Twilight Zone

Spelling GUMBALL or receiving the Lite Gumball panel turns on the Gumball Machine lamp. Each time that happens, one future player-shot Right Orbit can load a ball into the machine, and more than one load can wait. A ball sent around the orbit by the machine itself does not count. Shoot the Right Orbit once for each waiting load before the game ends. Later loads award 25 million, and every second load also awards the flashing Spiral value.

The Powerball is the white ceramic ball. Magnets cannot hold it, so the helper magnets on the orbits and Magna-Flip on the Powerfield do nothing to it, and it bounces differently. While it is loose the Gumball Machine lights for Powerball Mania, as the bullets above describe. The simplest plan is to shoot the Right Orbit and send it home. The other sensible use is to lock it or start Multiball with it, because a jackpot shot with the Powerball is doubled. A Powerball all the way round an orbit is a Powerball Loop, ten million: the Left Orbit while Mania is lit, or either orbit in any multiball except Powerball Mania itself.

In normal play, hitting the unlit Clock Target lights one Greed Target, starting from the lower left and working upward. Once all seven are lit, the next hit is the ten-million Clock Bonus, once a ball. After that, or during any multiball, an unlit Clock Target just makes a cuckoo noise, which at least tells you a ball is up there. Ignore it unless nearly all seven are lit and the Clock Bonus is there for the taking. The Camera's Lite Greed Targets award lights all seven at once, and the Clock Bonus with them if you have not had it this ball.

Robots first. You start the game with one Robot. Every Left Ramp counts one more, or two while the right inlane has lit the ramp, and every Lock Lane counts one. On normal settings an extra ball lights at the Lock Lane at a number of Robots the machine adjusts, usually between six and fourteen, and another at forty-five. Every tenth Robot lights the Camera. After the ninety-eighth Robot every Left Ramp and Lock Lane is a Super Robot worth five million, and Robots stop lighting the Camera.

Lit Cameras play at the same time. The eight awards come in a random order, none repeats until all eight have been used, and the same one never comes twice running. The next award is decided in advance and shown on the status report (hold a flipper button while the ball is at rest) and after every award, so you always know what the next Camera will give. The eight:

• 20,000,000. Twenty million, nothing else.
• Hold Town Square. The Town Square value is not reset at the start of your next ball. The only way to keep it.
• 3X Town Square. Three times the current Town Square value, 22.5 million up to 75 million.
• Lite Greed Targets. All seven light for five million each, and the Clock Bonus with them if you have not had it this ball.
• Clock 10 Millions. A timed round: the Clock Target pays ten million a hit into your Clock Millions total, starting with ten million credited, whatever else is running. Six hits earn a twenty-million Clock Damage Bonus at the end unless the sixth was in the grace moment.
• 10 Hitchhikers. Ten hitchhikers as if you had earned them, which usually lights Battle the Power. Never past a hundred. Twenty million if the Hitchhiker panel is running this ball.
• Lite Outlanes. Lights the outlanes: the left for an extra ball, the right for Special.
• Collect Bonus. It pays your whole end-of-ball bonus immediately without resetting it. It is most valuable late in a strong ball.

Take low-value Camera awards such as 20 million, Hold, or 3X early if you want to reveal the next award. Save Collect Bonus until late in a strong ball. Save Clock 10 Millions for a Clock round or multiball, and save Lite Outlanes for multiball. Ten Hitchhikers lights Battle the Power, which redirects the next Right Ramp to the Powerfield, so check the Door before taking it. In the main Multiball, Camera relights the jackpot; in the other two multiballs it has no special effect, and an unused lit Camera remains available.

A ball that goes straight back into the Slot Machine right after it kicks one out scores nothing; the machine assumes the kick failed. Odd Change is what the dark Player Piano pays: a random handful of points, never ten million. Ignore it, but when the Player Piano is dark the Greed Target above it and the two red Power Payoff targets just under its mouth are still there. Power Payoff pays ten million, once, after you beat the Power, and 250,000 otherwise. Do not mix it up with the Powerball Payoff, the sum paid when Powerball Mania starts.

You start the game with one hitchhiker. Every trip down the Hitchhiker Lane counts one more, except that in normal play two trips within a moment count once, because the ball went in and straight back out. In multiball every trip counts. Left Orbit and then the Hitchhiker Lane within a second or two is a Triple Pickup, three at once. The third hitchhiker and every tenth after that lights Battle the Power on the Right Ramp, and lit battles play at the same time. The count stops at a hundred. After the Hitchhiker panel every hitchhiker for the rest of that ball is two million. Hitchhikers are dangerous to chase because the lane sends the ball to the jet bumpers, so earn them during multiballs. On many machines you can take the Triple Pickup by holding the upper-right flipper up after a fast Left Orbit; on your table that also holds the bottom-right flipper up, and a miss can go to the right outlane.

The three jet bumpers are Town Square, and they advance a Town Square value. It resets to 7.5 million at the start of every ball. Each hit on an unlit bumper adds 100,000, on a lit bumper 200,000, on a flashing bumper 300,000. The normal skill shot steps one, two or three bumpers up a level, and an unlit Camera steps one up. The value tops out at 25 million. To earn it, shoot the Dead End: double when the right inlane has lit it, and it stays lit until you earn it or the ball ends. Lit Dead Ends are counted through the game, and on normal settings the third one lights an extra ball at the Lock Lane for that ball only. The rulesheet also reports a secret hundred-million Dead End Bonus at the eighth and twentieth lit Dead End on later arcade code; whether your table's code does this has not been checked. Only the Camera's Hold Town Square award carries the value into the next ball. Never shoot the bumpers on purpose: let the value grow by itself, take Dead Ends when they come, and use multiballs, Fast Lock especially, for any time you want in the bumpers.

The row of six lights above the flippers is the Spiral. In order they pay: two million; three million and Battle the Power; four million; five million and Battle the Power; ten million; and last, an extra ball at the Lock Lane plus ten million and Battle the Power. After the sixth, further awards alternate between ten million and ten million with Battle the Power. On normal settings the first two are already lit when a game starts and the third flashes. To earn one, shoot a lit orbit: the inlanes light them, as the shots section says, and shooting an unlit orbit lights it, unless a helper magnet on the near side was active. Those timers never pause, and a lit orbit goes dark once earned. The extra ball from the sixth light lasts only for the current ball, and after it the Spiral resets to the first award at your next ball. Until you have the Spiral extra ball, shoot any lit orbit you see, especially the Right Orbit.

There is a magnet on each orbit near the back of the table, and in set situations the machine switches one on to catch the ball and hand it to the upper-left flipper for a clean shot. The three cases you will use: with the jackpot lit in Multiball, the left magnet catches balls from either orbit for the Player Piano; with the Camera lit, or during Town Square Madness, the right magnet catches balls for the Camera or the Hitchhiker Lane; with a Spiral orbit lit, the far magnet catches the ball. They never work on the Powerball, never during Lost in the Zone, and never on the Right Orbit while the Gumball Machine is lit. In any multiball, a ball that gets all the way round past an active magnet is scored as a Powerball Loop. How firmly the magnets catch on your table has not been checked.

Lighting it. Battle the Power lights on the Right Ramp at the third hitchhiker and every tenth after, from its Door panel, from every second Spiral award, from the red zone of the Super Skill Shot, and, if the machine is set that way, at the start of every game. Lit battles play at the same time and are remembered while the Powerfield is unavailable.

The fight. With Battle the Power lit, shoot the Right Ramp: the Bridge Diverter swings aside and the ball rides into the top-left corner of the Powerfield. Your flipper buttons now work Magna-Flip, the two magnets in the bottom corners. You have at least ten seconds, plus a grace moment, to throw the ball out through the hole at the top. Fail and it falls out of the bottom into the jet bumpers.

What it pays. The Powerfield value starts at five million. Each of the four switches on the lower walls adds 500,000, and the sensor at the top exit adds twice that. After your first win the switches are worth 750,000 for the rest of the game, after your second a million. Beating the Power doubles the Powerfield value, gives you the flashing Door panel (moving the flashing light on, exactly as the Player Piano would), and lights the two Power Payoff targets under the Player Piano for ten million. Everything the Powerfield pays also goes into your end-of-ball bonus, with no known limit.

How to flip. Press the button for just long enough: too short and the ball barely moves, too long and the magnet slows it on its way out. Practise gently, one press at a time. A stronger style is to keep flipping with whichever magnet is nearest the ball, bouncing it between the two nearest walls until it is thrown free toward the top. Never press both buttons at once, and never flip as fast as you can. A small nudge with one solid throw helps, but you can tilt on the Powerfield: a tilt is the penalty for shaking the machine too hard, and it ends the ball. One trick: as the ball enters and drops past the right-hand magnet, one press on that magnet can throw it straight out of the top. How strongly the magnets throw on your table has not been tested, so start gently.

When not to fight. If something valuable is flashing, such as Lite Extra Ball, remember that failing dumps the ball into the jet bumpers, which move the flashing panel on. The Player Piano may be the safer way to earn it.

Shoot the Left Ramp while the right inlane has just lit it and your bonus multiplier goes up one step, from 2X to a maximum of 5X, and that ramp counts two Robots instead of one. The multiplier is never carried into the next ball. It multiplies the base of your end-of-ball bonus, which is 500,000 for every hitchhiker and 500,000 for every Door panel you hold, so late in a long game one step can be worth tens of millions.

A combo is a set of shots made one straight after another. Left Ramp then Right Ramp, before GUM or BALL is spelled for the next lock, is the one you will hit by accident: five million. Longer chains on through the Player Piano, the Camera or the Hitchhiker Lane pay ten million for three shots and twenty for four. The four-shot ones run through the Hidden Lane, the narrow gap behind the Slot Machine that sends the ball to the upper-right flipper. Combos are off in every multiball. Ignore them apart from the ones that happen on their own.