Bally · 1992
Spell F-I-L-M to start the movie, find and rescue the girl, then score the two large awards at the Snack Bar.
Start the movie →The game
Each F-I-L-M letter has its own requirement. When all four letters are on, lock a ball to start two-ball play. Search the three caves, shoot the Snack Bar to rescue the girl, then return there for the jackpot and larger super jackpot.
For a first game, finish one F-I-L-M letter at a time. K-I-S-S lights F, the open Snack Bar lights I, P-A-I-D lights L, and SLIDE at the right saucer lights M. Lit letters stay until you use them.
For score, send the ball to the bumpers before multiball, advance the CREATURE multiplier in the whirlpool, then take rescue, jackpot and super jackpot. A multiplied super jackpot is the table's main prize.
Find your targets
Shoot the steep ramp’s low entrance. The diverter chooses its return: normally the right inlane, or the long Creature ramp to the whirlpool when activated.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the right lower flipper. Aim through the two posts at the bottom of Left 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 gated ground-level lane between the left ramp and Snack Bar. The Parking OK and Move Your Car markings help distinguish it from the clear overhead ramp.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the right lower flipper. Use a forehand and aim at the pictured scoring part of Center shot, rather than the nearby plastic or posts. Watch the first rebound, regain control, and then adjust the next shot left or right.
The far-left lane above the slingshot leads to the left saucer. Shoot this approach to advance K-I-S-S; the saucer itself sits farther up the lane.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the right lower flipper. Aim through the open channel at the bottom of K-I-S-S lane; the ball must pass the entrance switch and continue up the lane. If a weak shot rolls back down the same lane, let it return to a flipper before trying again.
The scoop beneath the Super Jackpot / Jackpot sign. Its mouth is partly hidden by the crossing ramps in this view. Shoot here for lit rescue and jackpot awards.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the left lower flipper. Aim into the opening at Snack Bar, avoiding its rim and nearby posts. Watch where the machine kicks the ball back and regain control.
The broad, shallow ramp beneath the Big Millions / Movie Madness sign. Aim at its low entrance, not at the elevated return crossing the table.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the left lower flipper. Aim through the two posts at the bottom of Right 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 ground-level lane outside the right ramp leads to the right saucer. This is the SLIDE shot; the bowl near the right flipper is the separate whirlpool return.
How to try it: Hold the ball still on the left lower flipper. Aim through the open channel at the bottom of Right saucer lane; the ball must pass the entrance switch and continue up the lane. If a weak shot rolls back down the same lane, let it return to a flipper before trying again.
Use the full playfield for orientation. First-game aim points are left saucer, right saucer, Snack Bar, center shot, left ramp, right ramp and four menu targets.
Launching the ball
Creature offers both skill shots on every normal launch and on the second-ball launch that starts multiball. They are not offered after Free Pass returns a drained ball.
Your first useful run
The four letters
You must spell F-I-L-M once for every multiball, and earned letters stay lit until you use them. An open Snack Bar can also award a letter.
The letters pay as you earn them: 2 million, then 4, 6 and 8 million. Light them F, I, L, M for an extra 8 million Sequential Film Bonus. The rulesheet says F-L-I-M sometimes pays it too.
Shoot the far-left saucer lane to light K-I-S-S. The rulesheet says it takes “the appropriate number” of shots, without saying whether every shot is one letter. Watch the four lights and keep shooting until they are all on.
The back orbit skill shot can spot K-I-S-S letters too, sometimes all four. When K-I-S-S completes, F lights and the four lights reset for next time.
Your second K-I-S-S completion in a game lights an extra ball at the center shot. The rulesheet says the next needs six completions and each one after that four more.
It is unclear whether that six counts from game start or the last extra ball. Settings may differ or cap extra balls. If Snack Bar awards F, it is not a K-I-S-S completion, so it cannot light that extra ball; the rulesheet calls this a bug.
The four menu targets are standing targets: two right of the Snack Bar, two left of the left ramp. Light all four and the Snack Bar opens, which lights I.
On normal settings, each hit to the closed Snack Bar lights one target for you. That helper is off on hard settings, and on normal settings it stops after your first jackpot.
Mega Menu, Snack Attack and other lit Snack Bar prizes block closed Snack Bar target spotting. You can still hit targets directly, though Mega Menu hides which are lit.
The bumpers spin the lit targets around, except during Mega Menu. Lighting all four while the Snack Bar is already open stores nothing; earn the open Snack Bar first.
Roll through the four P-A-I-D lanes, or land the flashing one on launch. Flipper buttons slide lit letters left or right, so use lane change to put dark lanes under the ball.
The ball often rises through A and I after a bumper bounce, and may roll back up a lane it just came down. The center shot is the usual way to send the ball through P-A-I-D from the flippers.
Each completion of P-A-I-D says “Thank you, enjoy the film” and raises your bonus multiplier one step, up to 10X. Once you are at 10X, every further completion pays 5 million instead. Completing it lights the L.
SLIDE is always lit at the right saucer whenever you still need M. Shoot the dish at the top of the far-right lane and M lights.
The first SLIDE of the game gives nothing else. Later SLIDEs also pay the lit right-saucer prize. If the Snack Bar awards M, SLIDE goes out.
The movie
F-I-L-M lit means both saucers are lock shots and the strobes flash. Locking the left saucer sends the ball to the right flipper; locking the right saucer sends the ball to the left side. The locked ball plus the launched ball make a two-ball multiball. The rulesheet describes no add-a-ball.
Search the three caves: left saucer, right saucer and Snack Bar. The girl is in one random cave; no cave is more likely. Finding her pays 5 million times the playfield multiplier and lights Snack Bar Rescue.
Shoot Snack Bar for Rescue, worth 10 million times the multiplier, then shoot Snack Bar again to earn the jackpot. It starts around 40 million and grows roughly 200,000 per bumper hit all game, with no known limit.
After jackpot, put a ball through the center shot to the bumpers. The super jackpot lights after a changing count, usually 10 to 30 hits. Shoot Snack Bar for the super jackpot: exactly double the jackpot, times the multiplier.
After the super jackpot, the three caves relight and the same multiball continues. The second trip doubles search and rescue awards before the multiplier; the third trip triples them.
The rulesheet does not know whether that scaling has a ceiling. The bumper count for the second super jackpot is exactly twice the first, the third exactly three times, and it has reportedly reached 75.
The multiplier starts at 1X at every multiball. During multiball, left ramp shots take the long Creature ramp into the whirlpool. Each sensor pass spots one CREATURE letter, worth 1 million times the multiplier.
Spell CREATURE to raise the multiplier by one: 4X max on normal, 3X hard, 5X easy. The machine does not announce the maximum until you spell CREATURE one extra time.
The rulesheet method is to hold one ball on the left flipper and shoot the other up the left ramp. A small forward nudge at the sensor can add letters.
Three or four CREATURE letters per shot is typical; some machines give ten or twelve. Do not put two balls in the whirlpool together: they collide, count as one over the sensor, and fall out side by side.
After the first multiball of the game, CREATURE letters are worth a flat 1 million and are no longer multiplied. A second multiball on the same ball carries over the previous multiplier, though the display is wrong at first.
Outside multiball, whirlpool spins are 500,000 each. If you lose one ball before earning a jackpot, you get 14 seconds to shoot Snack Bar for a one-time restart.
The restart timer does not pause in the bumpers. It resumes the same caves, rescue, CREATURE letters and multiplier. There is never a second restart in the same multiball.
Losing either ball ends multiball unless restart is available. Menu targets reset, so I must be earned again. K-I-S-S and P-A-I-D progress is kept.
On normal settings, earning a jackpot makes the next F-I-L-M harder: closed Snack Bar stops spotting targets, and the back-orbit skill shot only spots one K-I-S-S letter.
During multiball the right ramp becomes Movie Madness: 500,000 for the first shot, rising 500,000 each shot. It stops counting toward normal right-ramp prizes.
Hit all four menu targets during multiball and the right ramp lights Monster Madness for about ten seconds: 4 million times the multiplier. The rulesheet is unsure whether repeating the targets relights it.
The far-right dish
The right saucer is the dish at the top of the far-right lane. Besides SLIDE, it lights Mega Menu, Playground Award, then Big Millions, then repeats that order.
Each shot awards the lit prize and lights the next. Your first SLIDE of the game gives SLIDE alone; later SLIDEs pay SLIDE and the lit prize together.
Count up to feature
Outside multiball the right ramp keeps a count. Usual settings pay Snack Attack at 4 shots, Video Mode at 8 and Super Scoring at 12.
Each shot reports your count and the next two prize thresholds. After Super Scoring, the count returns to 1 and the same three prizes repeat, whatever the display claimed. The count does not move during multiball.
The snack bar lights for 20 million and the value counts down, which pinball calls a hurry-up, to a floor of 3 million before it ends. Shoot the snack bar to earn whatever is showing. Some machines end it at 10 million instead. While Snack Attack is lit, the snack bar does not light menu targets for you.
Video Mode lights one saucer, the right one first, and stays lit until earned. Only one saucer is lit at a time; every slingshot hit swaps which one.
Shoot the lit saucer to start. Use the flipper buttons to punch left and right while the Peeping Tom ducks. Land 17 punches in 15 seconds for 15 million.
Each later Video Mode needs five more punches in the same 15 seconds. Flipping at KNOCKOUT removes his head but pays nothing. The rulesheet does not know whether a second made available Video Mode lights both saucers.
Twelve right ramps light the snack bar; shoot it before the light goes out. Super Scoring then starts Big Millions, Mega Menu, Intermission Time and Super Creature Feature all at once, and the rulesheet suspects a few others, for only 20 to 25 seconds. Pick one thing and shoot it.
Super Creature Feature is the left ramp. The gate opens to the whirlpool, where spins pay 5 million, then 10, then 15, up to 35 million. At 35 million the machine says DON’T BE GREEDY and stops paying.
If you do not shoot the left ramp immediately, the gate appears to close and the feature is lost. The 10M, 20M and 30M left-inlane lights come on during Super Scoring and apparently do nothing.
The S-shaped lane in the middle
The center shot does three jobs: it puts the ball into the P-A-I-D lanes and the bumpers, it awards the extra ball, and it runs two scoring features of its own.
Your fifth center shot starts Move Your Car by default. After that it takes 8 more shots if you did well last time, or 3 more if you failed badly.
A value starts at 8 million and counts down to a 3 million floor. Shoot the center shot before it ends to take that value and blow up the car with TNT.
Then a 15-second clock starts and the value stops falling. Shoot center again for double, again for triple, and again for four times. There is no fifth.
All three bonus round share one 15-second clock, but it pauses while the ball is in the bumpers. Perfect play pays 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 times value, up to 80 million.
Warning: there is no grace period. The car drives off the instant the time runs out, even while your ball is already rolling up the lane.
Shoot the left ramp once to set Double Feature at 500,000. The right inlane says Start Combo, but does nothing on its own.
Further left ramps before time expires double it: 1 million, 2, 4, 8, then 16 million. That is the normal and hard cap; easy may be higher. Shoot center to earn the award.
Other shots do not cancel it. When time expires, the whole value vanishes instead of counting down. The ramp animation does not announce the cap until one extra ramp, so learn your machine.
The hole in the middle
The Snack Bar red light tells you its state. Off: closed, and each hit spots a menu target on normal settings until your first jackpot.
Flashing: open, and the next hit is a random prize. Steady: already opened and earned, so a hit pays Snackbar Score.
Snackbar Score starts at 1,100,000 to La Cucaracha and rises 100,000 per hit for the rest of the ball.
The open snack bar’s mystery award can give a F-I-L-M letter, Xtra Ball Countdown, an Extra Ball, Light Special, Special, or small points. Joke items scroll by but are not awarded. The rulesheet has never seen Multiball awarded and thinks it only appears when locks are already lit.
Xtra Ball Countdown lights the left ramp for 25 seconds. Make that ramp and the extra ball lights at the center shot, where it stays lit across balls until you earn it.
Keep the game going
An extra ball is a whole extra turn. On this table it is always earned in one place: shoot the center shot while its Extra Ball light is on. The light stays on until you do, even if you drain first. Three things light it.
Free Pass is not an extra ball; it returns a lost ball briefly after launch and never during multiball. The multiball restart is also separate: one Snack Bar shot within 14 seconds returns two-ball play.
Special is a free game, a replay credit, not a ball. It comes from Snack Bar or the EXIT outlanes after Light Special. The rulesheet believes EXIT lights stay lit for the rest of the game. On free play, do not chase it.
Play more than one feature
Most timed features freeze during multiball and return afterward. Do not delay a lit lock to create a play at the same time; jackpot multiplier work matters more.
To play at the same time features is to have two scoring things running at once. This table allows some of it and blocks the rest.
| Combination | What happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Multiball started during a timed feature (Unlimited Millions, Move Your Car, Big Millions and the like) | Allowed. The feature freezes and comes back after multiball with its full timer and its starting value. | Lock whenever the locks are lit; the feature waits for you. |
| Skill shots at the start of multiball | Allowed. Both are on offer when you launch the second ball. | Try the K-I-S-S orbit shot for the next F. |
| Right ramp count-up during multiball | Blocked. The ramp becomes Movie Madness instead. | Do not expect Snack Attack, Video Mode or Super Scoring progress during multiball. |
| Closed snack bar lighting menu targets during Mega Menu or Snack Attack | Blocked. The snack bar is busy. | Hit the targets directly, or wait. |
| Lighting all four menu targets while the snack bar is already open | Wasted. Nothing is stored. | Earn the open snack bar first, then shoot the targets. |
| Super Scoring | Everything at once for 20 to 25 seconds. | Choose one prize before you shoot the snack bar to start it. |
| P-A-I-D during multiball | Allowed, and progress is kept. | Leave two or three lanes lit rather than completing it, so the next L is quick. |
| A second multiball on the same ball | Allowed. The playfield multiplier carries over from the last one. | Spell F-I-L-M again; the menu targets are the slow part because they reset. |
| Free Pass during multiball | Not available. | Play the two balls as if neither is protected. |
A tempting mistake is shooting Snack Bar for jackpot as soon as it lights. Every jackpot taken before maximum multiplier is smaller.
The first jackpot also turns off two helpers: closed Snack Bar target spotting and the full cycling K-I-S-S skill shot. The right order is lock, spell CREATURE to maximum, then search, rescue and jackpot.
Control first
The posts between inlanes and outlanes have no rubber, so a drifting ball gets little help. Apart from menu targets, avoid uncontrolled shots; settle the ball, then shoot.
Missed left ramp and Snack Bar shots often return down the middle. The safer shot you can make consistently is K-I-S-S from the right flipper, where the ball often settles. Use a slap save on center returns.
Backhand the shallow right ramp to move the ball left, but be ready for a fast return. Back-orbit shots from anywhere but the plunger also return very fast down the left lane.
The Creature ramp hides the left ramp entrance, Snack Bar and center shot; rails and whirlpool hide lower lanes. Lean, look, then shoot.
Score higher
In order: super jackpots, then jackpots, then everything else a long way behind. A jackpot of 125 million with a 4X multiplier makes the super jackpot a clean billion, and the rulesheet’s author has earned a 386 million super on a machine with factory settings.
Move Your Car can pay up to 80 million and is worth attempting because the shot sends the ball to the bumpers. Double Feature is 16 million for left ramps into center; the rulesheet treats it mostly as practice.
Big Millions and Unlimited Millions reward brief clean ramp streaks. Super Scoring after twelve right ramps is the best moment outside multiball. Not worth chasing: Movie Madness, Monster Madness, Snackbar Score, and 500,000 whirlpool spins outside multiball.
Your bonus is counted after each ball. The rulesheet does not know what advances it and says it is never very large.
P-A-I-D shows 1X, 2X, 4X, 6X, 8X, 10X, but each step actually doubles the bonus, so the top is really 32X. Nothing carries to the next ball. Flip to hurry the count.
Not for points
These are flavor tricks, not scoring routes.
Where this came from
Everything here comes from one player-written rulesheet, Sigma’s Guide by Kevin Martin, finished in 2004. Its warning applies to every timer here: timings vary, so treat seconds as approximate. Things the rulesheet does not answer:
Operator settings vary from cabinet to cabinet. Where your display disagrees with this guide, trust the display.