The Simpsons Pinball Party

Every ball starts with a plunge: you pull back the spring-loaded rod and let it go. Pull it back just the right amount and the ball lands in one of three places, each with its own prize. An aimed launch like this is called a skill shot, and this table has three of them:

• Comic Book Guy: the one worth the most straight away. It pays 500K, rising to 1M, and it also starts two Hurry-Ups at once (a Hurry-Up is a prize that counts down until you shoot it). This is the launch most players go for. If you miss but the yellow light stays on, you can try again the next time you launch a ball.
• Kwik-E-Mart loop: gives you a bonus multiplier. The bonus is the pile of points the machine adds up when your ball ends, and the multiplier is what that pile gets multiplied by. This launch gives you 5X the first time, and more on later tries, up to 10X.
• Strobing Bully target: whichever of the three Bully targets has its light flashing. It pays 250K, rising to 500K, and lights the next Daredevil challenge.

Every time the machine locks one of your balls it serves you a fresh one to launch, so you get more skill shots during a long ball. There is also a hidden prize for pushing them to their top values: 1M for maxing one of the three, 2.5M for two, and 5M for all three.

A TV mode is a short timed task named after an episode of the show. To get one, shoot Krusty, the right orbit; that lights the TV. Then get the ball up to the upper playfield and around the TV loop, and the mode starts. Before you shoot the loop, pressing the right flipper button changes which mode you will get. Each one puts 30 seconds on the shared clock, and because the clock is shared you can have several TV modes running at once.

Some write-ups of this game say Duffman takes seven ramp shots and that Bart's Day starts with a different shot. The most detailed rules sheet says five, and Springfield Elementary, and that is what this guide follows.

Finish every TV mode you have running before the clock runs out and the machine goes into Victory: now every major shot on the table pays a prize. How much depends on how many modes you finished in that run of the clock: 100K for one, 250K for two, 500K for three, 800K for four, 1.25M for five, 1.75M for six, and 2.5M for all seven. Otto can double those. If you start another TV mode while Victory is running, Victory pauses until that new mode is finished. This is why players guard the clock so carefully: with all seven done, every shot is worth 2.5M. Keep the clock alive with Otto, D'Oh, the Treehouse, or the nuclear target, and get a multiball going so you have more balls to make those shots with.

Once all seven TV modes have been played and have ended, the next time you start the TV you get Alien Invasion. How long you get depends on how many of the seven you finished during that cycle: 45 seconds for one, then 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, and 99 seconds for all seven. It comes in four phases, and each phase throws more balls at you, from two in the first up to five in the last. In every phase your job is to lock all of them, using the Itchy hole, Springfield Elementary, and the Couch; when you are down to one ball, extra holes open up to take it. Lose a ball down the drain, the gap between the flippers, after the ball saver has ended, and you drop back a phase. Win the fourth phase and you have beaten the Invasion; that last phase needs two Couch locks without losing a ball. Starting the Invasion ends your ordinary play at the same time of timed features, though the machine gives something back for some of what was running. Tournament players push hard to reach the Invasion, and not mainly for the 5M you get for winning it: the TV modes and Daredevils running around it often score more.

The Itchy & Scratchy bank is the row of three targets on the lower right, with a hole behind it. They are drop targets: hit one and it falls flat. The usual way in is to knock down all three, shoot the hole, knock down all three again, and shoot the hole again. On your first try the machine goes easy on you and does not make you finish the whole row. After that, a miss puts the targets back up and you start the row over, and from your third try onward they also pop back up on a timer. Before the multiball starts, pressing the right flipper button picks which of four two-ball multiballs you get:

• Spay Anything: every turn of the spinner raises the jackpot value by 2K.
• Kitty Kitty Bang Bang: every bumper hit raises it by 1K.
• Field of Screams: every hit on the Bart captive ball raises it by 25K.
• Esophagus Now: every shot raises it by 10K. This is usually the best of the four for points.

In all four, every major shot pays a jackpot that starts at 100K, except for whichever shot you earned last. Each jackpot you earn also advances a Super Jackpot, which starts at 500K, can grow to 2.5M, and is earned at the Itchy & Scratchy hole. The first Super is ready as soon as the multiball starts; for the ones after it you have to knock the drop targets down again first. There is a short ball saver at the start. You can start these on top of Couch or any other multiball, and that is the safest way to play them, because with a single ball the bank and hole are a dangerous shot, and a bad send the ball (the way the ball comes back at your flippers) costs you much less when there is a spare ball on the table.

Once you have played all four, the next time the ball goes into the Itchy & Scratchy hole you get Scratchy's Revenge, and you do not need to knock the targets down first. It starts with only two balls in play (one added ball, which is not the same as an extra ball; in pinball that means another turn after your ball ends), so start it on top of another multiball to have more balls around. To light its Super you need a set number of jackpots: 15, less one for every Super you took in the ordinary Itchy & Scratchy multiballs, but never fewer than five. Then shoot the hole. Springfield Mystery Spot doubles the jackpots in Scratchy's Revenge, so running the two together is the strongest pairing on the table. One Super here finishes another of the six wizard-mode tasks.

Hit the Comic Book Guy target and one of six major shots starts counting down from a big number. Shoot it before it runs out and you get whatever is left. That is a Hurry-Up, and hitting Comic Book Guy again can have several counting down at once. Earning them in one run pays extra: three moves Itchy & Scratchy forward, four gives you a Couch lock, five lights an extra ball, and six lights Special, which in pinball means a free credit. Each Hurry-Up you earn lights a lamp at its shot. Once you have lit all six different lamps, hit Comic Book Guy to start Secret Stash: all six shots light up, each worth 500K counting down to 100K, and you need to make ten shots in all. Comic Book Guy relights any shots you have used up; clear all six without needing him and you get 2M. Finishing pays 1M and ticks off one of the six wizard-mode tasks.

The Daredevils are four challenges you start at Bart. Knock down all three Bully targets and one Daredevil lights up; then hit the Bart captive ball to start it. Each challenge asks you to score from one kind of shot: the ramps (50K each), the loops (50K each), the bumpers and slingshots (12.5K each; the slingshots are the two triangles just above the flippers), or the targets (25K each). Hitting the captive ball again while the challenge is running raises the value by half of what it started at. Score 750K in the challenge to finish it, and a 250K finishing prize takes you past 1M. These points are paid as part of your bonus when the ball ends, so you lose them if you tilt, which is what happens when you shove the machine so hard it shuts the flippers off. Finish all four, then hit Bart again for Daredevil Mania: earn 5M from all four kinds of shot. There is no clock on it, and it is easiest during a multiball.

These are the smaller features around the table. Pinball players call them side ladders because each one is a series of steps you climb by making the same shot again and again.

• D'Oh Frenzy: shots to the Garage and the Treehouse spell S-I-M-P-S-O-N-S one letter at a time, and shooting the Cletus orbit and then the Treehouse straight after can earn two letters at once. Spell the whole word and D'Oh Frenzy starts: every switch the ball touches (a switch is anything on the playfield that can feel the ball: a target, a lane, a bumper) pays 10K until the shared clock or the ball ends. Each later Frenzy pays 2.5K more per switch.
• Treehouse: your 5th, 15th, and 25th shots up Moe's ramp, and every tenth shot after that, light a prize at the Treehouse; shoot the Treehouse to take it. The prizes come around in turn without repeating, and you can save one up rather than take it at once. Five of them run on the shared clock: Apu's Giveaway (raises Kwik-E-Mart's values and multipliers), Captain's Bounty (a prize built digit by digit from ramp and Garage shots), Krusty's Nightmare (a prize built from random digits as the spinner turns), Nuclear Disaster (50 bumper hits pay 1M, then every pop-up after that pays 100K), and Crazy Extra Ball (an extra ball whose lit lane the machine keeps moving). Three pay out on the spot: Max Everything, 2M, and 10X Nuclear Value. Older versions of the software also had a joke award of 2M printed in tiny letters.
• Clean the Garage: this is the mystery award. Hit the Light Mystery target on the upper playfield, then shoot the Garage, and the machine hands you something from a long list: progress on a feature or a lit award, plain points, a value pushed to its maximum, bonus, letters, kids, Duffs, or time on the clock. In competition settings it will not give the same award twice in a row, and it will not light an extra ball or a Special that is already lit.
• Chalkboard: shooting Springfield Elementary again and again earns you holds. A hold means the machine keeps something for you that would normally reset when your ball ends, such as your bonus multiplier, your bonus value, or the value of the ramps and loops.
• Cletus Kids: every shot up the Cletus orbit adds one of Cletus's 26 kids, and the 27th shot starts Pretzel Multiball. Two more balls come out so you have three, and this works even in the middle of another multiball. Every major shot is a jackpot, and every switch the balls hit advances up a Super Jackpot. When the Super lights, shoot Moe's, the right ramp, to earn it. The way to play it: Trap one ball, which means catching it and holding it still on a raised flipper, let the other balls bounce around hitting switches, and when the Super is lit, shoot the right ramp with the ball you have been holding on the left flipper.