King Pin

How about a straight row of 10 drop targets? Ten bowling pins, ten drops. How about a game where making bank shots is important? Here, it’s all about hitting the lit pin, worth 5000 instead of the base 500 points. The star rollover in the center of the game moves the lit pin.

The Skill Shot is to drop the ball into the lit saucer at the top for 5000; that’s big points on this machine. The unlit one is worth just 500 and missing both is common if you’re careless. Line up your Skill Shot mark and prepare to nudge a bit to make sure you get it.

Once the ball falls down to the top of the playfield, try to hit the lit pin for 5000. Hitting unlit ones is okay, too, since completing them will score 5000 and reset them, guaranteeing some points and that one is again lit. When the ball exits the top, it usually rolls smoothly down the face of one of the top slingshots without triggering it. Timing your shots when the ball gets to the flippers is critical on this game. You’ll be banking your shots off of the opposite slingshot, so think about the angles when you shoot. You’ll find that shots to the drop targets often rebound towards the other flipper due to the angle you’re shooting from, allowing you to do some back-and-forth target shooting. Some hits will rebound more down the center, where you can try to catch them on the lower flippers and take straight-up shots from there.

If you have the ball cradled on a lower flipper when there is no lit pin on the opposite side of the playfield up top to shoot at, try shooting the ball just in front of the upper slingshot all the way to the top of the game to score a 5000 saucer there.

The side outlane angles here are a bit different from other machines; balls going in fast that don’t touch the top curve have a decent chance to bounce off the side wall into the return lanes. When the ball goes in slowly or hits that curve, you’re likely toast.

Key feeds - - balls through the top side lanes; ideally, you want the ball to come to the opposite flipper and get to a cradle.