The central theme of the pinball game Pinball Prelude is time. The first table is set in the past and features a dinosaur setting, with table elements being not easily recognizable as such since they blend into the environment. The second table is set in the present and at the same time the most conventional of the three design-wise. The third table plays in the future and contains five flippers in total.

Some of the features include a hi-res mode for multi-ball, vertical and horizontal scrolling of the playfield and a rubber ball, which behaves much differently than the standard steel sphere.