Beat the Clock

One of the few games that runs on time, not ball count. For a good score, you have to not just shoot for points but also stop the clock and add more playing time to your game.

To stop the clock, shoot the four stand-up S-T-O-P targets at the upper right. The clock restarts whenever the ball goes over either green star rollover button. The clock is also turned off when the ball drains and doesn’t restart until you plunge and hit a switch.

Scoring the top saucer adds 10 time units when flashing. Making a right orbit shot lights it.

The way to add the most time is to complete the left T-I-M-E-R stand-up target bank hidden behind the left drop target bank. First, you need to shoot all the drop targets to expose the stand-up targets, then complete the stand-ups. That adds 25 time units, then the drop targets pop back up. The drop bank scores 50K, 100K and then 150K the third time; you can get another 25 seconds each time you complete the stand-up bank. You’ll find that trying to hit the lowermost target or two on the left from the bottom flipper tends to go over the start clock rollover. Get those from the upper flipper instead.

Bonus goes up to 395K base: 200K \+ 100K \+ 50K \+ 45K; bonus multiplier goes up to 5X, so you can build up almost 2 million in bonus. Advance bonus X via the right orbit shot after knocking down the single drop target protecting it. Base bonus is earned in 5K increments by scoring the top ABCD lanes and any target. Bonus is NOT collected when the ball drains (otherwise you could just keep draining a big bonus). You only collect bonus through that top left saucer. Base bonus value is held when balls drain but any multiplier is lost.

Completing A-B-C-D starts 2X scoring; doing it a second time while 2X is running starts 3X scoring. Playfield multiplier does not apply to collect bonus.

The game ends when the ball drains with no time units remaining. When the ball is in play and your time units run down to zero, you keep playing until the ball drains. You can also rebuild time units back from zero to get more play / more balls. Tilt penalty is end of ball in play plus loss of 15 time units. That means game over if you have 15 or fewer units left when you tilt.

Note the reversed return lane / outlane setup on the left side. One strategic thing to try is when the ball goes out the left outlane: that stops the clock; you still have a (slim) chance of nudging the ball off the edge of the left return lane curve so that the ball deflects through the gate above the left flipper and back into play. If you can pull that off, you’ll have both saved your ball and stopped the clock\!

The way to big points on this game is to build your bonus and multiplier with right orbit shots, then shoot the Collect Bonus saucer at the far upper left. That both scores your bonus and adds 5 time units.