Bally · 1992
Earn all twelve Mansion rooms, then shoot the Electric Chair again to begin Tour the Mansion.
Enter the mansion →The game
The Electric Chair and Swamp Kickout award the flashing Mansion room. After all twelve rooms have been awarded, return to the Electric Chair for Tour the Mansion, fifty million points, an extra ball, and a replay of every room.
Find your targets
The red-stepped ramp on the left. Aim at its lower entrance, below the stairs. Making this ramp lights the Electric Chair and ball returns Thing’s small upper-left flipper.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the right lower flipper. Aim through the two posts at the bottom of Million Plus ramp and use a firm forehand so the ball climbs the ramp. If it starts up and rolls back, let it reach a flipper before shooting again.
The narrow metal ramp just left of Bear Kick. Shoot its lower metal entrance; the lamps above show when a lock or THING Bonus is ready.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the right lower flipper. Aim through the two posts at the bottom of Thing’s ramp and use a firm forehand so the ball climbs the ramp. If it starts up and rolls back, let it reach a flipper before shooting again.
The scoop beneath the seated figure. Shoot here for a mansion room when its yellow lamp is lit, or to start multiball when the red lamp is lit. Aim beneath the chair toy.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the right lower flipper. Aim at the dark opening of Electric Chair, not at its rim or the nearby posts. After the ball settles in the hole, watch where the machine kicks it back and regain control.
The center staircase beneath the white bear. Aim at the metal ramp entrance below the bear. A completed shot advances Bear Kicks and lights the Electric Chair.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the left lower flipper. Aim through the two posts at the bottom of Bear Kick ramp and use a firm forehand so the ball climbs the ramp. If it starts up and rolls back, let it reach a flipper before shooting again.
Right of Bear Kick. Hit the bookcase to spell GREED; it turns to reveal the vault opening. Use the bookcase and instruction sign to locate this shot; the vault opens behind the bookcase.
How to try it: From the left lower flipper, hit the flat bookcase panels until the bookcase turns. Then aim through the exposed vault opening. A panel hit rebounds; a completed vault shot captures the ball before the machine returns it.
The small player-controlled flipper on the right. Use it to shoot across the table toward the Million Plus ramp and Train Wreck. This close-up identifies the flipper, not the partly hidden swamp opening below.
How to try it: Let the ball arrive at the upper flipper before pressing the button. Flip while the ball is over the middle of that flipper. If the ball passes its tip, let it fall to the lower flippers instead of pressing late.
Match each close-up to the full playfield, then use the shot descriptions below. Open the full-size reference to keep the photo and explanations together.
The two main flippers, and on each side of them two lanes: an inlane, which drops the ball gently onto the flipper, and an outlane outside it, which is a lost ball. The inlanes do work on this table. Rolling down the right inlane lights "Adv X" for a few seconds, and lights the Electric Chair for a few seconds if it was dark. There are two inlanes on the left. The one nearer the flipper lights "2 Bear Kicks" on the centre ramp for a few seconds and is always on. The far-left one lights "Thing Flips" when it is on, which is explained further down. The outlanes can light Special, but only during Tour the Mansion.
The Electric Chair is a hole just above the left flipper with two lamps over it. Yellow means shoot it for a room; red means shoot it to start multiball. It swallows the ball, then a kickout fires it back out toward the left flipper. Just above the chair are four small standing targets, standup targets, marked Cousin It. On their own they pay 250,000 and a line from the film. You usually hit them from the upper-right flipper.
The left ramp is the Million Plus ramp. A ramp is a raised track the ball climbs. This one pays a million the first time, two million the second and so on up to ten, and every shot does four more things: it spots a letter in THING, spots the next letter in GRAVE, lights the Electric Chair, and drops the ball at Thing's little flipper up at the top left. To the right of the ramp entrance, in the back left corner, is the Train Wreck target. It is easiest to hit from the upper-right flipper. In multiball it is the jackpot shot.
The centre ramp is the Bear Kick ramp. Every trip up it counts one bear kick (two when "2 Bear Kicks" is lit), lights the Electric Chair, and normally sends the ball down the right inlane to you. It is also the letter V in GRAVE. Just left of it is a small metal ramp, Thing's ramp, which tips the ball into Thing's eject: a little dish in front of Thing's box where the ball sits until Thing's hand comes out and grabs it. Two lamps above the metal ramp tell you what a shot there does right now: green means it will lock a ball, yellow means THING Bonus is ready. To the right of the centre ramp is the bookcase, a big flat target. Each hit spells a letter in GREED; spell it and the bookcase swings open to reveal the vault, a hole behind it. Above the vault, a green lamp means it will lock a ball, and a red lamp means a shot there starts multiball or scores a Quick Multiball jackpot.
The swamp is a wide pocket along the right edge, just below the upper-right flipper. A ball that falls in scores the Graveyard Value (explained further down), or five times that if it passed through the little light beam just under Thing's flipper on the way. When lit, the swamp locks balls. Everything that goes into the swamp, the vault or Thing's box comes back out through the Swamp Kickout, a hole lower on the right that pays rooms exactly like the Electric Chair and fires the ball toward the right flipper. Its entrance is the letter E in GRAVE. Around the swamp mouth are three Swamp Millions targets, two below and one above; they pay a million each, but only while 5X Graveyard is lit.
At the top left are the Graveyard bumpers, a cluster of pop bumpers: round mushrooms that fling the ball about. Every hit adds to the Graveyard Value and moves which room is flashing. Below them are the G and R targets; the A target is left of the centre ramp. (V is the centre ramp and E is the Swamp Kickout.) From behind the bumpers a lane runs round the back of the table to the upper-right flipper. The rulesheet calls it the Adv X lane or the left loop. Shoot it from the right flipper and the ball arrives at your upper-right flipper, with "Lite Star" lit on the left ramp for a moment. It is part of every combo on the table.
Thing is the hand in the box at the back of the middle. When the ball sits in his eject, he comes out, picks it up with a magnet, and either carries it off to the swamp or sets it back down. Thing's flipper is a small automatic flipper at the upper left; the machine flips it, not you, and it aims for the swamp. The Power is a pair of magnets under the middle of the table, marked by two lightning-bolt inserts and bright flashers at the sides. When The Power is on, the ball swerves and stalls for no visible reason. It runs during Seance, and from the moment multiball is lit until multiball ends.
Every ball starts here
Launch into Thing’s eject for the skill shot: 2M, then 3M, 4M and 5M for later makes.
Getting the strength right: pull too hard and the ball runs on round into the bumpers; pull too softly and it falls into the swamp instead. A miss that lands nearby just scores whatever it hits. Every new ball is another try, and the value keeps climbing across the whole game, so it is worth practising.
If a missed launch touches no scoring switch, let it drain; the machine returns the ball. Do not flip at it.
Your first useful run
The thirteen rooms
Earned rooms glow; the next room flashes. Bumpers move that selection. A lit Chair or Swamp Kickout awards it. Either ramp relights the Chair, while the right inlane lights it briefly. The question mark follows the other twelve.
Five of the rooms are timed modes, which means a short game with its own goal and its own clock. The clock on every timed mode stops whenever a ball is sitting in a hole or in Thing's eject, so a mode that carries into multiball runs much longer than its twenty seconds. If you lose the ball, the mode ends with it. Every room you earn also adds 500,000 to your end-of-ball bonus.
All the bumpers go to flashing, so each hit adds 30,000 to the Graveyard Value instead of 10,000, for the rest of this ball. Next ball they go back to dark. The rulesheet is not sure whether this also does anything to the GRAVE targets.
For twenty seconds everything you hit is worth 200,000, and each hit on the four Cousin It targets above the Electric Chair adds 50,000 to that per-hit value and scores two million on top. You are credited a million just for starting. Ramps and holes trip more than one switch, so they pay the per-hit value more than once. Your Cousin It total is added to your end-of-ball bonus. Best shot at the targets: from the upper-right flipper, or from the lower right.
Twenty seconds where every target is worth 250,000. Nothing raises that. You get a million for starting, and the total joins your end-of-ball bonus. Just keep the ball moving: ramps, bumpers, anything.
Six million, and on normal settings it also gives you the 3 Million room for free if you have not got it.
This lights Quick Multiball at Thing's eject, and it stays lit until you shoot it, even into your next ball. Shoot Thing's ramp to start a two-ball in which the open vault pays five to ten million a shot; the full rules are in the multiball section below. While it is lit you cannot lock a ball at Thing's eject or earn THING Bonus there.
Morticia says "Look darling, just what we've been searching for", and you have twenty seconds to shoot the three tunnels: the Electric Chair, the swamp (or its kickout), and the vault. Any order. The first pays 5 million, the second 10, the third 15. If the chair is lit at the time, shooting it also gives you another room. The vault opens for this round and closes once you have hit it; hitting the bookcase during the round will not open it. If the vault was lit to lock a ball, you cannot lock during Tunnel Hunt; the lock comes back when the round ends. Plunging a ball straight into the swamp does not count as a tunnel.
"Seance ... knock three times." Your next three ramp shots, either ramp, pay 5, 10 and 15 million, with knocks and Gomez counting "Once", "Twice", "Thrice ... well done." The catch: The Power magnets are on the whole time, so the ball swerves in the middle of the table. During Seance the centre ramp always drops the ball at Thing's flipper instead of the right inlane, and Thing Flips can still happen. The steadiest way to use it is left ramps from the upper-right flipper.
Nine million. That is all it does, and it is a lot.
This starts a value at Thing's eject at 15 million, and it counts down fast to 3 million, then hangs there for a moment. Shoot Thing's ramp or the eject before it runs out: you score whatever the value has fallen to, and that number becomes the vault value for a two-ball Thing Multiball. A second ball goes to the plunger and the multiball begins when you plunge it. In this multiball the vault value is fixed; nothing raises it. During the countdown every centre ramp shot comes back down the right inlane, no exceptions, which is your quickest way to set up the shot. If you got this room free from bear kicks, you can shoot Thing before the fanfare finishes, but you will not get the instant 15 million; the vault is simply fixed at 15 million.
Thirty seconds where the bumpers pay. Every bumper hit is 100,000, and the fourth hit on a bumper lights it and pays three million; the display shows a grave for each bumper with the hits it still needs. You start with two million credited. Once every bumper has its four hits the round ends on the spot; until then, hits on a finished bumper still pay 100,000. The total joins your end-of-ball bonus. Get the ball into the bumpers by shooting the left loop or with a hard plunge.
Lights an extra ball at Thing's eject. It stays lit until you earn it, even across balls. Shoot Thing's ramp to take it.
When your twelfth room is earned, the chair relights itself and the question mark flashes. Shoot the chair or the Swamp Kickout. See "Tour the Mansion" below.
Three ways to get more balls
The main Multiball needs three locks; two rooms start smaller two-ball games. Rooms, Stars, 5X Graveyard and Thing Flips pause during all three. Assume there is no ball save.
Lighting the locks. Hit the bookcase to spell G-R-E-E-D, one letter a hit. On your first multiball the game helps: the first switch you hit on each ball spots a letter, and a tilt also gives you a "cheat" letter. When GREED is spelled the bookcase swings open and shows the vault. If a ball happens to fall into the vault while the bookcase is still closed, GREED is spelled on the spot, the bookcase opens, and that ball is locked. The rulesheet calls this "dirty pool".
Locking three balls. Green lamps show you where a lock is lit. For your first multiball, ball one locks at the vault or at Thing's eject. Once one is held, the machine serves you another ball at the plunger (or fires one out of the Swamp Kickout if there are none left below). Ball two locks at Thing's eject, the vault, or the swamp. With two held, the red lamps light over the Electric Chair and the vault, and The Power magnets switch on. Shoot either red shot to lock ball three; everything is released and multiball begins. The balls come out of the Swamp Kickout, and one comes out of the Electric Chair if that is where you locked the last one.
Jackpots. Two shots are lit from the start: the Train Wreck target in the back left corner is the jackpot, worth 10 million to begin with, and the left ramp is the Super Jackpot, double the jackpot on your first multiball and triple it on every one after. After you earn either one, the vault opens; shoot a ball into it to relight the Super Jackpot. You can keep taking Super Jackpots as long as two balls stay in play.
Raising the jackpot before you take it. Every bookcase hit and every centre ramp during multiball adds a million to the jackpot, up to 25 million. The value carries over from one multiball to the next if you never earn it. Once you earn the jackpot it goes back to 10 million. The rulesheet does not say whether taking a Super Jackpot resets it too.
The restart. If you get down to one ball without earning a jackpot, you have 20 seconds to shoot Thing's eject for a restart. While that clock runs, rooms and Stars are off, Thing Flips is off, every centre ramp shot comes down the right inlane, and The Power is off. Make it and a second ball goes to the plunger; two-ball play begins the moment you plunge it, with both the jackpot and the Super Jackpot lit again. That plunge is another go at the skill shot, and from the eject the Train Wreck and the left ramp are easy shots. One restart per multiball. Miss it and, in Thing's words, "sorry old man".
The second multiball and after. GREED now takes five real bookcase hits. Only the vault locks balls one and two. Ball three can go in the chair or the vault for your second multiball; from the third multiball on, only the vault. There is no way to add a ball once it is running. It ends when you are back to one ball and the restart clock runs out.
Lit at Thing's eject by the mansion room of the same name, and again by Tour the Mansion. It stays lit until you shoot it, across balls. It goes dark for the length of any other multiball or restart, then comes back. Shoot Thing's ramp: Thing takes the ball, it comes out of the Swamp Kickout, and a second ball is served to the plunger (or out of the Swamp Kickout if two balls are already locked). Plunge it and you have two balls.
The one lit shot is the vault, standing open, for Vault Millions: five million, rising a million each time you earn it or hit the centre ramp, to a maximum of ten. There is no jackpot beyond that, no restart and no added ball. It ends when one ball is left. While Quick Multiball is lit, Thing's eject will not lock a ball and will not pay THING Bonus. If Thing Multiball is counting down at the same time, shooting the eject starts Thing Multiball instead, and Quick Multiball waits until that has ended.
Shoot Thing's eject while the countdown is running, 15 million falling to 3, and you score the current value and start a two-ball. The second ball is served to the plunger and the multiball starts when you plunge it, the same way as Quick Multiball. The vault is the lit shot and pays the value you froze; it does not rise. Thing Flips is off during the countdown and the multiball. It ends when you are back to one ball. There is no restart and no way to add a ball.
The rest of the machine
You start the game with one bear kick, and every centre ramp adds one. If you rolled down the near-left inlane in the last few seconds, "2 Bear Kicks" is lit and the ramp adds two. The count runs for the whole game and never goes down. Each ramp shows your total on the display and tells you the next level that pays.
What the levels pay: an extra ball is lit at Thing's eject at a level the machine adjusts to how people have been playing, usually 8 or 9 and never below 6. At 15, 25, 35 and 45 you get the flashing room for free, as if you had shot the chair, even if the chair is dark. At 50, a second extra ball. At 55, 65, 75, 85 and 95, more free rooms. From the 99th kick on, each ramp is a Super Bear Kick worth five million, and nothing else: no more free rooms, no more extra balls, and "2 Bear Kicks" stops mattering. The display gives no warning before the 99th.
Free rooms are not handed out during a multiball; the first centre ramp after it ends gives you the room. The rulesheet is not sure whether two owed rooms can queue up. The question mark can never be got this way; if it is the only room left, a bear-kick level is simply wasted. Each bear kick is also worth 100,000 in your end-of-ball bonus, up to 99 of them.
Every left ramp spots a letter in THING, shown under your score on the backglass. On normal settings you start the game with T-H-I already spotted, once only. Complete the word and the yellow lamp over Thing's ramp lights: shoot it for THING Bonus, five million the first time, ten the second, fifteen from then on. Thing comes out to look at the ball, then puts it back for you.
Stars make it bigger. Shooting the left loop lights "Lite Star" on the left ramp for a few seconds; it also goes out if you shoot at the ramp from the upper-right flipper and miss. Make the left ramp while it is lit and a Star lights on the backglass. You can hold two. Each Star adds five million when you earn THING Bonus; that value never changes. Stars cannot be lit during any multiball, and you cannot earn THING Bonus while Quick Multiball is lit.
When the far-left inlane is lit for Thing Flips, roll through it and the next centre ramp shot, within a few seconds, is sent by a diverter, a moving gate at the top of the ramp, down a chute to Thing's little flipper at the upper left. Thing flips the ball at the swamp for you. The machine remembers how its last flips went and tunes itself to land between 40 and 60 percent of the time; a well-kept machine can be nearly perfect. On a miss, the three Swamp Millions targets are lit for a million each and 5X Graveyard stays lit a few seconds, so there is still something to hit. After three straight clean misses it throws its memory out and starts again.
The rulesheet does not say what lights the far-left inlane in the first place; it only says the inlane is not lit during any multiball, the restart window, or a Thing Multiball countdown. Watch for the light and use it when you see it.
The Graveyard Value is what the swamp pays when a ball falls in. It starts each ball at one million and climbs to a maximum of four: each bumper hit adds 10,000 if that bumper is dark, 20,000 if lit, 30,000 if flashing. Send the ball through the little light beam just below Thing's flipper and 5X Graveyard is lit for a few seconds: the swamp pays five times the value and the three Swamp Millions targets pay a million each until it times out. You cannot light 5X during a multiball.
GRAVE is five targets: the G and R targets under the bumpers, the A target left of the centre ramp, the centre ramp itself (V) and the Swamp Kickout (E). Hitting an unlit one moves a bumper up a step (dark to lit to flashing). Any left ramp shot spots the next unlit letter for you. Spell it and you score a GRAVE bonus: two million the first time, then three, four and so on up to ten, for the rest of the game.
The Train Wreck target, back left corner, pays a million a hit. Every so many hits it pays five million and a "Train Wreck" instead: the first Train Wreck takes two hits, the next three, and so on up to six. Each Train Wreck stops your Graveyard Value from resetting at the start of the next ball. Four Train Wrecks light an extra ball. The hit count carries over between balls.
Roll down the right inlane and "Adv X" is lit on the left loop for a few seconds. Shoot the loop either way round while it is lit and your bonus multiplier goes up one, to a maximum of five times. It only lasts this ball. Your end-of-ball bonus is 100,000 per bear kick (up to 99) plus 500,000 per room, times that multiplier, plus whatever you totalled in The Mamushka, Hit Cousin It and Raise the Dead. Twenty million or more in bonus gets Gomez saying "Who says you can't take it with you?", but only on a ball where you played a timed round.
A combo is a set of shots made one after the other, in order, without a break. There are two three-shot combos worth five million each: right inlane, then the left loop, then the left ramp; and the left loop, then the left ramp, then the swamp. There is one four-shot combo worth ten million: centre ramp, left loop, left ramp, swamp. The four-shot one also pays the three-shot combo inside it, so it is 15 million on its own, plus a bonus-multiplier step from the loop, at least a million from the ramp, at least five million from the swamp at 5X, and a Star worth five million when you earn THING Bonus. The rulesheet does not spell out whether Thing flips every ball that comes off the left ramp or only when Thing Flips is lit; either way, the swamp is where the ramp's ball is headed.
Outside the Hit Cousin It round they just pay 250,000 and a line from the film. Hit them from the upper-right flipper, or from the lower right if you must. They are not worth aiming at except during the round.
Play more than one thing at once
Start a Mansion room before releasing a prepared multiball. Its shots continue while extra balls protect the timer. Keep the final lock ready until the room’s inserts are active.
To play at the same time features means to run two at once so one ball works for both. Here is what this machine allows, what it blocks, and which order to start things in.
| Combination | Status | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A timed room (Hit Cousin It, The Mamushka, Seance, Tunnel Hunt, Raise the Dead) and Multi-Ball | Allowed and valuable | Start the room first, then lock the third ball. The room's clock stops while any ball sits in a hole, so it runs far past its twenty seconds with three balls loose. |
| Mansion rooms during any multiball or the restart window | Blocked | The chair and Swamp Kickout will not pay rooms. Earn what you can before the third lock. |
| Stars, 5X Graveyard or Thing Flips during any multiball | Blocked | They come back when you are down to one ball. |
| Bear-kick free rooms during a multiball | Delayed | The centre ramp still counts kicks; the free room is handed over on the first centre ramp after the multiball ends. |
| Quick Multiball with Multi-Ball or a restart | Blocked | Quick Multiball goes dark until the other multiball is over, then relights. Take Quick Multiball first if you want both on one ball. |
| Quick Multiball lit while Thing Multiball counts down | Thing Multiball wins | Shooting Thing's eject starts Thing Multiball; Quick Multiball waits until it ends. |
| Quick Multiball lit with a lock or THING Bonus lit at Thing's eject | Blocked | Neither can be taken at the eject while Quick Multiball is lit. Lock at the vault or the swamp instead. |
| Tunnel Hunt with a lit vault lock | Blocked for the round | You cannot lock during Tunnel Hunt; the lock relights when it ends. The vault hit for the tunnel closes the vault. |
| Tunnel Hunt with the Electric Chair lit | Allowed | The chair shot pays the tunnel and a room at once. |
| Seance, then the question mark | Allowed but painful | Any round still running carries into the Tour, so The Power stays on through the whole Tour. Let Seance finish before you shoot the ?. |
| Multi-Ball while The Power is on | Expect it | The magnets run from the second lock until multiball ends, except during the restart window. |
A good order: start Hit Cousin It with two balls already locked, then shoot the red chair for the third lock. Every switch in the multiball pays the Cousin It value on top of the jackpots. A tempting bad order: getting to eleven rooms, then locking your third ball. You cannot earn the twelfth room until multiball ends, and you have given up the safe single-ball chair shots for nothing.
Keep the game going
Lighting an extra ball is not earning it. When one is lit, shoot the Mansion award hole shown by the playfield lamp. Operator settings can change thresholds and limits.
An extra ball is another whole turn after your current ball drains. Every extra ball on this table is earned at the same place: Thing's eject, the dish in front of Thing's box, which you reach by shooting the little metal Thing's ramp just left of the centre ramp. A lamp there tells you one is waiting. Five things light one:
The rulesheet does not give a maximum number of extra balls per game, and does not say which award you get first if an extra ball, Quick Multiball and THING Bonus are all lit at the eject at once; it only says that THING Bonus and locks wait while Quick Multiball is lit. After the 99th bear kick no more extra balls come from the ramp.
Special is different. It is a replay, a free game, not another ball. It lights in one outlane during Tour the Mansion, switching sides every time a slingshot fires, and it is gone at the end of that ball. On a home table set to free play it is worth nothing; do not steer a ball into an outlane for it.
The big finish
When your twelfth room is earned, the machine relights the chair for you, whether or not you had relit it, and the ? flashes. Shoot the Electric Chair or the Swamp Kickout and the Tour starts. It is the wizard mode of this table, the reward for finishing everything, and it is simply everything again, all at once, in this order:
Finish the lot and the Tour ends quietly. You cannot earn any mansion rooms for the rest of that ball; the mansion resets for the next one. Starting the Tour counts as one room in your bonus; the rounds inside it do not. Any Mamushka, Cousin It or Raise the Dead totals you had already banked this ball carry into the Tour versions, plus the usual million or two for starting each.
Between the big moments
Chair, bookcase and Thing shots can return quickly through the middle. Shoot them from a cradle and expect the rebound. Use the left ramp and controlled inlane returns to regain control before choosing another narrow shot.
The Electric Chair fires the ball out toward the left flipper and the Swamp Kickout toward the right flipper. The centre ramp brings it down the right inlane, unless Thing Flips or Seance is on, when it goes to Thing's flipper at the top left. The left loop delivers it to your upper-right flipper. The left ramp drops it at Thing's flipper. When a ball is arriving down an inlane, let it roll down the flipper and stop against it, a cradle, rather than hitting it on the move. Most of the shots on this table start from a stopped ball.
From your second lock until multiball ends, and all through Seance, the magnets in the middle of the table drag the ball about. A ball that was heading up may stall and drop back at you. Keep both flippers ready and do not commit to a shot from the middle of the table; let the ball come to an inlane, stop it, and shoot from there. There is no magnet button for you to press; the machine runs them.
If the plunge misses the eject and touches nothing, let it drain and you get the ball back. Flipping at it can turn a free do-over into a real drain.
The little flipper at the upper left flips itself. Do not wait for it to answer your button. When the ball goes up there, get ready for it to come at the swamp or drop down the left side. The small flipper on the upper right is yours and moves with the flipper buttons like the big ones. The rulesheet does not say which button; on most machines with a small flipper on the right it is the right button.
Every timed round's clock stops while a ball sits in a hole or the eject. In Tunnel Hunt that means each tunnel you hit buys you a pause. In multiball, a ball parked in the chair or the kickout keeps a round alive while you deal with the others.
Balls can wedge in the swamp, on top of Thing's box, in the bumpers, or on the plate the bookcase turns on. The machine searches: it fires the bumpers, spins the vault, and eventually serves you a new ball. Give it a moment before you shake the cabinet. A nudge is fine; a tilt ends the ball. Oddly, a tilt spots you a GREED letter on your first multiball, but it costs you the ball, so it is no bargain.
What is worth chasing
Light a Mansion room, prepare multiball, start the room, then release the balls. Use shared shots for room progress and jackpots. Take Tour the Mansion only after checking that no stronger play at the same time is ready.
On your first multiball the Super Jackpot is double the jackpot; after that, triple. The jackpot starts at 10 million and every bookcase hit or centre ramp during multiball adds a million, up to 25. So the big money is a fat jackpot taken at the left ramp: 50 million on the first multiball, 75 on later ones. Bookcase, bookcase, centre ramp, then the left ramp from the upper-right flipper; vault to relight; again. The jackpot value carries to your next multiball if you never earn the plain jackpot at the Train Wreck, so you can bring a 25 million jackpot into a later multiball where the Super is triple.
Centre ramp, left loop, left ramp, swamp, without a break. Fifteen million in combos, a bonus-multiplier step, a Million Plus ramp, a 5X swamp and a Star. Set it up from a stopped ball on the right flipper: centre ramp, and as the ball rolls down the right inlane, fire it straight back at the loop.
Tunnel Hunt is 30 million for three holes. Seance is 30 million for three ramps. Thing Multiball is up to 15 million for one shot plus a two-ball. 9 Million is nine million. Every room is half a million in bonus, times up to five. Then the Tour: 50 million and every round again. A game that reaches the Tour out-scores one that only chased jackpots.
Each left ramp is a million more than the last, up to ten, on every ball. THING Bonus is 15 million once you have earned it twice, plus ten in Stars. A held Graveyard Value at four million pays twenty million at 5X. And from the 99th bear kick, every centre ramp is five million.
Words this machine uses
Hover, focus or tap the underlined terms throughout the guide for definitions. The full visual dictionary covers the hardware and techniques used here.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Bear kick | One trip up the centre ramp. The count runs all game and pays rooms and extra balls at set numbers. |
| GREED | Five bookcase hits. Spelling it opens the vault so you can lock balls. |
| GRAVE | Five targets around the table. Spelling it pays a growing bonus and steps the bumpers up. |
| Graveyard Value | What the swamp pays. Bumpers raise it; Train Wrecks stop it resetting. |
| Lit | The lamp for a shot is on, so the shot will pay. |
| Lock | The machine keeps a ball for you. Three locks starts multiball. |
| Mansion room | One of the thirteen windows. Earn it at the lit Electric Chair or Swamp Kickout. |
| The Power | Magnets under the middle of the table. Not a button; the machine runs them. |
| Spot | The game gives you something for free, such as a letter or a room. |
| Thing's eject | The dish where Thing picks up the ball. Skill shot, locks, extra balls, THING Bonus and the two small multiballs all live here. |
| Tour the Mansion | The finale: 50 million and every room again. |
| Train Wreck | The back-left target's big payout every few hits. |
Your table
This guide follows Brian Dominy's rulesheet for the original 1992 Addams Family on normal factory settings, not the 1994 Gold edition, which changes one room and adds features this guide does not cover. Everything here that says "on normal settings" can be changed by whoever set the machine up: the bear-kick levels for extra balls, whether extra balls and Quick Multiball are held between balls, whether the jackpot carries over, the Million Plus ramp's maximum, the Thing Multiball starting value, how many bumper hits Raise the Dead wants, and whether the Swamp Kickout pays rooms at all. Where your display disagrees with this guide, trust the display.
Things the rulesheet does not settle, so this guide does not either: whether there is a ball saver; what lights the far-left inlane for Thing Flips; which award is taken first when several are lit at Thing's eject; whether a Super Jackpot resets the jackpot value; whether two bear-kick free rooms can queue up; whether Graveyard at Max affects the GRAVE targets; and whether Thing flips every ball that comes off the left ramp. No video tutorial has been reviewed for this table yet.