Astro Games

Astro Games Inc. was a U.S. pinball manufacturer whose entire run fell within 1979. The company was formed by Robert Anderson and Robert Runte, who had previously run the table-game maker Fascination Ltd. and moved its assets into Astro Games through a holding company, Ram Inc. Astro released two solid-state machines, Black Sheep Squadron, a four-player game built around a combat theme, and Warlords, about which little detail survives.

The venture collapsed almost immediately. Astro Games filed for bankruptcy on April 24, 1979, was adjudicated bankrupt in May, and by that September the trade press reported the company out of business. Pinball technicians who have repaired Black Sheep Squadron describe its MPU and solenoid driver boards as built to the same design as, and directly interchangeable with, contemporary Bally solid-state boards; neither machine has a confirmed production count.