1979 Bally Future Spa Gameplay / Tutorial & Tournament Strategies!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·16m 16s·analyzed·Jul 11, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.017

TL;DR

Future Spa 1979 tutorial: drop targets, bonus multipliers, flipper skills for tournament play

Summary

Mike Dimas provides a comprehensive tutorial and gameplay demonstration of the 1979 Bally Future Spa, a wide-body pinball machine. He covers the game's rules, scoring mechanics, tournament strategy (prioritizing drop targets), and flipper techniques, then plays multiple games showcasing execution of the drop target strategy while discussing the game's unique features like the animated Future Spa lettering and the challenging left drain geometry.

Key Claims

Bally made 6,400 Future Spa machines in 1979
high confidence · Mike Dimas states this as established fact about production numbers
Future Spa is one of five wide-body games Bally produced, including Space Invaders, Embryon, Paragon, and Hot Doggin
high confidence · Mike Dimas lists the wide-body series in the introduction
Drop targets are the primary tournament strategy for Future Spa
high confidence · Mike Dimas repeatedly emphasizes 'drop targets all day' as the core strategy throughout the video
Spelling FUTURE SPA once gives 18,000 bonus points; spelling it twice locks in 36,000 bonus points
high confidence · Mike Dimas explains the bonus progression during gameplay demonstration
The left drain lane (yellow shot completion) drains approximately 80-90% of the time when the gate is up
medium confidence · Mike Dimas repeatedly observes this drain tendency during gameplay and jokingly references the high drain rate multiple times
Hitting the back target after completing FUTURE SPA awards an extra ball, and hitting it again awards a special (free game) worth 20,000 points
high confidence · Mike Dimas demonstrates and explains this sequence during tutorial section
The Future Spa lettering uses a separate circuit board to drive the animated lighting effects
high confidence · Mike Dimas notes this as a technical feature observation during gameplay
Future Spa tournaments typically have tilts set to Papa Duke sensitivity levels
medium confidence · Mike Dimas states 'Most time you play a Future Spa in a tournament, the tilts Papa Duke sensitive' but this appears to be general observation rather than verified fact

Notable Quotes

“So the first drop target here let's start a game and let's just get right into it so the first drop target lights your spinners makes them worth a thousand a spin”
Mike Dimas@ 1:15 — Establishes the core mechanic that spinners are lit by drop targets
“drop targets all day because that's what builds up your well”
Mike Dimas@ 11:09 — Central tournament strategy recommendation repeated multiple times
“that's why that strategy is Papa Duke important in any sort of competition”
Mike Dimas@ 2:53 — Emphasizes the competitive importance of the drop target strategy
“It's a great game for practicing your flipper skills especially your bounce pass from left to right because you want to be on this flipper a lot”
Mike Dimas@ 3:37 — Identifies Future Spa as a practice game for specific flipper techniques
“80% of the time it goes in the 25% chance hole. Science, boys and girls.”
Mike Dimas@ 7:00 — Humorous observation about the left drain's high drain rate
“Most time you play a Future Spa in a tournament, the tilts Papa Duke sensitive”
Mike Dimas@ 7:22 — Notes typical tournament tilt sensitivity for this machine
“That tripod is so close to my flipper button I gonna have to change that”

Entities

Mike DimaspersonBallycompany Future Spagame Space Invadersgame ParagongameHot DoggingameEmbryongameYagpineventPinball Shenanigansorganization

Signals

?
community_signal: Mike Dimas producing detailed tutorial and tournament strategy content for classic Bally machines, demonstrating active educational engagement with the pinball community
high · Comprehensive video covering rules, gameplay, tournament strategies, and flipper techniques for Future Spa
?
competitive_signal: Drop target prioritization identified as core tournament strategy for Future Spa; bonus multiplier progression (6x max, locking at 36,000) drives risk/reward decisions
high · Mike Dimas repeatedly emphasizes 'drop targets all day' and explains how extra balls and specials reward this strategy in tournament contexts

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.049

0:00

So let's stop fudging around and let's pretend we're at Yagpin here, in disc, and trying to put up a qualifying score starting next fall. In any tournament game, if you're going like pump and dump tournament, wow.

0:19

I'm Mike Dimas and this is Pinball Shenanigans. Come with me as we go visit the spa of the future. It is the best kind of spa.

0:36

Bally made this game in 1979. It's pretty popular. They made 6,400 of them. And it is one of the wide-body series that Bally did. They made five of them, including Space Invaders, Embryon, Paragon, and Hot Doggin.

0:56

And when you include Future Spa, that is a five-pack of fun. A lot of good games there. So I'm going to go over the rules, do a little gameplay, do a little tutorial, and then we'll play a game and see if I can execute the plan. So if you run into this game in a tournament, basically you're just going to drop targets all day because that's what builds up your well the first drop target here let's start a game and let's just get right into it so the first drop target lights your spinners makes them worth a thousand a spin and um that's not a bad strategy because um as well as the drop targets you start at 2x 4x you're also getting spotted letters in future spa so we're at the max bonus multiplier here but i was going to say the spinners will feed your ball back up to the top where you can collect more future spa letters once you spell future spa let's do that this left kickback lane will also spot a letter and then we got one letter left so we can go up here and not only will this give us the completion of future spa it will also open this gate for us and make that lane safe so watch that happen and this 18,000 light up. So now the gate is a safety and we've completed 18,000 worth of bonus points times six and this carries over from ball to ball. If we spell future spa one more time then we'll lock it in at 36,000. So now that I knocked down all the drop targets if we hit the back target you get some fun sounds and you get an extra ball. Now if I do it again we're going to get a special free game and now it is 20,000 points all day long so that's why that strategy is pretty important in any sort of competition so we'll drain that out get a fun little bonus meltdown the other things you can do are this rollover button value when lit is 2000 then four six eight ten so a little candy cane shot incidental points and then it might go into the pop bumper and then into the little saucer there which also increases in value three six nine thousand so it's a great game for practicing your flipper skills especially your bounce pass from left to right because you want to be on this flipper a lot uh it is also good to practice your tap pass so you can hit those drop targets. That tripod is so close to my flipper button I gonna have to change that And you can even try and shats from left to right but you got to be aware of this zone here let try that yeah you know it gonna have to be a dirty shats like that i don know that i advise it but you can practice that and of course you try post passes try a little bit lighter on that but you get the point um great game to practice flipper skills also you can try a little like a real small backflip whoa that's too much of a backflip well that will actually be another way of transferring the ball but i was going to say if you can just like backflip it just enough that it rolls up the in lane like this then you can do the on the fly backhand to the drop targets as well. So the game is lots of fun. I've got the strategy. Great way to practice your flipper skills and build up some futuristic spa-like bonus. So I'm going to move the tripod out of the way of the flipper and then I will zoom in on the playfield and we'll have a game. I decided I like this view with the whole back glass, the scores, the playfield. So I'm just going to roll with it like this. The camera's kind of in my face so it might be a little challenging. But another thing worth noting is the cool lighting effect on the Sputure, the Sputure FAW. I've done that more than once. The Future Spa lettering, it's got a whole separate little circuit board to drive all those lights, do that fun animation, and it's a neat little feature. all right so see what we can do obviously objective number one is that yellow lane there so that we can have safety on the left side there are four lanes over there and when the gate is up like this and you can drain into that lane trust me you'll drain the ball goes over there you'll drain there like 80% of the time. It's math. Okay, so first thing we want to do is drop targets. Now, just for fun, let's try and rip a spinner. Don't be afraid to get a little nudgy in that danger zone there. It's very reminiscent of the beast layer in, whoa, did you see that? In Paragon. I had a little bit of insert diversion on that one.