails and guides were sent out for chrome plating.
This is the playfield after clearcoating. Bill Heatherly did an awesome job clearcoating this whitewood playfield.
Here is a story about Critical Mass. A Pinball Machine that had a chance to be a production game. However, the game was returned from Gottlieb back to it's owners, and they started other projects.
Since there are plenty of pinball people out there, and you probably were not able to make it to the White Rose Gameroom Show 2006 to see the game, sit back and take a few minutes to check out this page.
Copyright 2006 - 2008 Eric Selak
Photographs used with permission from Jerry Yingst, Joe Cicak, and Richard Mason.
Gottlieb, the Gottlieb Logo, and the "G" are registered trademarks and copyrighted by
Gottlieb Development LLC.
The circuit boards are original equipment. Small programming changes and modifications allowed me to get the sound effects I wanted. Unfortunately, it took 3 sound/speech boards for me to be satisfied.
Below is a homemade modification for the driver board, to allow communication between the PLC and other sound cards.
Click Play above to hear the original "speech" line, when I tested the original sound board found in the bottom of the game.
(Since speech was difficult to understand at the time the line is:
"Show Extra Mass")
At the 2006 White Rose Gameroom Show, 2 of the 3 designers came to the show to see the finished pinball machine.
We talked for hours and it brought back a lot of memories for these guys.
From left to right: Jerry Yingst, and Jim Capp. Dudley Gorden also came along but he took the pictures! He was part of the group from the start but wasn't around when they got to Critical Mass. Too bad Joe Cicak didn't make it. It would have been nice to get an arial group picture.
Their first prototype was Black Hole.
Gottlieb produced 8774 BH machines in October 1981.
When you build a prototype and Gottlieb purchases it, you tend to build other prototype machines. Critical Mass was one of them.
Speaking of the manual, here is page 35.
During the unveiling of the game at the 2006 show, I was finally able to put the playfield up all the way. Because of low ceiling clearance, I could never do this before.
Things to look for - PVC tubes used as subways and ball shooter lane, 8 bank drop target assembly, lower playfield on sliding rods so it can be lowered for cleaning.
Everyone usually asks me how many people or companies were involved with the actual rebuilding of the game, how long did it take to restore, and how much did it cost you?
Well, I'm not telling you how much the game cost me to rebuild. Let's just say it was a lot!
It took 4 1/2 years off and on in my spare time to complete and over 1600 hours.
People involved:
Richard Mason
Bill Heatherly
Bob Narber
and of course myself - Eric Selak
Companies involved:
Myer's Sheet Metal
The Pinball Resource
Gottlieb Development LLC
Impressive Signs
Plastic Fabricators, Inc.
Lion Tool and Design
G&G Metal Finishing
Pinball Parts Plus
This is the complete and working game.
It is an official Gottlieb prototype, the Gottlieb trademarks used with their permission, and the only one that exists.
No publication has pictures, or comments about this game. (You could be the first). Other details about this machine can be found at the Internet Pinball Database.
