How to play classic pinball games in a tournament

If you learned pinball on modern machines, the older half of a tournament lineup can feel like a different sport. There are no modes to start and no ball save. The score has six digits. A ball can last eight seconds.

You cannot avoid them. The three most-played machines in our data are Eight Ball Deluxe, Comet and Paragon, built in 1981, 1985 and 1979. We have at least 150 tracked games on each of 32 machines built before 1985, close to 11,000 games in all.

Each of those games has its own rules, and we have written a guide for the eight that get played the most. This post is about what they have in common.

What the numbers say about old games

Games on the older machines take about 60% as long, and the lower-rated player wins far more often. Both facts come from the same place. There is less time for skill to tell, and more ways to lose a ball that skill cannot prevent. The upset rates by machine post has the full ranking.

For a strong player that is a risk to manage. For everyone else it is an opportunity.

1. Play for the bonus

On most games of this era, the largest number you will see is the one counted up after the ball drains.

Those are ceilings, and few balls reach them. They still show where the points are. A shot that pays 3,000 and adds a step to the bonus is often worth more for the step than for the 3,000.

The bonus has two parts, a base and a multiplier, and they are built by different shots. Find out which shot does which before you play. On Nugent the multiplier comes from one bank of drop targets and nothing else. On Paragon it comes from one lane.

2. Know what carries over

This is the question that separates the machines, and it changes what each ball is for.

Where the base carries over, ball one is an investment. Work done early is paid on every ball that follows, so build first and multiply later. Where nothing carries over, every ball is a fresh game and the plan is the same three times.

3. Treat the plunge as a shot

Few of these games have a skill shot award. Nearly all of them have a plunge that matters.

On Comet a soft plunge reaches the lanes that start the playfield multiplier, and a full plunge skips them. On Silverball Mania the center lane raises the kicker that saves a drained ball. On The Amazing Spider-Man the top lanes light the inlanes that the whole game is built on. On Hot Tip the saucer can double your bonus, if you look at which lamp is lit before you plunge.

Watch the players ahead of you and see where a soft, a medium and a full plunge end up. Then use lane change if the game has it. On Comet and Firepower the right flipper button moves the lit lanes.

4. Light the spinner, then use it

A spinner on these games pays 100 a spin unlit and 1,000 lit. That is the difference between a shot that is not worth taking and the best shot on the playfield.

On most of them the spinner goes dark again at the end of the ball. Light it early.

5. Time your collect

Several games let you collect the bonus during the ball at a saucer. It is tempting to take it the moment it lights. Usually that is a mistake.

On Nugent and The Amazing Spider-Man the collect pays base times multiplier and then resets the base. The multiplier stays. So the order is: raise the multiplier, build the base as high as it will go, collect, and build again.

On Eight Ball Deluxe, whether the saucer pays the multiplier at all is an operator setting. Ask.

6. Nudge less, and earlier

Old games need nudging. The top lanes, the saucers and the outlanes all respond to it, and several of the guides in this series depend on it.

They are also less forgiving about it. Electromechanical games such as Hot Tip have no tilt warning. The first swing of the bob that touches ends your ball. Early solid state games may give a warning or two, or none. On nearly all of them a tilt takes the bonus as well, and as the first section showed, the bonus is most of the ball.

Use single, short bumps. Find the limit on ball one, when your bonus is small. Do not find it on ball three.

7. Get the ball under control

Flippers on these machines are weaker and the gaps between them can be wider. Some games have four flippers, and on Paragon and The Amazing Spider-Man a ball can drain between the two on the right.

Shots at standup and drop targets come straight back. The guides say the same thing about one game after another: shoot targets from a trapped ball, aim for the edge of the target instead of the face, and shoot a bank from the flipper on the opposite side.

Two techniques do a lot of work. A dead bounce, letting the ball hit a lowered flipper and hop to the other one, moves the ball across without a shot. An alley pass, rolling the ball up an inlane and back, does the same and on some games scores as it goes.

8. Ask about the settings

Modern games have a competition mode that sets things in one step. Older ones have rows of switches inside the backbox, and two copies of the same title can play by different rules. Questions worth asking the tournament director:

• Are extra balls on, off, or worth points?
• What does a special pay?
• Does the bonus collect include the multiplier? (Eight Ball Deluxe)
• How many letters does the main shot spot? (Silverball Mania)
• What lights the kickback, and does the ball start with it? (Firepower)
• Is it three balls or five? Some values change with the count.

One more thing. A six-digit display rolls over to zero after 999,990. If your score rolls, tell the scorekeeper before the next player steps up.

The guides

All eight are at Blainbrook, which has a deep lineup of older games. The Blainbrook guide covers the room, and its arena report shows who plays each machine best. Comet and Paragon are also at Northstar Pinball Collective, and Paragon is at LITT Pinball Bar.

To see how you stack up against a particular group on these games, run the scouting report. The modern half of the lineup is covered in the machine strategy guides.