Juegos Populares

Juegos Populares was a Spanish pinball manufacturer based in Madrid, founded in 1984 by Juan Paredes Hernández. Paredes had already built one pinball company, Petaco S.A., in 1962; its export brand, Recel, followed about a decade later. Juegos Populares' first machine, released the year the company launched, was named Petaco, echoing his earlier company, with design work by Eulogio Pingarrón, who had also worked at the original Petaco.

The company built a steady run of titles through the mid-1980s: Petaco 2 and Faeton in 1985, followed in 1986 by Aqualand, America 1492, Halley Comet, and Olympus. Its final releases were Quijote and Lortium in 1987.

After Paredes's death in September 1987, Juegos Populares stopped making pinball machines, leaving at least one project, a machine called Mediterráneo, unfinished. Design plans for Mediterráneo surfaced decades later and were donated to Spain's Museo del Recreativo in Jaén.