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Eric Stone: Improve Your Pinball Play

Pintastic New England·video·1h 21m·analyzed·Jul 4, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.023

TL;DR

Eric Stone teaches Walking Dead strategy and advanced flipper control techniques.

Summary

Eric Stone, world-ranked 8th pinball player and meteorologist, provides an in-depth instructional session on The Walking Dead pinball machine at Pintastic New England. He demonstrates two contrasting strategies: an aggressive prison multiball approach (which yields lower scores) and a conservative drop-target mode strategy (which produces significantly higher scores). The content emphasizes ball control techniques, flipper management, nudging, catch mechanics, and shot sequencing.

Key Claims

  • Eric Stone is ranked 8th in the world in competitive pinball

    high confidence · Eric Stone states at the beginning: 'I think eighth. Eighth best player in the world here.'

  • Eric Stone was ranked 3rd in the world last November but has dropped points due to taking a break from competitive play

    high confidence · Eric Stone: 'I was third in the world last November. But when you don't play for a little while, then you kind of lose some points.'

  • Eric Stone is a meteorologist who was out of work for a couple of years and recently returned to employment

    high confidence · Eric Stone: 'I'm a meteorologist, and I was out of work for a couple years, and so the end of last year, I'm back at work.'

  • The drop-target mode strategy on The Walking Dead produces higher scores than the prison multiball strategy

    high confidence · Eric Stone demonstrates two games: prison strategy yields approximately 36 million, while drop-target strategy with Bloodbath multiball yields approximately 108 million points

  • The Walking Dead has a Well Walker feature that requires approximately 12 hits to activate and is very risky to pursue

    medium confidence · Eric Stone: 'Well Walker I'm not sure how many times it takes to hit him. We'll test that later. I think it's like 12 times. It's a very, very risky shot, and I don't go for that at all.'

  • Tournament mode on The Walking Dead has the ball save turned off

    high confidence · Eric Stone: 'in tournaments, a lot of times the ball save is not turned on. But when it is I like to try to make my hard shots when the ball save is turned on'

  • The Riot shot on The Walking Dead is one of the hardest shots on the machine

    high confidence · Eric Stone: 'this Riot shot is probably one of the harder shots, if not the hardest shot of this game'

  • Hitting the two standup targets next to the prison and then making the Riot shot activates a 2X playfield multiplier lasting 20-30 seconds

Notable Quotes

  • “I like to control the ball, and I like to shoot the same shot over and over and over and over again. And if I can build one shot higher and higher and higher, And I don't have to mess with anything else if I can find a safe shot to do that That's what I like to do”

    Eric Stone@ 1:51 — Articulates core philosophy of safe, repetitive shot selection over risky complex combos

  • “Don't be afraid when the ball's coming to your flipper. Don't be afraid to let the ball bounce because it, if it bounces from one flipper to the other and you can get control, that's much better than just, Oh, the ball's coming. I want to flip the ball”

    Eric Stone@ 7:00 — Key tactical advice on ball control and patience

  • “It doesn't quite work like when you're actually playing the game”

    Eric Stone@ 9:50 — Acknowledges difficulty of executing techniques in live play vs. demonstration mode

  • “This, to me, is a much better strategy on playing The Walking Dead. You'll get a higher score”

    Eric Stone@ 18:01 — Direct comparison statement justifying the mode-based approach over prison multiball

  • “It's The Walking Dead. And so you just keep doing that.”

    Eric Stone@ 5:35 — Acknowledges finicky behavior and unreliable shot registration on the machine

  • “Don't ever feel bad about giving a nudge up or like bouncing the game that's not going to tilt the game this that will tilt the game side to side”

    Eric Stone@ 15:27 — Clarifies tilt mechanics and encourages conservative nudging

Entities

Eric StonepersonThe Walking DeadgameStern PinballcompanyPintastic New EnglandeventEvil KnievelgameTotal Nuclear Annihilationgame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Pintastic New England hosting structured educational programming with world-ranked competitive players, demonstrating community investment in skill development and knowledge transfer

    high · Full instructional session format with detailed explanation, live demonstration, and audience interaction

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Drop-target mode strategy significantly outperforms prison multiball strategy in tournament play. Stone demonstrates this with contrasting games (36M vs 108M) and explicitly states 'This, to me, is a much better strategy on playing The Walking Dead.'

    high · Two complete game demonstrations with explicit score comparison and strategic analysis

  • ?

    design_philosophy: The Well Walker shot is described as 'very, very risky' with high hit threshold (approximately 12 times) making it impractical for tournament play, suggesting mechanical/design challenge integration issues

    medium · Eric Stone: 'Well Walker I'm not sure how many times it takes to hit him. We'll test that later. I think it's like 12 times. It's a very, very risky shot, and I don't go for that at all.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: The Walking Dead has unreliable shot registration on prison multiball, particularly with the flashing shot to open prison. Stone remarks 'Sometimes it's, it's a little finicky. It doesn't always register, but that's, that's The Walking Dead.'

    high · Multiple instances during gameplay where prison shot fails to register despite appearing to be hit correctly

Topics

Ball control and flipper techniqueprimaryThe Walking Dead game strategy and rule setprimaryMultiball modes (Prison vs Bloodbath)primaryDrop-target mode strategyprimaryAdvanced catch mechanics (drop catch, live catch, tip pass)primaryGame nudging and tilt mechanicssecondaryTournament vs casual play differencessecondaryShot sequencing and playfield multiplier stackingsecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Educational, encouraging tone throughout. Eric Stone is patient, supportive of learning players, and demonstrates both success and failure to normalize struggle. Some frustration with machine finickiness (shot registration issues, unexpected ball bounces) but framed as part of the game. Overall celebratory of good plays and achievements during demonstration.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.244

As always, we start out with our champion player. Eric, what's your ranking now? I think eighth. Eighth best player in the world here. I've taken a bit of a break from pinball. I'm a meteorologist, and I was out of work for a couple years, and so the end of last year, I'm back to work. So I haven't really been playing much. I was third in the world last November. But when you don't play for a little while, then you kind of lose some points. But either way, they tell me I'm all right. And I just listen to what everybody else says. All right. So is anyone familiar with The Walking Dead? A lot of you guys played it before. How many of you are not even close to familiar? All right. That's what I like to see. All right. Well, you know, it's a stirred game, so there's usually a ball save on it. There's usually a skill shot. There's usually several multi-balls and several strategies on this Walking Dead. There's a couple strategies. You've got three drop targets on the left-hand side. When you hit the three drop targets one time, it will light your modes. You've got a barn mode where it's pretty much an easy shot. You just keep on shooting the barn until time runs out. And the more times you hit it, the more points you get. You've got a CDC shot where you hit a couple of ramps. You hit a barn shot. You can hit this Woodbury shot. It's a little more complicated, a little more tough. So in tournament mode, I don't usually go for it. You've got an arena shot, which is the right ramp. I like to go for that as well because all it is is ramp, ramp, ramp, ramp, ramp. So the way I like to play is I like to control the ball, and I like to shoot the same shot over and over and over and over again. And if I can build one shot higher and higher and higher, And I don't have to mess with anything else if I can find a safe shot to do that That's what I like to do then you've got a couple other shots You've got a riot mode and you've got a tunnel mode, which is a little bit more difficult to consistently Hit as well as like the feeds coming back to the flipper sometimes a little difficult So what we're gonna do is we're gonna show you the drop target modes You see you got a first aid weapons and food now these will alternate. Let's see how loud this is We probably want to turn that down I I'd take it out about six. Oh, yeah, you're way up. Okay, wait a minute. Keep going. All right. About 30. Okay. How's that volume? Can you hear the game and hear me at the same time? Okay. I'd rather you be able to hear me anyway. Okay. See these alternating shots, first aid, weapons, and food. Once I hit a drop target, it'll lock one in. It locks it into weapons. then I hit the other drop targets and now I've got the modes lit. Now all of a sudden it's still going to rotate for first aid weapons and food. I do not want to hit the targets when weapons is lit because if I do that's okay we'll do that. So if I hit it during food there it is it locks into food. So what I want to do is I want to get all three of these and again this is one strategy. I want to get all three of these then I want to do first aid and normally I'll play rather than show it this way but this is a lot easier obviously with the class off it's easier so there it is so now I've got what's called bloodbath and that's a multiball so what next time I hit these drop targets I'm gonna automatically get a multiball let's so basically let's try to start a mode let's try to get barn right away or CDC right away now I want to hit those drop targets to get to get a multiball now some of the little tricks that I'm trying to do here is all I'm trying to do is control the ball any way I can do it so what I just did there was basically it was coming to the tip of the flipper I let it bounce over to this side and then shoot my shot so there it is so now I'm in multiball so basically it's it's kind of like a free-for-all I'll just shoot whatever whatever you can shoot I've got this I've got the CDC ramp lit every time you hit the three drop targets you're going to get out of all so if I hit it one more time it'll add a ball it also add ball save time again this is one strategy on how to play the game try to get blood back now I can shoot the prison basically the prison shot is another multiball so you hit the prison one time and then it actually lights prison and it should lock it'll hold the ball right there that's the start. That's not start a prison multiball, but it's the start of the prison. So now I have P R I S O and lit. All these shots are red. Now, every time I hit a shot, it will spot one of my letters. So now the R is lit. If I hit the, if I hit the ramp shot, the eye is lit, or I could just hit the prison like that and it will automatically get me into prison multiball. So basically what I did is I stack the two multiballs. So I still have bloodbath going and I have the prison multiball going. Now with, with, with prison multiball, you want to hit one flashing shot. The prison opens up and then you hit, you hit the prison. And sometimes it's, it's a little finicky. It doesn't always register, but that's, that's walking dead. And so you just keep doing that. So now you've got both stacked up again. You can hit these for an add a ball, but I've got four balls already. So, so those are the two multi balls. Let's see if it gives me those back. So I didn't really do much for 36 million. And yeah, granted I have the glass off and I'm going to show you. So let me show you some, some, uh, some tips. The most dangerous that I think shot coming out of this tunnel, you don't really know where the ball is going to go. it can hit this metal piece and it can bounce over here. You can hit the metal piece, go right down the middle. You can hit this and be on the right-hand side. So it's a little risky when you're shooting a barn shot like this to see where it's going to go. I like to let the ball hit here, bounce if possible. Nope. See that? Now there's a perfect example of not knowing I hit the shot I wanted, but it's very risky coming out of there. So anyway, we'll talk about, there's a skill shot up top. You can see the two flashing lanes. That's pretty simple. It usually winds up on the right lane. So I'll just pull it all the way. Well, well, that was interesting. If it ever does that, where you pull it too hard and it gets caught in the bumpers, just try a little softer shot. Now let's see how it comes out. Okay. That's what I want it to do. I want it to bounce. Don't, don't be afraid when the ball's coming to your flipper. Don't be afraid to let the ball bounce because it, if it bounces from one flipper to the other and you can get control, that's much better than just, Oh, the ball's coming. I want to flip the ball because you won't get, it'll be very hard to get control. So I pull it back soft because when I did it hard, it hit the bumper. So now I'm good with a skill shot. Now I let it bounce and now I shoot my shot and miss it, but that's okay. So you get a ball save again. So there it is. So that's what you like to do is I like to have the ball held on a flipper. So now you might say, well, I want it on the left flipper. If you do a quick flip, you will hit this ball into this post and hopefully get it on this side. There it is. It's not easy to do. It takes a lot of practice and each game is going to be different. Sometimes you've got to hit it hard and I'll show you on, on, um, evil Knievel. It's much different on an older game than a newer game. So let's try it with this flipper, try to get it back to the right, just like that. So basically, you know, you can go all day and I did that purposely. I did, I did it soft. If you do it too soft, it won't, you won't have the same result. If you do it too hard, look, I did it too hard and I lost it off the, off the tip of the flipper. Another thing is called a drop catch. Now, this is very difficult. If the ball is coming to your flipper, you want to try to catch it right as the ball is coming. Sort of like that. Let's try to do a perfect one. There we go. So it's not easy when you're playing and a ball is coming. You want to try to stop the ball. You want to flip right when the ball is about to come on your flipper. And, again, it's not easy. but it does the job. Another thing is called, uh, actually that's a live catch. I get these names mixed up. So live catch drop catch, either way, you're trying to catch the ball and get control of the ball. So a drop catch is when you go, and I don't usually do it on the walking dead because usually if there's a scoop, say there's a hole over here and it's going to kick the ball out. It's going to kick the ball out to your flipper. Then you can hold the ball up. And as the ball's coming to your flipper, you let it go like that, and then you flip the ball. So the two catches are as the ball is coming down, you try to catch it, and on this one it's difficult, or when it's coming down, you go like that, and then that's a drop catch, and now you've got it. And again, as I'm playing the game, it's a lot easier than, and I've said this in the previous years, it seems like when you put the ball somewhere and you're trying to do something, It doesn't quite work like when you're actually playing the game. So I showed you transferring over the drop catch, the live catch. Again, those are, and if you're not familiar with the ball save, if you don't hit a switch for several seconds, the game will think the ball stuck. So I just hit this in lane switch. That way it doesn't do that all the time. Anyway, so what we're going to do is now we're actually going to play the game. And we're going to play it two different ways. Most people Wow, that's a high score This isn't how I got good, believe me We are not going to put initials on this one Because I would feel absolutely horrible Okay So, what a lot of people do on Walking Dead is They want to get to multiball fast Because multiball equals points So, they go for the prison This guy is also another multiball This well walker I'm not sure how many times it takes to hit him. We'll test that later. I think it's like 12 times. It's a very, very risky shot, and I don't go for that at all. A lot of times you'll hit him by accident, and eventually you'll get a multiball out of him. So a lot of people, what they do is they go for the prison multiball. And again, once you're in that prison multiball, your red shots light up. You'll hit one red shot, and then you'll hit the prison. Now you also have another feature that can multiply the play field. See this two times? these two stand-up targets right here on either side of the prison, if you hit both of those, and then you make a very difficult, and this may not look difficult, but this riot shot is probably one of the harder shots, if not the hardest shot of this game. It'll start your 2X, and it's, I don't know, 20 or 30 seconds. So I like to do that if I'm already in multiball and I have a ball safe. So what I like to do is, and in tournaments, a lot of times the ball safe is not turned on. But when it is I like to try to make my hard shots when the ball save is turned on So first we're gonna do we're gonna play we're gonna play this and try to hit prison try to get prison multiball So I got to hit it one time to finish the end the next time it's gonna hold the ball And then I can make I can make these red shots to spot my prison letters because this is a risky shot You don't know how it's gonna come back to your flipper and as I'm doing it. We'll talk about any any bounce passes or transfers of the flipper. That way you can see an actual play. So I know not to pull the ball all the way back because when I did, it kind of got stuck in the bumpers. So I want to change my skill shot with a flipper, which a lot of games you can change the skill shot with a flipper. Some now, like total nuclear annihilation, you can either change it with a flipper or leave it where it's at and you'll get more points if you happen to plunge it into that spot. either way it's just a couple points so we're gonna hit and it still did that all right now i'm letting it bounce now i'm gonna try to hit the prison all i want to do is control the ball right now that's a magnet up there so it could really go crazy coming down from there so you got to be ready so i let it bounce and that was another thing when i went like this so if I just let it bounce off the flipper normally, right, it'll bounce a certain way. But if I push it like that, it actually will make it bounce higher and give me better control. So what I want to do is I want to catch the ball. Now, I don't like shooting with this right flipper, that prison. It's a very hard shot. I'll show you. See, I missed it and I lost the ball. Perfect example right there. That was good. I'm glad that happened because I always try to get it to this flipper and shoot that prison shot. All right. Let's see if we can get the skill shot. All right. And the skill shot's only 400,000. Don't feel bad if you missed it. Now, coming out of this, I like to give it a bump. Because if I can give it a bump, then just maybe I can bump it off of this metal piece back to this flipper. If I just let it come down here, it could go right down the middle. Although there is a little post right here that if it catches the post, it will come to this flipper, all right, I think I had it over here, so now, I want to bounce this ball from the post back onto this flipper, because I don't want to shoot it from here, you saw what happened, so, so there it is, and again, every pinball is different, sometimes you got to hit it harder, sometimes you just do it soft, so now, we're going to try to start prison, let, let the ball bounce, because now it's on the flipper I want, and there it is, and be patient, don't, you know, just because you see the ball going, you don't want to start flipping, you want to see what the ball is going to do, so I need two more shots, and that wasn't one of them, so once again, okay, I want to get the ball of the other flipper, and I want to hit the prison, now that, that's what you call, I call that a tip pass, so basically like that, when the ball hits the tip of the flipper, it's okay to just let it, let it hit the tip like this, hard, because it'll bounce to the flipper that you want it to go to, so now we're going to hit the prison one more time, I think. Let it bounce. Be patient. Now that was a perfect live catch. I couldn't do it when I placed the ball there, but it seems to be easier when the ball is actually in play. All right, we've got a couple more shots. And we're going to transfer this once again, or not, because again, you can hit it too hard. Now, I gave it a little nudge. don't ever feel bad about giving a nudge up or like bouncing the game that's not going to tilt the game this that will tilt the game side to side or oh it swore at me did you guys know that was on did you hear what it called me oh man must not like the Carl Weathers report all right so i want to bring it back to the slipper again and then shoot the prison shot and it didn't register and that time I caught it again did you see when it came down I caught it transferred it oh come on guys come on now I know you called me names but we're trying to show people something here there we go so now we're going to get prison started why is that not registering it's walking dead it happens I just need one more shot now I'm just letting it bounce off the tip of the flipper now I got control hey it worked after five times so now what I want to do is I got a ball tape on I do not I don't care about controlling the ball right now I just want to hit shots because if I hit shots I'm going to get points and if I miss them the ball is going to go down and I don't care because I'm getting it back and sometimes it's easier to let a ball or even two balls go down while you have the ball save on because now it's easier for me to make shots even though I still haven't made one yet okay I don't have the ball save on now I want to get control of the ball I've got two balls on this side oh that was a perfect catch right down the middle but that's okay so I want to separate these two. I want to give it one quick flip. And if you do it, give it a quick flip. Now I separated the balls and I lost them all. So that was that. Okay. So now you see that prison multiball. That really wasn't worth much. Not good. Let's keep going for it because many people, that's how, that's what they do. They'll go for prison multiball all day. so this is ball three and when it comes out of there I'll try to give it a little bump see that bump push the ball up on this flipper a little bit let it bounce and you know what I'll take do not shoot it from the right flipper so you saw that game not really that good now we're going to do the mode strategy I'm only going to shoot for these drop targets I'm not even going to touch the prison This, to me, is a much better strategy on playing the walking dead. You'll get a higher score, let it bounce off that left flipper. Now I got the ball save on, those targets are dangerous because you don't know how the ball is going to come out of there. Now see again, when it comes down, you let the flipper drop, it's a drop catch and the ball just sits right on your flipper there. Now I want to transfer back over here and I want to shoot that target. And those targets are not easy. Again, there's another drop catch where the ball is coming to my flipper. Just drop the flipper and transfer it over. And this is the hardest target to hit, by the way. All right. So now I've got, I've got, barn is the one I want to hit. Okay, now did you see what I just did there? When it came down, I gave it a little bump. If I don't give it a bump, I did not want to start that yet, but that's okay. if I don't give it a bump it hits this look at that it hits this it goes down did you see that so I don't want to do it that way what I want to do is I want to give it a nudge off of the side okay if I give it a little nudge like that look it puts it right back to my flipper and I can catch it when I didn't give it a nudge it hits the sling it could catch it and start bouncing like crazy or it could hit the sling and go right down the middle so again you you could just give a little a little nudge from the top up here right as it's coming down and look it it'll put the ball right to the left flipper but again if you don't you don't know how it's gonna look at that every time you don't nudge it it hits there and goes down that's very interesting isn't it okay uh since i did not show that before we're we're gonna start this one over because that's that that's a very important thing to do again nudging nudging it and i like to do it down here i'll actually kind of shift the game. You can see it moving just a little bit, but you got to, you got to do it at the right time, right there, pull the flipper up, try to catch the ball. But again, if you don't catch the ball, it goes, it's a lot easier to do actually while the game is actually playing. All right. So now we'll, again, we'll do the, the, the three target strategy just like last time. And this time I will not touch the ball with my hand. I don't think unless it calls me names again and then I might have to All right So I got one I going to hit the other two So now I got now look I just let the ball bounce Okay let the ball bounce It okay. I don't need to try to catch it and try to do fancy things every single time. Sometimes it pays just to be patient. So I want to hit this barn shot. So I transfer the ball over and I almost make it. Oh, come on. By the way, this is a very fast playing walking dead. make the barn shot, nope, not yet, again, I'm just trying to control the ball, trying to stop the ball when it's coming to the flipper, there we go, so now the barn has started, wow, that is tough coming out of there, very tough, that's okay, again, I'm showing you two different strategies on how to play the game, so now, I need to hit those drop targets, which I just did, but I got ball saved, so that's good, I'm fine, Now I gave it a little nudge coming off of that and I'm going to bounce it over. There it is. So now I've got, if you hit, so the first time you hit the drops, all of the features will light all the mode shots will light the next time you have to hit them two times to get them lit and every other time, two times arena is the next one I like to go for because it's an over and over and over again shot. It's not easy shot because you have to hit it at the tip of the flipper. So I'm going to try to transfer it over. Bounce seat now see how I let it bounce. That's it's okay to be patient let about now you just want to keep shooting that shot. There's one and there's one. Now as the ball come down, I flipped the flipper up right as it got to the crease and it stopped it right there. Otherwise, the ball would have rolled up and would have been right around this area. Hard to do, but again, it's one of the tricks. Now, this is a skill shot. What I like to do is get it on a million and get it on. Every time I hit the flipper, it changes the one, two, three, four, and it changes what the value is. And the easiest thing to hit is that. Let's see if it goes in. Hey, look at that. It actually went in there. Okay. Now when I hit the ball off the tip of the flipper right there, I was trying to pass the ball back to this flipper. It's not easy to do, and I'll show you on that. On an older game, it's easier to do. But if I try to pass this ball over here, I mean, yeah, that was a little risky. Don't like doing it that way. All right. Anyway, my arena is running out. I've got 11 seconds. Now if I were to hit these three drop targets, it would give me more time. Okay, that was 3 million. so again all I try to do is get control and it's gone okay so what I want to do I want to hit those drop targets because we're we're playing a strategy to get those drop targets and well that was oh okay that was one ball too so now look I've got bloodbath lit because I've hit all three first aid weapons and food so now we're going to start getting into some points once I hit that one more time. And remember, I got ball save on, so I don't really care what happens. I'm just trying to get control of the ball and shoot a fast shot with the ball save on. Now, I'm going to play without the ball save, more controlled, and take things a lot slower. All right. Anytime you want to come back in a nice way would be excellent. Don't get stuck on me. All right. Okay, so now there it is, back to the flipper. And you can see that was actually going to roll off the tip. So there's one. That was the, that was the hard one. Catch the ball, shoot the ball, miss the shot. Now that time I could, okay, so now I just happened to hit the prison a couple times. That's cool. I wasn't going for it. Now again, I want to hit those two drop targets to get me a multiball. Let it bounce off the flipper. It's okay to do that. Let it bounce off the flipper. These are sensitive. Again, I've got one more drop target to hit before I get a multiball. Now extra ball is lit. In tournament mode, it's turned off. But if you're playing at home, you'll want to hit that. it's a very hard shot, but you know what, you want to hit that in multiball, it's a lot easier, so now I'm in multiball, so now I want to start hitting all the red, basically shoot the lit shot, and also every time I hit those drop targets again, it adds a ball, and I just hit them again, notice the food and the weapons, that still will, now I hit them again, that still will light up, so basically I still have my food weapons and hey look I'm finally hitting shots all right so what I want to you know with four balls going it's hard to get control I want to get the extra ball even in tournament mode it's worth points so I'm just trying to control okay good look at that so now let's see all right arena's got a couple flashing lights on it, let's try to hit that, extra ball is lit, let's try to hit that, it's a hard shot to hit, and it's a hard shot to hit on the fly, now, I just rolled over a 2x on the in lane, if, if, if you notice the yellow shots, and I'm just going to pull this for now, the yellow, this yellow insert, the x, when that's lit, your next shot is worth two times. If you build this and it's completing modes and there's a couple different ways to build this, you can actually get it to two, three, four, or two, four, six, eight. It, it, it multiplies your one shot huge. So you can actually make one shot that's worth a hundred million, but that takes a long time to do. And a lot of, uh, I don't want to say luck. So now notice I hit, I hit the drop targets. I didn't get an out of ball. So it's done. I think you get three out of balls. It's either two or three out of balls in this. So now you're thinking, okay, what do I do? I can bring the prison in now because I've already got the drop target multiball. So what I want to do is I want to try to get one ball at each flipper. So now I don't have any risk. So now what I want to do is I want to get the prison started because I only have two shots left. Oh, and I say I only have two shots let's see if it registers nope I missed it so I dropped the seat I just catch it control the ball miss the shot again catch it control the ball make the shot this time all right so again oh look at that a free game now if you're at an arcade you get to go again so now what I want to do is I want to shoot the prison shot I want to alternate shots now I made the shot to the left of the prison, and because I had made the students two stand-up targets, I have the 2X play field. So all of my shots right now are giving me two times what they're normally worth. So what I want to do is not that. Now, see how I gave it a little shake there? The ball was literally going right down the middle. And you say, well, how can you prevent that? Sometimes you can. But if it's a little bit off center, you can get a little nudge right before the ball is about to hit Okay, so now we're at CDC so you hit the shot a few times And you can really hit there's multiple shots you can hit oh no don't like how it comes out there in You know I still have that extra ball there, but I'm still gonna get greedy because we're having a good time. All right, let it bounce. All right, I'll go for the extra ball. Now I got an extra ball, so hey, great. In tournament mode, I think it's 5 million points. That's not bad. Sometimes that 5 million comes in handy. All right, let it bounce. Shoot the CDC again. No, not any time, any time. There we go. Shoot it again now. I'm getting value every time. I hit that, and the door is opening. They're axing the door. No, they're not asking it a question. Okay, so now the door is open, and I was paying attention up there, but that's okay. Look at the score now compared to the 12 million game. Now we're at 108. That would be a typical three-ball game. Now you think, wow, what do I do? I'm far away from the prison. I'm far away from getting the bloodbath again because the second bloodbath, you've got to get first aid, weapons, and food two times. Not easy. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to shoot this really pretty fancy handsome guy a few times. And we're going to try to start a multiball with him. Oh, look at that. I must have hit him a lot before because it takes a lot more than that. Now I can actually, if I want, I can start hitting. I don't know if I can hit my drop targets. for weapons food and all that And go all my way to bloodbath, but if you hit him you get small jackpots You don't get much, but you know what you got two balls going and you're getting points Let's hit him again hit him again Pretty soon he's gonna start calling me names, but that's okay. I don't mind Now again, I have the 2x going because I hit the 2 and then I shot that riot shot, the shot just to the left. So what I want to do is, this is what I want to do. If you backhand that guy, it's a lot safer. As you see, you backhand it a lot of times, you get the ball back or really close. Uh oh. And again, I don't know how many points he's really given me. you giving me? $4,750,000. All right, I'll take it. That's not bad. All right, so now you're kind of stuck. Again, you see the nudging that I'm doing. When the ball is very close to the flipper, I'm giving it little nudges to try to bounce it over. Don't be afraid to nudge the game. If the game will let you nudge it, go for it. Some games, if you nudge it a little bit, you may get a tilt warning. Well, I'm going to go for food. What the heck? time it out hit the drop target let it bounce and let it go down but that's okay not a bad game would you guys take that i'd take it even you know so again a different strategy so you saw the prison strategy didn't work so well that did although i can blow these up a little bit better so we're going to try to do okay now we're going to do the eric stone strategy What I like to do is, in tournament play, I like to get the prison set up first. So basically, I need two shots to set the prison up. I shoot the end, and then I shoot the prison, and the magnet holds onto the ball. If I can do that with the ball safe still on, that's pretty good. Sometimes you can't. Then you go for the drop targets. So this is what we'll do. Come on, let it bounce. and I will shoot it from that flipper because I have a ball save on. No. Okay, now I won't because I will not have a ball save on. I don't know why it's not registering. Walking deads are, sometimes they're finicky. Sometimes you can hit that prison three times and get one registered hit on it. Okay, let it bounce. That was not what I wanted to do. Catch it like that. Shoot the drop targets. Now, you know what? I like to get a couple prison letters by making shots. I can shoot this ramp and get a prison letter. Now watch this. See how I bumped it up? As the ball's coming down fast, I hold the flipper up. If I bump it with my hand like this, right in the crease, it's going to bounce it up into the next flipper most of the time. Not all the time. It all depends on the game. So I got it on the flipper I want. I'm going to try to shoot that last, the hardest one, and I shot the hardest one. So now I want to shoot. I want to get the barn. I want to get that barn going. That will also give me a prison shot. So now two things I can do. I can shoot the prison if I feel lucky or just keep going for the barn. Didn't want to do that, but that's okay. Oh, that was interesting. I thought it was going to come down harder, but it's okay. Didn't lose the ball. And again, every walking dead will play different. So this walking dead plays different than the last walking dead I played, and the same thing will happen to you. You go to one arcade and play The Walking Dead and you'll get used to it and then you'll find one in another arcade and you'll think, oh man, I can't play it. All the shots are a little bit different because they're all set up a little bit differently. But still, still not bad. So now, I missed, you know, I didn't get too much from Barn there. So what I want to do is I want to get weapons and food. and I can shoot prison at the same time. It seems to register the first time, but then later it doesn't. All right. So there's, there's food. Let it bounce off the flipper again. Just be patient with it. Let the ball come to you. Don't, don't chase after the ball. Okay. Try to catch the ball. Now bounce it up. And most games will not give you a tilt warning. If you bounce the ball up like that, if it's set really, really tight, it might. So just keep that in mind. All right. Now we've got blood bath lit. He even said it, look at that. It's even going to be a blood bath. So what I want to do is I want to hit two of those targets and then I want to start a mode because I want to bring the mode in the blood bath. Now I tried to shake it out of here, but it didn't happen when the ball gets close to the outside. You can, you can give it a little shake like a little shimmy and sometimes you can and we'll show you that sometimes you can bank it off that side and get it back into play all right so now i'm on the last ball i need a multiball i don't care which multiball i don't care how i get it but i need it so i'm going to go for those drop targets while the ball saves on we're going to try to get a multiball, oh boy, I'm not going to get greedy, I'm going to transfer the ball over, bounce it over, see that, and then, and now I got multiball, so now, I, I also have my mode shots lit, so I'm going to shoot CDC, I'm going to try to get some points with this, and again, in, in, in bloodbath, you can also hit, hit those drop targets, and get an add a ball. I can also start my prison at the same time. So now see that little shake and that's not cheating because you will pay the price. You will pay the price if you tilt. Now what I did, okay, now I need to hit that prison right now and it did not hit. Well done. So bloodbath is done, but my prison's lit. Okay. I got, I wanted to stack both of those. I still have the CDC lit. So I still have a mode going. Wow, that was pretty cool. I think it may be over. Okay, CDC's over. So now I want to hit one shot prison. One shot prison. And just keep doing that. I still have the ball save on. There's the prison. I'm going to let one go on purpose, knowing I'm going to get it back. Shoot another shot. Give it a little nudge. Shoot the prison shot. And that was actually a two times hit because I had the in lane going. Ooh, that was, I think it might be a little difficult because of the lighting, but that's okay. All right, up to 55. Not great, but it's doable. Now I want to go for arena because that's the one where bounce off the side. Look, right back to the flipper. I give a little push. Now I want to hit this a few times. usually if you miss the arena to the right you're okay so i try to shoot shoot the shot late oh i missed it left and look what happened almost right down try to transfer it over shoot it again three million there's my extra ball in tournament mode that would be five million that's cool now if i shoot these i'll get 30 extra seconds but i'm on the third ball i need points So, now see, that time I gave it the nudge, but it wasn't quite enough. All right, you can see, so the mode's timed out. So now you think, what do you do? Boy, I need a lot to get this multiball, a lot to get that multiball. This guy is risky. Basically, everything's risky. So I'm just going to shoot him. and I do a lot of movement like I think my body English is moving the ball. Maybe it does. I don't know. But it makes me feel better either way. Now, I told you never shoot it with this flipper, but I am doing that. What I would do is transfer it over to the right flipper. He just said darn it. Oh, look at that. Oh, that was perfect. He started the multiball right as it went down. love what happened so now what I can do is I can start going for the drop targets to try to get to my next bloodbath so now I've got food lit again I got a ball save so I don't really care what happens to that ball I think what makes it more difficult is the fact that when the lights are off and and things are things are blinking everywhere it makes it more difficult to actually see what the ball is doing. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think you can stack prison. Oh, look at that. You can actually, so I've got multiball going, and I've got modes lit. Okay, I've got two modes left, tunnel and riot. Riot has to do something like the pop bumpers build the value. So again, I got two balls on one flipper. Man, I don't want it like that. So I try to give it one little hit, and sometimes it works. Other times, it doesn't. and I just did not get patient with that all right what where are you gonna go ball that was good all right well that didn't work out so I still have two modes lit I still I'm really not close to anything so I might as well shoot one of the modes oh look at that it tilted so there's your example I must have had two tilt warnings always in your head remember how many tilt warnings you have so now what do you do boy i might as well go for the drop targets because i need about 13 prison hits in order to get um in order to get why do you keep calling me names how rude uh prison multiball Now, I've got, again, I've got modes lit. I'm just going to go for them. So you shoot the tunnel. I'm not really too familiar with the tunnel mode, but since I've got a bunch of red shots flashing. All right, now that's two. Now, I can't give it any more nudges. It's done. And we'll shoot some other red shots or try anyway. Hey I going to ask you to turn can I turn the overhead light on Dave Because it it sometimes a little more difficult to see Alright much better Now I may be able to see what I doing Okay, so now once again, we're gonna play one more game with the strategy that I like to play. Gonna try to set prison up, start hitting the drop targets, get the modes going and try to stack the two multi balls. And he just told me to man up. Was that because I turned the light on? Either way you do it. Oh, did you see that? That was kind of cool. That's called a Lazarus. When it bounces down here and comes back, always be ready. Sometimes you think, oh, the ball's going down and then it bounces up like that. Okay. So now, Now I've got modes lit. I still want to take a chance and shoot prison. I want to get that barn. Oh, and I get CDC again. Well, you know what? Now, did you see how I gave it that shake? I shook it away from the out lane. As it was heading down, it was around that post. It could have gone either way. But once I gave it a nudge, it wound up nudging it back to where I want it. That time it didn't. So now I'm learning a lesson, right? I'm shooting the ramp. and I'm shooting the ball on the fly and missing, and then it's causing me to drain. So I don't want to do that. So now we want to shoot the drop targets. That's good. Look, look at that. That registered the prison. So it kind of gave me the best of both worlds. So now let it bounce to shoot that last drop target. Now, I did give it a little nudge when it hit that side because I wanted it to bounce off of the, off of the, this sidewood, whatever you want to call it. All right. Well, let's try to get prison going. Now, I gave it a little shake because I didn't want it to hit the sling and start going crazy. So shaking it this way pushed the ball this way a little bit, and so it bounced off of that rather than hit the slings. Just little nuances. all right come on come on and you you know don't don't ever uh feel bad about talking to the game and getting upset the game say come on you know be nice no fun house is a game i love to talk to so i still have barn lit there it is i am just going to try to whack barn right now i'm not going to try for any multiball i'm just going to try to hit barn let's see what we got two and a half million come on let's get something good here i'm tired of these missing shots here now i can see what i'm doing three million and it'll just it'll just the bar value will just keep going up oh extra ball is lit but i don't go for that yet oh boy now did you see that that shake right there that ball was dead dead to rights but i shook it right as it hit got to that rubber and it caused it to hit the rubber bounce up and go back it won't always happen that way and it's not always pretty and sometimes you make tilt but that time it worked i got 14 seconds to hit that barn as many times as i want or can three and a half million eventually that barn will get up five, six, seven, 10 million. Oh, that's a perfect drop catch right there. And then, or live catch. Sorry. I always mix those two up. Now, if I hit that last target, I'm going to extend. There it is. Oh, and I wound up tilting the ball. No good. All right. Because I saved it there, I had two dangers. Again, I'm still kind of trying to show every time I forget about a little trick, I think, oh yeah, we're going to talk about that. All right. So again, I need two sets of drop targets to get blood bath and I still need some help for prison. Don't feel bad about letting the ball bounce. Try to backhand. I try to get a little greedy. Yes, it is going to be a blood bath if I can help it. Try to catch the ball. Oh, look at that. Guess what? I'm going to get a bloodbath walking dead. Okay. So now I do have modes lit. Oh, I have arena lit, which I like arena. But I'm also going to try to shoot the prison because I want to try to bring the prison multiball in with a bloodbath multiball. Okay. I have no excuse. The lights are turned on. All right. Oh, now that was a good shake because I would have been out of multiball if I did not give it a nudge. Instead, now I'm up to four balls. Getting prison ready. I'm one, no, I'm still a few shots away from prison. So you may say, what is he going for right now? I am just going for anything I can get. So I'm going to go for arena. I want to start arena. Every time I hit that arena shot, I'm going to get points. Keep going. Wow. Boy. Still, I'm getting arena points. There's more. See how much that's worth. So bloodbath wasn't too impressive, but that's okay. All right. I have all my mode shots lit. Oh, no. I still have arena going. Okay. He just told me not to get. Did you hear that? Did you hear what he said? How rude. Just for that, you're getting another arena shot. Bounce it off the side. Try to hit it. Arena. Three, six. Free game. Arena. Who knows? Arena. something else, oh, arena's done, okay, not bad, 28 million, that's not terrible, now I want to get prison going, so now, oh, that's close, oh, oh boy, okay, we're gonna get greedy, ah, I should have got greedy, oh, all right try to catch the ball oh boy that's two so now i cannot shake it at all get greedy oh i got greedy okay so now we're in prison now i want to i want to get that last weapons. I've got two drop targets. There we go. And modes are now lit. So I want to shoot the, either the right or the tunnel, but I really want to shoot the right. I'm letting that ball go on purpose. And that right mode is not an easy shot, just so everyone knows. Now, another thing I could do is I could try to keep shooting those drops and try to start me another bloodbath. And with one ball on the left side, you know what? That might be okay to do. And that's not okay to do. But you know what? We're going to go for it anyway. But you know what? Now I bounce it up. Coming down that ramp is tough. Still not terrible. We'll do one more quick game, and then we'll switch. We'll switch over. Is that good? I really wanted to blow this game up like last year but right now it's not accommodating me alright we'll do one more game on this and then we'll switch so I wish that prison would register normally two prison hits and you're good we'll go for the drop targets now catch the ball shoot for that last one and miss it again. That gave me two, but it sure saved it from the outside. And again, these stern games will give you one really good shake before the game will tilt on you. All right. Did that take it out of camera view? I hope not. All right. I wish that magnet would always shoot it right back there. So now I'm going to try to shoot that last drop target. and we're going to go for that barn again because that's what I like to do. Give me some friendly bounces, please. And if I can start making some of those barn shots, maybe we can do something here. Oh, oh, oh. Ooh, come on. Nice. Be friendly. Friendly bounces, guys. Friendly bounces. Thank you. Oh, but you got to make the shot. another drop catch there try to shoot the barn over and over again try to get points i've seen a lot of walking dead games where people don't even get 10 million points in a tournament and just by doing this strategy by shooting the drop targets and going for barn you'll get more than 10 million most likely unless you miss shots and then you won't there we go what's that worth four and a half oh no Now we're getting up there. Now we're starting to get barn lit up. I give it a little nudge so it bounces off the metal back to my left flipper. Oh, no. Oh, well. Okay, catch it. Try to shoot that barn again, baby. What's that? Five million. Not bad. Uh-oh. Shoot it again. Five and a half. Now we're starting to get to how I like it. Uh-oh. Ooh, I got lucky. I couldn't shake it. I had two tilt warnings. Missed the barn, but you know what? I added more time. 15 seconds now. Now I can whack on that barn even more. 6 million. Oh, that was a terrible catch. It wasn't a catch. Okay, transfer the ball over. Now that barn is going to be worth 6.5 million. That's a lot of points. Don't think of how much a shot is going to be worth. Not bad. So 44 million just on the barn. So that's a good start. So now I still have, I only need first aid, and I'm about five shots away from prison multiball. So I'm still in a pretty good setup here. So the first thing I want to do with the ball save on, take the dangerous shot, and try to hit that last drop target. Now that was a perfect drop catch. Right as the ball came to the flipper, I wound up catching the ball and then shooting it. I like the catch and shoot method. Uh-oh. Oh, I forgot. I didn't have the tilt. All right, that's all right. We're still one away from the bloodbath multiball. Doesn't look like we're going to blow this game up. But, come on now. Come on now. Bounce, over. All I need is those three drop targets. How hard is that, right? When you need them. Okay, catch the ball. Oh, come on now, be nice to me, it says I am being nice, make your shots, all right, now, I want to try to get, I want to try to get that prison at least set up, oh my gosh, oh, my ball save time is ruining out, got to hit the drop targets to add a ball, because I'm in bloodbath here. Oh, don't do it to me. You know the song, Don't Do Me Like That? Well, it's doing me like that. Oh, boy. All right, that gives me some more time to make some more shots or not. All right, well, there was that. Now, here's an interesting scenario. Now I got three on one. if I do one little flip like that you can you can separate them I want to hit the first eight I want to hit those other two drops because it'll give me another add a ball oh where are you gonna go oh that was my fault there that's okay I need to hit that last drop target Oh, uh-oh. Okay, can we do it? You get a little ball save time. Oh, yes. I'm lucky. It says, I feel sorry if you can't hit your shot. I'm just going to give it to you, and I say thank you. I should get that back. No, I did not get that back. All right, it says, I gave you something earlier. No, I want to try to nudge it away from that. alright, I need two more prison shots I also have arena lit which I like arena but I'm going to go for the prison maybe not, maybe I won't maybe I will I'll go for the extra ball, no I will not get it alright so again, I want to try to get into that prison multiball, I also have a mode lit still not a terrible score for if I were in a tournament game but we are going to try to get that prison. Well, that's not good. See ya. Gosh, not great. You guys get the idea? I can do one more. Oh, okay. We got to get to the other one then. But, you know, you saw how one mowed the barn, got almost 50 million, just shooting one shot over and over and over again. And a lot of times, if you want a decent score, replays on these are usually pretty low in an arcade. And you can really – Craig, you want to help him? Do you want to – So I live in Fort Myers, and I belong to a place called the Pinball Asylum. The World Championship of Pinball will be held there next year in 2020. It alternates between US and Europe. And I streamed a game of Munsters about a week ago. Drop it over to the other flipper, which Lee Muscatolo, you know, he gets a little credit for showing me that. Okay, so there's... So the first thing I like to look at when I see a game like this is I see a lit spinner for 1,000 points. And that is pretty much what I go for on Evil Knievel. You've got letters that build up your bonus, things that build up your bonus to 15,000. So 15,000 is the max bonus on this game. You can double it by shooting these targets. So basically it's whatever flipper, if I have the ball on this flipper, I'm going to shoot the spinner because I'm going to get 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,000. Some of these spinners you can get 20, 30,000 points on when they're really, really juiced up, as I like to say. But maybe if the ball is on this flipper, I'll shoot the drop targets because I'll try to get the double bonus. Now, the ball time on this game is obviously a lot lower than on The Walking Dead. But I'll show you a couple strategies to pass the ball over that I really like. So the first thing I do is I always plunge the ball, like if I've never played the game before, the particular game. What I want to do is I want to hit that 3,000-point shot right in the middle. So I'll pull it all the way back and see where it gets me. And it got me right in the middle. So I know that's what I need to do for the rest of the now. So you are using the same skill set. Hold the flipper up. Let it bounce over. So now I've got this thousand point. I don't think it's I don't think bouncing this up here is going to work. Let's see. See that. See what happens. It doesn't. So we do something called a shats pass. Shats is when you hit it off the tip of the flipper to the other side. Takes a lot of practice, but you can get it down. And what I want to do is get this ball over here by hitting on the tip of the flipper like that. And now the ball's over there and I can hit my shot. Not easy, not easy to do, but once you, once you get the hang of it, you'll say, wow, that wasn't as hard as I thought. Drop catch the ball. Sometimes on these older games, it's easier to catch the ball than it is on some of the newer games. It's not as bouncy. So you know what? I want to try to hit these drop targets because what I want to do is I want to try for it for two times bonus, oh boy, so I'm still able to live catch the ball just the way I want, but I've got nothing to shoot for over here, my spinner's lit here, my targets are there, so again, we're just going to try to shats pass it over, and it's not easy, I mean, I make, it might look easy, but it's not, now I want to hit those drop targets again, uh-oh, oh, I got away with that, now I gave it a little bit of a nudge there I'm not sure where the tilt is on this but I'm sure there's a tilt on it but again if you if you can get away with a little bit of a nudge to knock it out of there go for it so now extra ball is my next thing a lot of tournaments they will leave the extra ball on because these older games are so hard to get so I will go for that oh three three times. So now if I let it go like that, it bounces that flipper and then I missed the shot. Oh no, don't do it. Okay. Not bad. I mean, to me, like a decent score on this, you get a hundred thousand, 150,000 and you're doing all right. So when I pulled it all the way back, it worked. So I'm going to do it again. See, see if it goes in the middle and it did. So I don't, I don't have to adjust anything with that. Uh oh. Try to catch the ball. Now I'm going to try to hit that spinner. Now that only gave me 6,000 points, but it's 6,000 points I didn't have. Hold the ball up, hold the flipper up, let it bounce over. It's a lot more simple on this game. I'm going to try to get my double bonus here. Uh oh. Now that's what you don't know. See that was a nice drop catch and shoot the shot. There's a good, sometimes you catch it too well and it rolls right off the tip. come on, come on, uh-oh, so now I just let it, it was coming so hard, you just hold the flipper up, and you don't even give, need to give it that nudge, I want to go for that, because that is worth 10,000, because my bonus is 10, all right, and I, look at that, that was great, I mean, and yes, there is a fair amount of luck in these games, where, you know, you hit that, Look, it bounces up there, and you get a lot more points. All right, I'm going to pull it all the way back because it worked the first two times, and it's going to work that time. So again, I'm using the same skills, the same catches that I do on the walking dead, just like that. Try to control the ball, and then try to make your shot. Try to stop the ball like that. try to pass the ball over but this way I'm passing it this way shoot the shot and once you get the feel for an older game and it it'll take a couple games usually to get the feel for it it it not as hard as it looks so so now we gonna go for that spinner and not make it again right as that ball was about to hit this I just gave it a little bit of a push here I am going to see if it has a tilt. I guess the game – does it not have a tilt bob in it? It doesn't look like it has a tilt bob in it. Well, yeah, I know. That's my perfect game without a tilt bob. But a lot of those nudges, now that you couldn't do anything about. A lot of the nudges that I made on the side, the game would have tilted, but you have to be careful. All right, so we're not going to really nudge much at all. Again, and these games don't take long to explain because, look, I got a spinner and I got 11,000. So that's basically your highest shot point-wise is that spinner. And I got this spinner lit. I got 5,000 out of that. I'm going to try to pass it over. Again, it's difficult, but once you get the hang of it, then you'll be able to do it. Come on, hit that one. Oh, see, there's where some luck comes in. I'm going to try to let it go to the other side. Uh-oh. Ooh, I got lucky there. I thought I flipped it right down. Let it bounce. Be patient with it. Don't miss the shots more than twice. Unless you're expecting it lucky. Come on. Oh, look at that. So I'm one away from the extra ball, but it's okay. That's 30,000 a bonus. That's the max you can get. That's pretty good. And I wasn't, I'm not going to nudge. I'm not really going to nudge much on this because I don't want to give a false sense of security when you play one that has a tilt in it. The next thing you know, you'll say, oh, his didn't tilt, but mine did. But again, pass it over, shoot, shoot whatever shot you want. And like I said, different games will have different methods on passing the ball walking dead I would shoot it from this post to get it over and this game you can't do that so you just wait till it gets on the tip of the flipper tip of the flipper and then do that but you know sometimes you don't do it perfect other times it works out so I've got one target left to get double bonus so let's hit that I got my spinner lit that I missed now we'll go for it again I like it because when the spinner's going this way it's still giving me a thousand oh oh now that's kind of what you call a slap save a lot of people will actually go bam bam uh when it's when it's so close to the tip that if you slap it with one all it's going to do is push it over to the other and the other flipper will shoot it up it's it's it's rare for it to happen on these older games but it you saw it just did there and so now you got got control and I'm gonna try to pass it over there, and for me, sometimes it takes a few tries, because it's, it's not even always easy for me to pass, uh-oh, I'm in trouble over there, okay, uh-oh, there we go, okay, so now I've got, I got 6,000 for that, I've got a few thousand for that, try to catch the ball like that, try to shoot the spinner that gives me points, that was, that was good, catch the ball again, try to pass it over, try to shoot the spinner that gives me points or nothing. And that's that. But look, what did I say is a decent game? 100,000. That's not bad at all, especially for not nudging the game at all. All right, we'll play one more game and then we'll answer questions because I know time is getting away from us a little bit. So again, And pull it all the way back because, oh, that time it didn't work. If you notice that pulling it all the way back is too much, there are little marks where the plunger is. And you can pull it back to a certain mark and find what mark lands the ball where you want it to land. But this one, you just happen to pull it all the way back and you're good. So let's shoot the spinner, get about 6,000. all right let it bounce try to hit a couple of those drop targets down because once you start building your bonus up those drop targets are worth a lot because you're doubling your bonus so now my bonus is six thousand so that last target's worth six thousand right now now it's worth seven plus whatever the the actual value is now it's worth eight come on don't miss it again thank you so now now i have double bonus and i think okay well do i want to get green and go for extra ball what the heck uh-oh now okay now again when you see a ball come down if it's just off center don't try not to get nervous just be patient let one flipper up let it bounce off the tip to the other side. Oh, that was a hard bounce. And sometimes that happens. The older games, you'll let it bounce and it'll bounce right in and out. But again, 30,000, if you max your bonus out on all three balls, you're going to have a pretty good game on this. So I'm going to pull it all the way back again, thinking that I'm going to hit the middle shot like I have been. And it did. Oh, get out of there. Oh, no, that was my fault. And again, sometimes you can misplay the ball and that's what happens. All right. Let's see what we can do on this last ball here. Do something. Do something. Something positive. Try to hit those drop targets. Try to get double bonus. Oh, I got my juicy spinner lit for 10,000. So there we are. We're up to 90. Oh no. There was the slap save. I don't tend to slap the game that way. Try to catch the ball, but it's very hard in these older games to catch the ball on the very tip of the flipper. Uh-oh. Where are we going, ball? We're going for double bonus. That's where we're going, right there. Oh, and then it goes down. But the shot was still worth 8,000 points. So, you know, every game was over 100,000 on this. Now, do you guys see the difference of how you maneuver this game versus the Walking Dead? I mean, this is very touchy, and there's not a tilt in it. So the last two games I played, I tried to be easy on it because I didn't want to give you a false sense of security. So I think we're six minutes? What's that? Oh, 15 minutes? All right, we'll play one more game, and then we'll answer some questions because these games usually don't take too long. And once you get to play a game several times, you'll start to get the feel for it. You'll start to know where the shots are on the flippers. you'll start to know where you can let the ball bounce and where you can't because I may play another evil kenevil and I I may have to hit I'll show you once I catch the ball all right well you know what we're just going to shoot a couple shots I may have to hit the ball here to hit the spinner on one game and here to hit the spinner another game here to hit the spinner another game because every game could be a little bit different come on this will be the game I blow up let's uh-oh maybe not so i'm going to shoot those drop targets catch the ball and it seems a little easier to catch the ball in this game than walking dead which uh that's pretty rare but i will not complain about that all right so again we're in trouble try to get out of it tip it tip the ball over to the other side and try to hit that target so now i've got double bonus on this try to catch it all that now that was a perfect drop catch right there let it bounce over try to shoot the spinner and again a lot of times these spinners will give you more than 5,000 they'll give you a 10 15 even 20 so they're very very lucrative let it bounce over shoot the spinner again miss it so I'll shoot the drop targets because I've got a wide area that I could miss and still hit drop targets but I want to get it back over here so I let it hit the tip go back to there hit the drop targets again I need one more for extra ball and there's your extra ball now say okay that's fine because i got the extra ball so now we can keep going always it's always useful to know what do i need to do to get the extra ball because that's what you go for if it doesn't take too much time and too much risk so what i like to do first is kind of build my bonus up first and then as long as i'm still playing pass the ball over as long as I'm still playing then I'll go for the fancy stuff like the drop targets the extra balls double bonus let the ball bounce over because I want it on this flipper because I want that double bonus that's always good all right let it bounce over you know what now I didn't let it bounce over a second time because I didn't know if it was going to bounce and go right down the middle. So I got 101. Let's see what that spinner's worth. Okay. It was worth 11,000 points. Not bad, but why, I mean, why not go for a shot like that? If, if every time I do that, I get 11,000 points, then that's, that's pretty good. Yeah. Um, sometimes it takes a while to get points and the style I play, I like shooting the same shot over and over and over again. If it's lucrative and I'll play a game for an hour or an hour and a half just shooting the same shot if it's going to get me the points. All right, so now we're on ball two. Catch the ball from there. We're going to try to shoot the spinner. That was worth 7,000, but fine. I mean, that's 7,000 more than I had before, and I got one flip out of that ball. But still, I got probably 15,000 to 20,000 on flipping the ball one time. And catch the ball, try to pass it over. Try to shoot some of those drop targets because I'm going to get greedy and try to go for at least a double bonus. Uh-oh. Now that nudge you get away with. That was not overly aggressive. Come on, hit that. And we'll try to let it bounce. Try to catch it over here. Try to hit the drop targets that I'm not hitting. Uh-oh. There we go. Get the 11,000 point shot. That's not bad. and try to catch the ball and and it may look easy to catch i mean once you get it down you'll be able to catch the ball just like that especially these older games it's it's not as hard as it may seem all right so now we need to get that last one for double bonus and now we want to go for extra ball so that that was i give the slap save where you had to hit this but it put it over here and then you go up. So let it bounce, and we're going to try to get that extra ball. Come on now. We three away. Come on. There we go. And I actually prefer older games in a way sometimes. I love my favorite games are from the 80s and 90s. I mean, I do like the new Stern games, but I guess my forte would be the older games. There it is, extra ball. Okay, now, say you're in an arcade. Now it's worth a special. So hold the flipper up. And if you hold the flipper up and it lets you come back over here, then do it every time. Some games will not let you do that. Where are we going? So just I'm letting it bounce over because I want the ball the right flipper. I want to try to get the special let it tip hold the tip of the flipper up and it bounces right over there again, just like that. And again, some games you'll be able to do it other games you won't be able to do it. But this one after playing it a few times, it lets it allows you to so I mean, we're doing all right here. We're almost at 200,000 which for you know, this is a pretty good game. By that time, I held the tip of the flipper up to get it over there to try to hit that spinner shot. Ooh, that was fortunate. And you basically just try to shoot the ball back up top or try to hit those drop targets. Now, I want to get the special because I love hearing the noise. Come on, I want to hear the noise. Bounce over. Bap. So there's your slap say right there. And I gave it a good whack off of this flipper to this flipper and then back up. Now, you know what? Oh, that might not have worked out. I was going to say, let's just get greedy and just keep trying to go for free games. All right. Great. 10 minutes, yeah. And we'll go for one more. Now, since we don't have much time, are there any questions that you have about this game that you want to ask? And we're pretty much done this anyway. What's that? What's that? These spot letters cycle basically just gives you bonus. You get 500 plus advanced bonus. I think if you get all of them, I don't think you – it's not really lucrative if you get all. I'll try to get them all. It's difficult, and it's pretty risky to get all five of those. I'm not really sure exactly what all five do because I usually don't go for it but maybe I'll get lucky and be able to get some and see what happens here I think it's one of those things that it looks good, it's for looks yeah, yeah alright, so now all I need is the C come on, give the man what he wants No, not quite. Come on, give me that C so I can see what happens. A C to see what happens. Oh, we are so close. Now look, in the process, I got the double bonus. Oh, give me the C, give me the C. Here we go. Okay. Oh, it lights your special. See the special in the out lane? So getting cycle apparently lights your special. So I guess that answers that question. I mean, usually it doesn't give you a lot of points, but if you're in an arcade, you would have got a free game. And that would have been a good score, 300 and something thousand. That's not bad. Do you have a question? And you can ask about The Walking Dead, about this, or any other pinball-related questions. Or Carl Weathers, if you really want. So as a player who spent a lot of time playing in the 70s for the debut of the long flippers, I found the ballet flippers to be so jumpy, so fast, that those side drop targets, being the ballet drop targets that you really have to hit square on, it's like a very risky proposition just because it's down low on the flipper that wants to flip straight up the middle. Yeah, it's very risky because when the angle coming into these drop targets, this game, it's going to put your ball usually in these pop-up or somewhere, and then you don't know how it's going to come down. And a lot of these games of this era will have the five drop targets here or over here, or eight ball to the left has a bunch of them over here, and it's the risk and the reward. And Walking Dead is another one of those games, risk and reward. There are a lot of risky shots, but if you make the shots and you can get control on your flipper, then it's worth it. You just kind of have to weigh yourself, you know, is it worth it? You know, some of these spinners, I've seen games where like I've seen a Harlem Globetrotter where the spinner was so oiled up or whatever you call it, it would spin 35 times. And so if these spinners would spin 35 times, I would not be going for these targets. I would be shooting 35,000 shots all day long. So again, it's whatever the game gives you. You know, and since this spinner would give me 11 or 12,000, this one would give me about six. If I had the ball of this flipper, what's worth more? To me, it's worth going for the risky drop targets. Because if I have 15,000 bonus, that last drop target is going to be worth another 15,000, which is even more than shooting the right spinner one time. So you kind of have to weigh your options. And again, you got to get the feel for each game. Because this game may play easier or harder. This Walking Dead, for me, played harder than maybe the last couple Walking Deads I played. But once you get the hang of it, once you get where the bounces are and where the shots are, then you start getting comfortable with the game. And sometimes it takes several games to do that. Last call for questions. Up front here. Eric, when you go into a tournament as you are today, and you have some time off, where you didn't play a little bit for a while there, and you're going to see some of these new games. And so if you don't know the game and you're going into a tournament and you know you've got to do really well because you want to do really well, what do you use for a strategy? Like do you kind of stand back and just kind of watch what's going on, or how do you do it? What's comfortable for you? Well, the first thing I do is if I'm in a tournament, there will be a game list. And if it's a game I don't know, you go on YouTube. And you type in the game. So like Walking Dead, you say, Walking Dead tutorial. Walking Dead pinball tutorial. And I think Bowen has one. There's several. And if there's not a tutorial, like maybe Evil Knievel. Maybe I've never seen Evil Knievel in my life. And I say, OK, I want an Evil Knievel tutorial. I'll look on YouTube. And I might not see one. But I might see somebody playing the game. And if I see what shots they're doing, then I can see the point values. And the older games are a lot easier to figure out, because there's not as much to them. The strategies on these, they're so deep that there's so many different ways you can play the game. So the Black Knight, the new Black Knight game is in the tournament. I don't really know the strategy on that game. I know the modes. I know the multi balls. So yeah, I'll watch a video of Keith Ellin or somebody playing the game, somebody that's played it 100 or 200 times versus maybe 10 that I've played it. And then I can see the strategy, and then I can copy what they do and try to do it better. But yeah, there's a couple interesting games out there in the tournament that I either never played before or I only played a couple times. So I'll be going on YouTube and trying to figure out different strategies on what I need to do. But that's a good thing for you guys, especially if you buy a game and you don't really know of the strategies you don't really, you don't want to read all the different rule sets because there's so many different rules of everything. And I didn't even go over every single rule. We would have been here till two in the afternoon going on every single rule and walking dead. But you watch how people play it and you watch what they go for and you try to mimic what they do and, you know, see what gives you the most amount of points and see what is too risky to go for, really. OK, well, thanks very much. We've got to move on here. Thanks for coming, guys.

high confidence · Eric Stone explains the mechanic and demonstrates it during gameplay

  • “You can actually make one shot that's worth a hundred million, but that takes a long time to do”

    Eric Stone@ 26:20 — Describes theoretical maximum shot value through multiplier stacking