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"Hidden" Rules

Tucks

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Currently watching 'SDTM Ultimate Game of Thrones Pinball Tutorial Part 1' and so far it's excellent. Quite long winded but in depth. Learnt a lot about combo multipliers, how to increase the maximum limit on multipliers and finally found out what the Swords flashing insert was for.

At the start there is a great piece about switch validation which is fascinating (yep nerdy) and how to get the ball to the flippers without activating the ball save to time out.

Anyhow, what other machines have rules which are so obscure that only real die-hards would know what they are? TAF train wreck for example??
 
TAF train wreck?? Curious now... what's hidden there?

Some spring to mind:

TZ - during replay animation you can get a hidden 5M bonus by double flipping.

WH20 - secret passage (rollback from left loop) advances you a whole raft.

TAF - don't hit any switches after a plunge and you can drain without any ill effect to reattempt the skillshot.

Tim
 
In WOZ ....@Will used to bang on about the little rainbow horses all the time ....something to do with collecting them and one would appear on the screen ??..... I still don't know, and I don't think it was very obvious to a casual player
 
TAF train wreck for points + holds graveyard value to next ball - I think??

Good WH2O one - didn't know that.

Never understood anything in WOZ let alone the rainbow horses

As for Popeye - what appears to be hidden there is its fan base ;)
 
WH20 hidden whirlpool multiball: if you get the ball in the whirlpool during normal play and then rock the machine gently enough that it doesn't tilt but keeps the ball rotating in the whirlpool, after about 30 seconds another ball comes in to play for a two ball multiball.
 
If you play demo man with the triggers rather than the buttons, there are not only lots of hidden easter eggs, but you get and extra million per combo in the bonus which can be a lot!

The switch recognition 'loop hole' can be manipulated on a number of games including jackbot, sopranos and ghostbusters to name a few.
 
The Sarge may know this one..

Bally/Midway Special Force runs a 'Weapons Bonus' on its r/hand ramp, which is also the entry point for a ball going into play. Usually the Weapons Bonus isn't awarded when putting a ball into play*, but using the additional Rocket button(s) to destroy a couple of tanks before the ball reaches the scoring switch at the end of the ramp apparently counts as enough to regard the ramp switch as a normal ramp shot, awarding the bonus. Would that be an earlier instance of this 'loop hole' caper?

There's a secret skill shot on Corvette, activated on a single-use basis by a sequence on the flipper buttons. AIR it lifts the l/h gate above the top rollovers, allowing the ball to reach the upper flipper for a (looping?) shot from there

Further to Demolition Man, when a multi-ball ends, squeezing the trigger buttons awards a jackpot, with speech from Sly, "Close Enough"

On Roadshow, it's handy to know which of the items are worth buying, and which city they relate to, e.g. sunglasses for Los Angeles, T-shirt for New Orleans

Some of the early Stern solid-state games (Meteor and Seawitch to my knowledge) are programmed with a special strobe-effect on all playfield feature bulbs, utilised before and after awarding the maximum possible outhole bonus


* I've only recently found that there was an actual 'Skill Shot', getting the ball down the return half of the inner r/h ramp
 
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Certainly a few here to try.

Cheat on Jackbot - pressing the extra ball button.

I'm sure there's loads more.
 
Just replying to the TZ thread and thought of another one on TZ. Most people probably already know this but for those that don't, on TZ, when taking a shot from the upper right flipper to the piano, keep the left flipper pressed in and it makes the hole to piano shot bigger and easier to get.
 
A lot of Stern games have Add A Ball as a Mystery award when you are in multiball. If the mystery shot is lit don’t hit it until you drain down to one ball. If you then hit it (and are quick enough after the ball has drained) another ball will be served essentially continuing multiball.
 
Not so much a "rule", but the fact that TAF upper flippers are designed so you can trap the ball under them and still operate the lower flippers in multiball mode. Never happens of course unless you're the god of pinball.
 
Not so much a "rule", but the fact that TAF upper flippers are designed so you can trap the ball under them and still operate the lower flippers in multiball mode. Never happens of course unless you're the god of pinball.
That's partly due to Williams 'Double Action' switching arrangement, which goes way back; the flyer for 'Pokerino', one of the early electronic wide-body games with double flippers, shows one pair of flippers with only the inner one raised - the other pair of flippers are both raised, showing the gap which caught out so many players of games with this layout. This wasn't possible on Bally games with double flippers, hence the special French version of Paragon with the outer right flipper omitted.

The opposite of the possibilities with Addams also applies. On, f'r example, F-14, a player with nerves of steel could trap on the lower flipper(s) and use the upper ones to work on the upper T-O-M and C-A-T targets during multiball, where the software's connection between the two groups of targets is removed.
 
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On Sega's Batman Forever there are times when a load of bats fly out of the screen and make a screeching sound. Pull the gun trigger for bonus points (can't remember exactly how much.. 50M?). If you miss it you get a sound call 'You're as blind as a bat'
 
A few to start with:

In video mode on MM you have a smart bomb, the same as on AFM.

During Monsters of Rock a shot up the centre/spinner lane awards the leftmost unlit monster helping progress to the jackpot

Restart a BSD game during 3X multiball scoring (hold in start button). The newly started game will now be in permanent 3X, and can be multiplied to 9X
 
That's partly due to Williams 'Dual Action' switching arrangement, which goes way back; the flyer for 'Pokerino', one of the early electronic wide-body games with double flippers, shows a ball trapped on an inner flipper and resting against the tip of the outer one - the other pair of flippers are both raised, showing the gap which caught out so many players of games with this layout.

The opposite of the possibilities with Addams also applies. On, f'r example, F-14, a player with nerves of steel could trap on the lower flipper(s) and use the upper ones to work on the upper T-O-M and C-A-T targets during multiball, where the software's connection between the two groups of targets is removed.
That's certainly a valid use on F14 but you won't get much mileage out of it - only reasonable when down to two ball multiball and only then for those rare moments that you have the balls separate, and one stopped on a flipper... a.k.a. never!

I find it much more common that you are in multiball and you need bonus multipliers more than anything (except the jackpot shots of course...) at which point you would only half-press the buttons to only use the lower flippers. This would allow you to make attempts on the jackpot shots but it also means that you have clear shots to the bonus multiplier orbit, and you won't block shots on other balls to those orbits with the upper flippers. I find that really helps rack the multiplier up at the cost of never getting any of the balls to trap up near the pop bumper, so it's hellishly fast.
 
That's certainly a valid use on F14 but you won't get much mileage out of it - only reasonable when down to two ball multiball and only then for those rare moments that you have the balls separate, and one stopped on a flipper... a.k.a. never!

I find it much more common that you are in multiball and you need bonus multipliers more than anything (except the jackpot shots of course...) at which point you would only half-press the buttons to only use the lower flippers. This would allow you to make attempts on the jackpot shots but it also means that you have clear shots to the bonus multiplier orbit, and you won't block shots on other balls to those orbits with the upper flippers. I find that really helps rack the multiplier up at the cost of never getting any of the balls to trap up near the pop bumper, so it's hellishly fast.

Not having such NOS, I don't recall ever actually doing so in any case. Another strategic thing to watch for on F-14 is not to allow the two methods of lighting the extra ball to clash; I don't know if it was deliberate or not, but at least two editions of software (L-5 and R-1) penalise a player who lights XB by both methods at once. Striking the Yagov kicker in these circumstances only awards one extra ball, though the Extra Ball arrow is extinguished after the blinding flashlamp award routine.
 
Only one I found out recently was High Speed 2, if 3 cop cars appear outside Donut Heaven on the DMD on the ball 2 lock, hit the shifter down twice. You will then enter secret mania which is a 20 second hurry up mode where every switch is 250,000 points.
It will also screw all progress towards multiball for you, and any other players. A REALLY badly coded 'feature' which should never ever be used. Even better get updated, custom ROMs with it taken out
 
On TAF, when you get Multiball and the magnets are on, you have to lose all 3 balls within 15 seconds for no extra bonus whatsoever. I tend to complete this often.

Same goes for 5X the playfield on White water.
 
Something that I've just recalled about Jokerz!;

In the unlikely event that the program boots up with a ball in each holding point (the 'Spots Card' pocket on the left, and the 'Draw Poker' eject hole on the right), as they're kicked out the machine registers some of the coin switches, centre and right AIR. I had this happen after checking over the machine, and knocking the balls around while in the test mode, with just the flippers and special solenoids active. As far as I was aware there was no other symptom from the switch matrix.
 
A recent request for a FirePower prompts a late (and slightly boastful) addition;

If you've set a new Highest Score, wait for a while after the game ends - not in order to bask as your score 'alternates' with the H/Score, but to see out an extended sound effect* which precedes the award of any credits

I say alternates because once the new value has displayed as H/Scr, the 10's digit of the 'non-H/S' display (i.e. without the H/Scr lamp lit) is set to '0'

* Which may not be audible in a noisy environment, or if the audio isn't working
 
Press the extra ball button during multiball on WCS to relight the goal for a jackpot. Works once per game.
 
I was playing TAF a week or so ago and during multiball I had got a double jackpot so the book case had opened to relight jackpot. By some fluke all 3 balls returned to the left flipper and I banged them all into the vault (never done it before in 20 odd years) where upon I was awarded another double (I think it was a double) jackpot.

As I will never do this again was I dreaming or did it actually happen?
 
It must have been a dream Matt, things like that don't happen to us. Or at least I don't think they do.
 
On POTC last week I went for the secret skill shot. Nailed but for some reason got 10m rather than the normal 3m. No idea why but maybe it was to do with the time since plunging rather than getting the 3m by hitting it before the ball save goes off?
 
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