Description

Cirqus Voltaire is a 1997 pinball game designed by John Popadiuk and published by Midway Games (under the Bally label). The theme includes a player who performs many different wonders to join a circus.

Some of the stunning features include a neon light passing along the right ramp, a pop bumper rising from the middle of the playground at a certain time, and a mini playground at the top of the center ramp with a magnet to catch the locking balls.

The most prominent feature is the Ringmaster, a head that rises at a certain time and creates cracks on the player. It was the first Williams / Bally pinball machine to miss a real hit, a coil-driven device to produce a loud bang by hitting a wood cabinet or back box. Instead, this sound effect is pre-recorded and played over the usual speakers.

It was also the second machine (after Capcom’s Flipper Football, published in 1996) to move the matrix display (DMD) from the back box right into the closet, so that the player does not distract from playing while watching DMD (idea it was maximized by Pinball 2000 architecture two years later).