Silverball Mania

Each hit on the top bumpers cycles the top lane lights from center-lit to side-pair-lit and back. A perfect Skill Shot will hit the bumpers just enough times to make the center lane lit when the ball goes through it.

Silverball Mania was the first game with a tight horseshoe shot for raising your bonus multiplier. Even on a factory game, it’s a tight shot; on some tournament machines, the rubber posts at the side of the horseshoe have been replaced with fatter rubbers, making the shot even narrower. Still, that’s where you win the game, since besides raising your multiplier, it lights the center bottom saucer to kick the ball back into play, plus you get one or two letters for each shot [two if the ball goes all the way around over both internal rollovers]. Since the only other way to get the “M” and final “A” in Mania is through the outlanes, you want to make that horseshoe shot to collect them while the ball is still in play.

The largest chunk of points here come from bonus. Complete all letters in S-I-L-V-E-R-B-A-L-L M-A-N-I-A to build base bonus either by hitting them or by shooting the center horseshoe. Bonus is 1,000 per letter; if you’ve completed the letters, you get another 15,000 per set for up to 2 more sets. Base bonus is held from ball to ball, including completed sets. Shoot the horseshoe to multiply your bonus up to 5X; the multiplier resets each ball. Maximum bonus is 45,000 times 5 or 225,000.

The other significant points come from the horseshoe, the kicker and the spinner when lit. The horseshoe scores 5,000 besides giving bonus and multipliers; over a game, that can add up. The kicker, when lit, also gives 5K. Completing Silverball Mania lights one of the two spinners (alternates) for 1,000 per spin. The spinner light resets at the end of the ball.

If you just can’t hit the horseshoe, especially if the game has those fat rubbers guarding it, go UTAD and just hope to get the kickback lit if you can get the ball back up to the top center lane after a right spinner shot or via bumper action.

Extra balls are earned by getting one more horseshoe after you’ve advanced it to 5X, then shooting the now-lit “N” target between the horseshoe entrances. Extra balls will probably be turned off, but can be set to be worth 25,000. Specials are earned by completing Silverball Mania twice to light the Kicker special and the Silverball Mania special. Get the ball to drop into the kicker for that special; complete the 15 letters again for the other special. These may be worth 50,000.

# **Sinbad [EM or SS - Gottlieb, 1978]

I’ll cover the more common solid state version first. Target sequence matters a lot. You need the single white target to advance to double bonus; the two yellow targets plus the white one gives you triple; white, yellows and the three purple targets gives 4X; and adding the four red drops makes it 5X. But if you have nine of the ten drops and the one you’re missing is the white one … you’re still at single bonus. The order you actually hit them in doesn’t matter, just which ones you’ve got so far. If you get the white one last but do get it before you drain, you’ll still get your 5X. But you want to get them in order in case you drain before you get them all.

Each completed target color set also lights the corresponding top lane for the higher value - - the white lane on the right goes from 100 to 1000, the yellow lane from 500 to 5K, purple from 1000 to Extra Ball, red one from 5000 to special [useless in competition]. If extra balls are enabled, one strategy is to shoot for the purple targets first, then flip the ball up top and try to get it to drop through the purple lane to score the extra ball.

The center spinner advances bonus 1K for every 5 spins. Green star rollovers on the upper left advance bonus 1K each when lit; top lanes light them, one for each. Go up top to advance your base bonus and get the drop targets to multiply it.

Once you finish the drop targets, the accumulated bonus will be collected, and you can rebuild it and collect it again. Base bonus goes up to 15,000, or 75K with the 5X multiplier. After collecting, both the base bonus and the multiplier reset. The bonus counting down can be distracting if you’re not expecting it; the best thing to do is go back up top while it counts. You don’t have to cradle up while it does so, anything you score while it’s counting will be kept.

The EM version has different bonus rules: you need to complete all 10 targets to get double bonus, and that’s as high as the multiplier goes. The bonus also does not count down and reset; you only collect it at the end of the ball. This means both lower scores and more-compressed scores, i.e. typically a narrower range between competing players.