Game Plan was a small pinball maker from Illinois, founded in 1977 as a subsidiary of AES Technology Systems. Its first models were cocktail tables, often with advertising licenses. In 1979 came its first full-size pinball – and it became the most successful in the company’s history: “Sharpshooter”, a western table with gunslingers and targets.
| Manufacturer | Game Plan Inc., Addison (Illinois) |
|---|---|
| Released | May 1979 |
| Units built | approx. 4,200 – Game Plan’s best seller |
| Mechanics | Joe Joos Jr. |
| Artwork | George Molentin |
| Format | standard body, 2 flippers, 1–4 players |
The wild west in four feet
The table is built around letter targets spelling SHARP and SHOOTER, which build the base bonus. A kickout saucer advances the bonus multiplier, and – unusual for the time – the multiplier carries over from ball to ball, up to 5×. On the far left waits an always-lit 50,000 lane, on the right a spinner whose sound is closer to a galloping horse than to a spinner.
The tribute: Schafschiesser
Schafschiesser (German for “sheep shooter”) takes the western theme literally and peacefully: the targets became sheep. SHARP turns into S-C-H-A-F (“sheep”) as five rollover lanes, SHOOTER into a bank of seven sheep drop targets S-C-H-Ü-T-Z-E (“marksman”). It keeps the kickout saucer with multiplier, the spinner, the 50,000 lane and the multiplier that survives the ball. Everything is drawn as an engineering sheet and computed at 960 steps per second – here is how the physics works.
Sources: Kineticist, Wikipedia: Game Plan, Pinside. “Sharpshooter” is a trademark of its owners; Schafschiesser is a non-commercial tribute with no affiliation to Game Plan.