We asked Steve Ritchie if the production run of this game was cut short to reallocate resources for the continued production of the popular Williams' 1980 'Black Knight'. He replies:

No game is cut short if it can run with the big dogs. If a game is earning money and selling well, then no one will stop it at any factory, believe me.

OK, it did happen to me once. Towards the end of the run of Flash, I asked Jack Mittel then-VP of sales why we wouldn't try to push past the 20,000 unit mark. He replied, "We want to leave the market wanting."

[Steve refers to Gorgar here:] "Gor's brother Al" is what we used to call Algar. The Gar family kind of died after that. I don't remember BK as having anything to do with Algar's failure. BK was a narrow body and built on a different line than Algar. Algar didn't earn money. I think Al was just a dud of a game.

Comments from designer Steve Ritchie:

Black Knight was the first game ever to employ faceted inserts (the transparent inlaid plastic windows) in the playfield. My design was a simple eight-sided "Jewel Look", but insert texturing progressed from there to many different designs, finally settling on refracting radial lines originating at the center of round and rectangular inserts and from points of arrows and lightning bolts, etc.

The switch was removed because it never really got a chance to be hit much. The timers would reset the banks, so they weren't exposed often enough to justify the cost of keeping them.

'Black Knight' was the first solid state game with a multi-level playfield. Examples of earlier games with multi-level playfields are Fisher & Coe Manufacturing Company's 1933 'Grand Central' and Chicago Vending Company's 1934 'Three Point'.

We asked Steve about an image in this listing showing a sticker affixed to the upper playfield back wall advertising the sale of BK T-shirts. He replies:

The sticker is authentic. It was printed and attached to later games on the back panel, but most were removed by owners and operators. The same message is basically presented in the dmd at different times during the attract mode, but someone in marketing said "What if the game is turned off?" and, "It is good to point out the free T-shirt feature to operators and players." The sticker had low intensity adhesive and was easily peeled off without leaving marks.

The prototype playfield shown in this listing has four flippers. Designer Matt Walsh explains why he had to change that arrangement:

It was designed with four, with the two upper flippers designed to hit the two upper flipper ramps. But I learned that in reality that it is impractical to try and have two overlapping ramps like that - not enough height to the glass, and it forces one ramp to be extremely steep. So one flipper was removed. In place of the corresponding ramp I was to have a safe which I imagined to look like what you see on Theatre of Magic.

Sadly, artist Paul Faris and I never got far enough to have art to show, though he was signed up and ready to contribute.