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The Munsters Pinball Tutorial (Flip N Out Pinball, 2025)

Flip n Out Pinball·video·18m 7s·analyzed·Dec 18, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.024

TL;DR

Munsters pinball tutorial covering layout, family member qualification, and Monster Madness wizard mode progression.

Summary

Joel Ingleber provides a comprehensive tutorial on The Munsters pinball machine by Stern (2018-2019), designed by John Borg with code by Dwight Sullivan. The video covers the fan-layout playfield, the dual-flipper lower playfield exclusive to Premium/LE models, and the progression system requiring collection of five family members to reach the Monster Madness wizard mode. Ingleber emphasizes the game's accessibility despite initial perceptions of shallow rules, highlighting its speed, difficulty, and strategic depth through multiball management and jackpot stacking.

Key Claims

  • The Munsters was released in 2018 or 2019

    medium confidence · Joel states 'The game came out, I think it was 2018, 2019, somewhere around there' - approximate rather than definitive

  • The Munsters LE features an all-color package, most Premiums are black and white, and Pro is in color

    high confidence · Joel directly describes the visual differences: 'The LE is in all color. The premium, most the premiums are in black and white, and then the pro is also in color.'

  • The lower playfield with mini-flippers is exclusive to Premium and LE versions

    high confidence · Joel states: 'In the Premium and LE, there's a lower play field with two mini flippers. You can actually start multiball down there'

  • The Munsters has no ball save by default

    high confidence · Joel explicitly states: 'There's no ball save on this game... There's no ball save by default, so that can be brutal.'

  • Initially some people thought the rules were shallow, but the game has significant depth

    high confidence · Joel says: 'Initially some people thought the rules were shallow, but I'll tell you what, Jared and I, we streamed this the other night. We had an absolute blast playing this game.'

  • The game is fast, brutal, and can be mean when draining occurs

    high confidence · Joel emphasizes: 'The reason being is the game is fast. The game is fast. It can be mean and when you drain that's it.'

  • Kitty multiplier can reach 6x through completing family members

    high confidence · Joel demonstrates: 'you can get this up to 6x and that's where all the points are'

  • Monster Madness wizard mode has multiple levels with increasing difficulty

    high confidence · Joel explains: 'There's different levels to Monster Madness... once you get through Monster Madness once, you can do it all over again. qualifying them is a little harder... than Monster Madness itself is more complicated.'

Notable Quotes

  • “Initially some people thought the rules were shallow, but I'll tell you what, Jared and I, we streamed this the other night. We had an absolute blast playing this game.”

    Joel Ingleber @ ~0:30 — Addresses common criticism that Munsters has been underestimated; corrects perception of shallow rules through personal play experience

  • “There's no ball save on this game. You'll see the shoot again. There's no ball save by default, so that can be brutal. you can plunge and immediately lose the ball.”

    Joel Ingleber @ ~2:15 — Highlights a key design feature that creates tension and difficulty for new players

  • “The reason being is the game is fast. The game is fast. It can be mean and when you drain that's it.”

    Joel Ingleber @ ~21:00 — Captures the core gameplay experience and challenge level of the machine

  • “It's this is one of my shorter tutorials, but I will tell you this game is a blast.”

    Joel Ingleber @ ~22:00 — Emphasizes that despite simple progression structure, the game delivers significant enjoyment

  • “I like to prioritize spot first because that's a lot of ramp shots and then get the spot mode going just because worst case if while the spot mode is going, if I drain out, it doesn't matter. I already got them qualified.”

    Joel Ingleber @ ~23:15 — Demonstrates strategic approach balancing progression with risk mitigation

Entities

Joel IngleberpersonZach NicolepersonJaredpersonJohn BorgpersonDwight SullivanpersonChristopher FranchipersonThe MunstersgameStern PinballcompanyFlip n Out Pinballorganization

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Initial community perception of The Munsters as having shallow rules has been revised upward through sustained play; the game is now recognized as having strategic depth and difficulty

    high · Joel states: 'Initially some people thought the rules were shallow, but I'll tell you what, Jared and I, we streamed this the other night. We had an absolute blast playing this game.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: The Munsters exemplifies a player-friendly design philosophy with clear shot progression and simple win conditions, contrasting with more complex rules-heavy titles. Accessibility combined with challenge creates appeal for both casual and serious players

    medium · Joel explains: 'You don't have to overthink it. All you got to think of is I got five things I got to do to qualify the final wizard mode... It's just simple and fun and fast, easy to understand.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: The Munsters employs clear variant tier differentiation: LE features all-color art package and lower playfield with dual mini-flippers; Premium mostly black-and-white; Pro includes color but lacks lower playfield

    high · Joel describes: 'The LE is in all color. The premium, most the premiums are in black and white, and then the pro is also in color' and 'In the Premium and LE, there's a lower play field with two mini flippers'

Topics

Playfield layout and shot designprimaryFamily member qualification progression systemprimaryMultiball modes and mechanicsprimaryWizard mode (Monster Madness) progressionprimaryGame difficulty and ball save mechanicssecondaryRules depth and strategic gameplaysecondaryVisual design and art packagesecondaryPremium/LE vs Pro variant differencessecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.88)— Joel is enthusiastic about The Munsters, praising it as fun, fast, and well-designed despite initial perceptions of shallow rules. His experience streaming with Jared reinforces positive sentiment. The only negative aspects mentioned are design challenges (no ball save, difficulty) which Joel frames as features rather than criticisms. His closing statements emphasize enjoyment and aesthetic appreciation.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

Hello, my name is Joel Ingleber and this is the Flipping Out YouTube channel. Thanks so much for clicking on the video. Hopefully you'll find this tutorial useful. Um, I really enjoy making them, so thanks for watching them. Um, huge shout out to Zach Nicole for letting me borrow this game. This is a game that came in on trade. So, Zach uh does trades, so if you're looking to buy something new or used, reach out to him. But yeah, this is a monstersle. This is number two out of 600, which is kind of crazy. Um, it's a beautiful game. Uh, Christopher Franchi package, unbelievable. The LE is in all color. The premium, most the premiums are in black and white, and then the pro is also in color. Uh, it's an awesome game. The game came out, I think it was 2018, 2019, somewhere around there. John Borg game, Dwight Sullivan on the code. Um, initially some people thought the rules were shallow, but I'll tell you what, Jared and I, we streamed this the other night. We had an absolute blast playing this game. Um, I don't really know what else to say. I mean, it's brutal. It can be fast, but boy is it fun. So, yeah. Let me start off what I normally do with shots and layout. It's a fan layout. Um, there is this thing right here, though. In the Premium and LE, there's a lower play field with two mini flippers. You can actually start multiball down there, which is a ton of fun. Um, so there's kind of a an orbit shot down there and then there's a vertical upkit shot, uh, a right ramp and then a shot right up the middle. Um, it's awesome. I love it. I love that lower play field. Uh, I actually find it challenging, but also very fun um to play. Now, on the main playfield, we have inlane, out lane, but then there's two inlanes on the left. Um, there's no ball save on this game. You'll see the shoot again. There's no ball save by default, so that can be brutal. you can plunge and immediately lose the ball. Um, but the inlanes are important for Eddie. Uh, the Eddie targets are here. Basically, you go through the in lane and then you want to go through the opposite orbit um to get Eddie targets. And then the Maryland target is here and you want to hit her ramp uh whenever it goes through those for the boyfriend awards, which is pretty funny. Um, then we got big targets on the left and right. Um, this is how you uh power up the Dracula, which is this actual area over here on the left. Um, and then over there on the right is the Lily targets, which you're going to use to spell Lily, one of the five family members. Uh, the Dracula shot, if you get into there, that's how you collect some crazy jackpots. And then the ball will actually shoot out around the orbit. Uh, the left orbit has a spinner, which just feeds all the way around to the right orbit. The spinner's right here. Uh, same with the right orbit over here. no spinner. But uh those are the Eddie shots or the Eddie orbits. Then we have the left ramp. The left ramp is a fun uh ramp. You can backhand this ramp and uh there's a spot right here where the flap will open up and spot the dog or the dragon or the creature will pop up and you'll bash him as a bash target right under where I circled. Then you have the Eddie monster bash target. There's a magnet in front of him that'll grab the ball. Um he reacts. Uh you'll see it over here. He'll pop back uh when you hit him, which is pretty cool. A very important target right here. There's the kitty target. That is how you do your playfield multipliers and you keep go those going. Every time you complete a family member, Kitty will light up and you can get this up to 6x and that's where all the points are. Um there's a pop bumper nest back here and then grandpa's laboratory. So to get um down below, you're going to hit that scoop. That's your extra ball scoop. Very important scoop to hit throughout the game. Then you have the right ramp, which is a 180 ramp. You can't backhand it. It'll feed the right flipper. That's a Maryland shot. Honestly, both of these ramps feel incredibly good to hit. Um, and then there's four standup targets. They're the chattering teeth is what they're called. Uh, you have to collect a bunch of those to qualify Grandpa's Laboratory, the different stages of Grandpa's Laboratory. And then you have the plunge. The plunge will go into the pops or if you hold down the left flipper button, it'll go all the way around. So, really not a crazy layout. Not a crazy layout at all. You can step up to this game and you can immediately see the shots. You know where they're going to go and then you just got to figure out how to play the game. The main point of the game is to get to Monster Madness. To get to Monster Madness, you have to collect all five family members. So, Herman Spy, Raven, Grandpa, and Lily. So, let's go ahead and talk about how to do that. All right. There are three essential skill shots. If you do nothing, you can see Spot popping up. Oh, he just dropped down. But um if you do nothing, you can either kind of short plunge into this lane. You can't change the lane. So it's always going to be you really just got to dial it in and drop it right into there. Otherwise, you're going to short plunge here, feed your right flipper, and then hit the left flipper. That's if you hold down no buttons. If I hold down the left flipper, oh yeah, there's two flipper buttons. So on each side, so the lower flipper buttons, if you look right here, I'm doing my lower playfield flippers. The upper flipper buttons are how you do the upper playfield. So, there's four total flipper buttons. And yes, there are modes where you have to hit them all at the same time. So, if I hold down the upper left flipper button, you see now this is lit. That will plunge all the way around and then you can take a shot right there at the right flipper. If I hold down both left flipper buttons, this is now lit. So, it'll go all the way around. You have to hit that. And then after you hit that, it'll go down below. And then you have just 10 seconds to hit that. That is pretty fun. So, let's actually show that off. So, I'm holding down both flipper buttons. So, the ball's going to go all the way around. And then this would be me hitting that shot. That'll stick me down below. And then I have 12 seconds to hit that scoop. Uh 9 8 7 I can't throw the ball around. There's a two. I'm not going to hit it. Nope. Oh. Well, there you go. If I would have done that, it gives you uh a million points and a mystery award. So, let's go ahead and do Herman first. He's the easy one. Balty Ball. You hit him. Look at the inserts there. Now that it's free, GI color changes. Next time I hit him, it's going to grab the ball and it's going to kick me out another one. What I would encourage you to do is when you're in a multiball, you do want to prioritize Lily. So, you see how it dropped both those down. So, now I'm in Herman Multiball. When you're in Herman Multiball, initially all the shots are, you see, they're all black and white. So, you want to collect all four of those. There's one of them. There's two of them. There's three of them. And four of them. There we go. Four of them. So, to relight our jackpots, we have to hit Herman. You see that's that's one. Let's hit them three times. There we go. Now, my jackpots more jackpots are lit. So, let's do one over here. This blue jackpot lit as well. So, you're going to see those with those square inserts. So, you hit Herman again, and every time you hit them, it'll light a jackpot. Now, we got a jackpot over there. You can keep doing this. Remember, I'm in multiball. You can keep doing this all the way until the jackpots go red, and then they're worth a lot of points. That ball's gone. But normally, honestly, my whole goal is monster madness. So, instead of caring about points, when I'm in multiball, I'm trying to hit Lily. The thing about Lily is every time you hit her, it lights, but if you go a little while before you hit her again, it'll go back. It'll step back. And I'll show you that. While that's going on, I'm going to hit a few of these teeth. So, if you look right here, that's where it counts how many teeth. Well, look right there. So, do you see how I went down? So, you want to hit You have to really focus on it to kind of build Lily. And then once you you've hit Lily, that's how you light Lily enough. So I always prioritize that when I'm in multiball. Same thing. I'm I'm usually prioritizing teeth. If the teeth is unlit, if it's unlit, so remember, look right here. If the teeth is unlit, it's just worth one. If it's flashing, it gives you two. Do you see how I went from 8 to 10? Now I'm going to go from 10 to 12. 12 to 14. So you could prioritize the ones that are flashing if you want more points. But I got Lily going. I got Herman going. And maybe this is a good good point uh to point out the kitty multiplier being that I've qualified one of those kitties lit. So that gets me one, but I've qualified two. So I can actually bump that up to 3x. All right, I'm going to I'm going to pop down to one ball. And you can keep this 3x going until you drain by just continually hitting the kitty target. That'll continue to light it. So grandpa's lit. So, let's go ahead and hit grandpa. That's going to bop me down below. To qualify grandpa on a premium or le, I have to hit the two jackpot shots, which are the two orbits. So, there's one. I definitely recommend backhanding them as I'm trying to forehand it. I'm going to miss it. There you go. But once you backhand it, you have to start the machine right up the middle. If you would have done that, it starts a multi- doll down below. And that's how you would qualify that. Um, we'll get to it another way. Next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to work on my spot letters. Spot letters. You can see there's a red light here. That means one shot to the left will qualify as spot letter. Now, do you see how this is o over there as well? So, spot letters. Once you spell spot, which I just did, it starts the spot mode. The spot mode is all about hitting spot. Now I can bop this up. See how kitty is lit now because I just heard spot. That's how I get my 6x. So there's spot. So you basically want to just hit him every time he pops up at the first stage of spot. And then after that, you you have to end up uh you have to hit a right ramp. So I'm going to have to hit a ramp to get them to pop up. And then you hit corner. If you look, I got a lot of time. There's a lot of competitive people that just time out spot because it's something that's just going on. So, while that's going on, let me explain. Dragula, you hit it. Do you see how my my numbers are going up? Once you hit it enough, boom. That'll be the 5x super jackpot. And then another thing to explain, all throughout this, I've been getting super jackpots. Ferman spot. I'm going to have a lily probably. Nope. you can do. There's different things that you can qualify and you can stack all these super jackpots and have cash them all in at once. If you don't want to cash them all in at once, you hold the button down and you can cancel it and you can keep it going. So, spot is still going. So, this is where I have to hit a ramp and get them to pop up while spot still going here. Is my 6x still going? Still is. Maybe hit Kitty again to make sure that that's still not going to time out. Let's talk about Eddie. If I roll over the right orbit and I hit the left or the right in lane. There we go. That's an Eddie loop. Uh, so let's do that again. There we go. So there's Eddie loops. There's Marilyn. If you fall through Maryland Oh, apparently I can't do this while Spot's going on. There we go. Perfect. Spot just timed out. Let's show a Marilyn. You roll over Maryland. Nope. Well, it apparently it doesn't want me to do that right now. That's fine. Or maybe I already got him. But basically, you roll over Maryland and then you hit the right ramp. Um, one thing that's going on now, now that I've beat this is qualified as soon as you beat one of these character modes. But if you look, there's three white lights. One of them is solid. That means I've hit one left ramp. Those are the Raven Multiball. So, you're about to see another one solid. And the third the third one that I hit now will start Raven Multiball. So, Raven Multiball Ball is qualified when uh you completed Raven Multiball is qualified after you beat one family member and then you have to hit the left ramp three times. So, Raven Multiball, look at the white squares or the white rectangles. So, basically once you hit all four, you're going to get through the first mode and then they all turn blue, become more powerful. Um, my Raven Super Jackpot is now lit. So, it's something I could cash out here. But if I don't want to, I push and hold the button. And that's how you can stack your jackpots for more points. So, that's four of them. The only one I don't have is Grandpa. And I'm going to actually go ahead. So, I think I've shown most of it. We'll get that extra ball. Why not? I'm going to go ahead and drain out two of these. Actually, I'll drain out all three. So, when this comes out, I should be out of Oh, you've got an extra ball. All right. So, Grandpa's the only one I don't have. And being that I didn't get the the the uh the multiball, that would have qualified it. I need to get to 48 teeth. So, look here. 26 27 28. If I hit doubles. So, 48. Once I get to 48 teeth, it'll qualify enlargement ray. There we go. So, now that I'm at 48, enlargement ray is a mode and that'll qualify grandpa just by starting the mode. So, unfortunately, we got to get through this mode before I can play monster madness. Now, that's about it. Now, that may sound shallow, but if you look, everyone is level one. So, once you get through Monster Madness once, you can do it all over again. qualifying them is a little harder and um than Monster Madness itself is more complicated. So that's kind of the goal. My goal I mean Jared and I streamed this the other night and it took us all night to get to Monster Madness. The reason being is the game is fast. The game is fast. It can be mean and when you drain that's it. So Monster Madness is now lit at the scoop. Now I don't know if Zach's going to show it. Um, but that's what's that's what you getting at this point. We're near Monster Madness. What is cool is this is one of those boats where if you look down below, I'm flipping down below and I'm trying to get my jackpots down below and I'm trying to keep things going a lot. It is really hard to do. Um, the goals down below are pretty clear to hit the green arrows. Goals up above though are you want to hit the different areas. So, right at the very beginning, you're trying to prioritize M uh Turman. Once you've prioritized Turman, Raven's now lit. So, that's my shots over here on the left. Remember, there's still stuff going on down below. I'm completely ignoring it. There's Raven. There we go. And now I got to do Lily. And then once Lily's done, you can see it on the screen. You're going to hit the electric chair. Um, and that's how you get through. There's different levels to Monster Madness. So, let me go ahead and get down to one. And that's that would be it. That would be Monster Madness. And then I'd be back at the beginning trying to qualify for the level two of every single mode. Um, but I think I think that's about it. Um, yeah, I think I've shown it all. So, it seems short because it is. It's this is one of my shorter tutorials, but I will tell you this game is a blast. It's really nice having games sometimes that you just have to step up to. You don't have to overthink it. All you got to think of is I got five things I got to do to qualify the final wizard mode. Um, basically, what do I want to start with? I like to prioritize spot first because that's a lot of ramp shots and then get the spot mode going just because worst case if while the spot mode is going, if I drain out, it doesn't matter. I already got them qualified. Usually in that process, I've hit enough targets to qualify Grandpa's Laboratory. I can get down there, try to get that multiball. Maybe I'll get it early. Maybe I'll get Grandpa's Laboratory with a mystery mystery award. Um, if not, I know that's something that I'm going to have to get to 48 total targets. Um, and then I get into Herman. Once I'm in Herman, I prioritize Lily so I can knock both of those out. And after I've beaten any one of those, Raven multiball is going to be lit. Same thing when you're in a multiball, prioritize Lily. Once Lily's qualified, prioritize the Chattering Teeth targets. That way, you can get deeper into the game. There's a whole bunch to it when it comes to scoring, stacking your jackpots, getting your 5x jackpot going, the Dragula shot. I personally ignore all that because I like progression. Um, but it's fun. It's fun. It's just simple and fun and fast, easy to understand. Not to mention, it's monsters. I mean, it's great. Monsters is a great show, but it's it's Frankenstein. It's Universal Monsters. It's It's just fun. It a beautiful art package. I don't know. I don't really know what else to say. I love it. We Jared and I absolutely loved playing this game. Yeah. All right. Well, hopefully that was helpful. Um if it wasn't, tell me what I forgot. Tell me what I missed. Tell me what I should do differently. That's what the comment section is for. I read as much as I can. Um huge shout out once again to Zach and Nicole for letting me play all these games and make these videos. Um but yeah, thanks for clicking on it. You guys have a great rest of your day. Bye.
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