Genie

Genie was a better game when first released than it is now. I’ve only played one Genie in the past decade that played fast and clean; the others were slow and tedious, set shallow to attempt to offset weak flippers. Most Genie’s flippers are no longer able to zip the ball around the game adequately. In one case, a wise tournament director replaced the metal pinball with a lighter ceramic one, which made the game play roughly as it originally did. My description of how to play Genie here will presume you have tolerable but not great flipper power.

Bonus is important on Genie. Hitting any drop target in the 4-bank above the right flipper will increase your bonus multiplier when the bank is lit. It cycles on switches, so if it’s not lit, go up top through either the center spinner from the left flipper or your choice of spinner or towards the upper playfield from the right flipper. If the spinner is lit, take it from either flipper, but remember getting your bonus X is more important if both the spinner and the drop target bank are lit. The pinner is lit by going over the red star rollover in either return lane; you can shatz either direction to get it if the ball hasn’t rolled through it yet. But the spinner isn’t a big deal here because first, it unlights after you shoot it and second, most Genie spinners don’t give a lot of spins per shot.

Genie is yet another Gottlieb game with a collect bonus saucer that activates automatically once your base bonus reaches 20,000. As with the other such games, you’re better off not collecting it unless your bonus multiplier is 4X or 5X; if you’re below that, work on raising the multiplier first.

When you have the ball in the upper left mini-playfield, try to finish one color set, either red [4 drops] or white [3 drops]. Getting a set scores 10,000 and lights the white targets to be worth more – as the playfield says, 5000 and 3 bonus advances. In my experience, though, most Genie’s upper flippers are too weak to allow you much ball control or the ability to aim precisely, so do what you can to just keep the ball up there.

Ignore all stand-up targets unless extra balls are on, in which case do shoot that when lit.

Plunge is largely irrelevant since all lanes score the same (5,000 when lit, i.e. just the first time, 500 thereafter), but I like the A since the ball sometimes bounces off the bumper towards the upper left mini-playfield or back up the A where you can then get another 5,000 if you can nudge it into the B lane. On a few Genies, the D plunge will kick off the bumper below into the (unlit) collect bonus saucer.