Somehow I forgot about blogging. But I think I may get back into it again. In addition to "normal" articles in my "I Always Play a Thief" blog, I want to continue writing in my pinball blog too. For example I think I want to continue my series on Pinball game design and other pinball topics.
So I will start working on those. In the meantime, I thought I would paste in my basic Game of Thrones PRO strategy guide. For safe keeping.
People ask me if if I will write an advanced version. Also they want an LE / Premium version too. I want to do both of those and I plan to someday.
This was originally written because hundreds of people at PINBALL EXPO 2015 were about to see and play the game for the first time. AND it was used in the tournament. I was thinking holy crap! This is a pretty complicated game. So I wrote the basics of what is needed to start to understand the game.
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Game
of Thrones PRO Basic Strategy Guide V01.01.15.10.0
Stern’s Game of
Thrones pinball machine is based on the hit HBO TV series, Game of
Thrones. The most prominent Game of Thrones families or Houses are
represented by their Sigils on colored Shields on the lower third of
the playfield. The object of the game is to battle and conquer all
other families to capture the Iron Throne for your chosen House.
Choose
Your House
The game begins with
the selection of a House you want to fight for. You will want to
choose your House carefully, as you will be making several gameplay
decisions with your House selection. Each House has unique
properties that are useful for different game play strategies. When
you choose a House, you are essentially selecting which way you want
to play the game. Do you want to go for the long game, a more
satisfying Multiball, large end of ball bonuses or all of the above?
Each House has its own
High Score Champion. When you choose a House you will have a chance
to be the Champion of that House. You may want to choose a House
with a Champion score you have a good chance of beating.
The House you select
will give you special attributes:
HOUSE STARK - Increased Winter is Coming values. Winter is Coming is a series of
Hurry Ups.
HOUSE BARATHEON - Advance to Wall Multiball faster.
HOUSE LANNISTER - Win
more Gold throughout the game.
HOUSE GREYJOY - Pay
the Iron Price. As you complete Houses you will gain their
attributes.
HOUSE TYRELL - One return lane is lit for Increased Combo Multipliers. Use Lane Change
wisely.
HOUSE MARTELL - Add-A-Ball to Multiball by using the Action Button.
You cannot fight for
House Targaryen. Daenerys Targaryen, her army, and her dragons are
the greatest obstacle on your path to the Iron Throne.
The game will default
to House Stark. If you simply push START and then plunge the ball,
you will be fighting for House Stark. If you wish to represent a
different House, select the House of your choice with the flipper
buttons before plunging the ball. The House Stark mode is the most
straightforward house to learn, and is offered as default to casual
players as a simple starting point.
Strategy Example:
Choosing House Lannister
Being a Lannister
offers more opportunities to acquire Gold throughout the whole game.
Gold is useful in two ways:
You can spend
your Gold on items available at the Mystery Feature. More Gold will
mean you can afford more powerful or more lucrative items.
Gold increases
the value of End of Ball Bonus. Acquiring Bonus Multipliers
increases your bonus even more. Shoot the orbits to get the ball to
the top lanes. Completing the top lanes will award +1 Bonus
Multiplier and will advance you closer to Wall Multiball by one
increment.
One benefit from more
gold and Mystery is you can become good at video mode which can be a
lucrative sup-plot to the Lannister Strategy.
The
Mystery Feature
The Mystery Feature
offers 30+ items you can buy with Gold. These items can be very
valuable in awarding advances to many areas of the game. The Mystery
Feature is also the only place you can buy and play the Video Mode.
Three levels of Video Mode are available: 1X, 2X and 3X. If you have
earned enough Gold, you will be able to play the 3X Video Mode more
often. You never have to play the Video Mode if you don’t want to.
Instead of offering a
random mystery item the game feels you need at the moment, the
Mystery Feature gives you the opportunity and choice to spend, or not
spend some of the Gold you have collected for stuff.
Each time you shoot
the Mystery Feature you will have 3 options:
Keep the Gold you
have and save it for something bigger or better, risking that you
may or may not have another opportunity to buy something.
Spend Gold for
the most expensive item you can afford.
Spend Gold for
something less than the most expensive item and different in nature.
If you choose to spend
your Gold, the game will deduct it from your current amount of Gold.
Some of the features
you can buy with your Gold:
Early
Main Play
Your first goals will
be to light one or more Houses, collect Gold, lock balls for
Blackwater Multiball, and build up your stock of Wildfire, while
keeping a watchful eye on your playfield and combo multipliers.
Multipliers
Multipliers are a
major strategy in the game. The game is designed to allow the player
to build up large awards in various places and to build up
multipliers. The magic is putting the two together as often as you
can.
Combo Multipliers:
Each time you shoot one of the 5 major
shots you will increase some of the other combo multipliers.
You can increase them to a max of 5X. There are 5 Red Arrows, 1 per
major shot. These arrows will
blink and time out to indicate which combo shots are greater than 1X.
If they timeout all combo multipliers will return to 1X.
Playfield
Multipliers: Shooting the Battering Ram will light and then
later collect a playfield multiplier. Playfield multipliers timeout
and eventually turn off. Shooting the Battering Ram will prolong the
time out, adding back a few seconds. The higher valued multipliers
timeout faster than the lower valued multipliers. Playfield
multipliers multiply ALL scores awarded to the player.
Multiplied
Multipliers: Each time you collect an award from a major shot,
the game will combine the multipliers. For example if you have 2X
playfield and 3X combo on the shot, awards collected from that shot
will be worth 6X. The bottom of the display keeps track of the level
of the 5 shots; showing the combined multipliers for each shot.
All multipliers start
at 1X at the beginning of each ball.
Iron Bank: If
you have multipliers that are greater than 1X, the Action Button will
pulse in your House color. Once per ball you may press the
Action Button to cash in all of your multipliers for points and your
multipliers will all go to 1X. The scoring of points is exponential.
High level multipliers are very lucrative.
Sometimes you will
have to make tough decisions. Ideally, you will cash in when your
multipliers are huge, but you might want to think about it. Your
next 20X Jackpot may be very valuable also. If the very large
multipliers are close to timing out, you may want to cash in your
Iron Bank multiplied points before the timer runs out.
Tip: Hit the Action
Button as the ball drains just in case you have Iron Bank points
available. Since you can only cash in once per ball, you will leave
some points on the table if you don’t.
Pop
Bumpers
Each of the three pop
bumpers when hit will change which award it wants the collective set
to award. When two of the bumpers agree they will lock in and wait
for the third to match the first two. When all three pop bumper
awards match, they will award that feature.
Some of the features
the Pop Bumpers can award:
Often, the Pop Bumpers
will issue several awards in a row.
Tip: If the pop
bumpers are about to award something interesting, for example LIGHT
EXTRA BALL, shoot the ball back to the top lanes and collect it!
House
Modes
To reach the Iron
Throne you need to complete all 7 houses, including your own.
Lighting Houses:
At the start of the game, each House that is not currently lit has a
corresponding shot that will light it. After completing the shot 3
times, the House will be lit. You know a house is lit because their
Shield will be blinking. The shots are color coded and are the same
color as the House Shield. The Blue shot will light the Blue House,
(Targaryen); the Red shot will light the Red House, (Lannister); and
so on.
After you light a
House, it will Ice-Over and change its color to Ice Blue. See
Icing-Over & Winter is Coming, below.
Lighting Houses is
lucrative. The points you receive build with each shot, regardless
of the House you are advancing. Also, the faster you advance those
Houses the higher the value builds.
Each time you light a
house, CHOOSE YOUR BATTLE will light.
Choose
Your Battle
Shoot the Left Ramp
when Choose Your Battle is lit. The ball will stop at the Sword of
Multiball and give you a few moments to select which House Mode(s)
you would like to play. You can battle one House alone or two Houses
simultaneously.
HOUSE TARGARYEN
Defeat all three dragons one at a time.
HOUSE STARK Help
Arya train to be an assassin.
HOUSE BARATHEON Help
Stannis fight the wildlings.
HOUSE LANNISTER Help
Jaime rescue Myrcella
HOUSE GREYJOY Help
Theon Greyjoy take Winterfell
HOUSE TYRELL Help
Lord Loras joust against The Mountain
HOUSE MARTELL Help
the Viper defeat The Mountain in a trial by combat
The game will allow
you to play any House Mode you have lit or you can choose to pass and
not play any at that moment. Since you can play zero, one, or two
House Modes at once, there are interesting decisions to be made;
choosing which houses to play together, which to play alone, and when
to pass. This choice often enters into the realm of personal play
style.
Why Pass on a
Battle?
These are the main
reasons to Pass on a Battle:
You don’t want
to play the mode because it is better stacked with other modes.
You want to
continue to play the main-play features like lighting other Modes
because you are on a roll and you want to continue.
You don’t want
to play now because you want to play another mode first and it is
not lit yet.
You want to stack
the mode(s) with Blackwater Multiball but you need to lock more
balls first.
If a House Mode is not
complete when the time runs out or when the ball drains the game will
remember your progress most of the time. Some House Modes, because
of their nature, start over from the beginning when you start them
again. Often, the best strategy is to pair modes that use the same
shots. You will kill two birds with each shot.
Remember: Some
House Modes change the shots needed to complete the House Mode on
your progression within the Mode.
House Modes must be
completed before their Shield will light solid (not blinking),
marking them complete. Completing modes will eventually light extra
ball. Completing 4 House Modes starts Hand of the King Mini
Wizard mode. Completing all 7 House Modes are required to start the
Iron Throne Wizard Mode. Each House Mode you complete will
light Swords.
Swords: When
Swords is lit, shoot the right ramp to collect a random Sword.
Swords are needed to unlock higher levels of combo and playfield
multipliers.
Achieving your first
few House Modes may be less lucrative than your next few. For some
players, this will be a reason to carefully select the order you play
the house modes. An example of a reason to Pass would be that you
don’t want to Battle a certain House because you want to play a
different House Mode first, and it isn’t lit yet.
Midgame
Main Play
By now, you have
played but maybe not completed one or more House Modes, collected
some Gold, locked some balls, and advanced the Wall Multiball.
Icing-Over
and Winter is Coming
Shooting shots that
are ice blue in color will grow the Winter is Coming Hurry-Up
value. Any ice blue shot will grow the value and advance you to the
Hurry Up. The faster you shoot them the higher the value will grow.
After shooting the third ice blue shot, the Hurry Up will start for
that shot. When you complete it, the shot will then turn the color
of your house. You have now conquered that shot.
Completing Hurry Ups
will eventually start the Winter Has Come Wizard Mode.
Blackwater
Multiball
This is the main
Multiball of the game. To start this you need to lock three balls.
To do well you need to build up your wildfire first. The right two
bank will light lock and it will light wildfire. When lock is lit,
shoot the left ramp to lock a ball.
Wildfire:
The more Wildfire you have, the larger your jackpot and
super jackpot awards will be. You can collect Wildfire from many
places, but Wildfire Mini Mode is the best place to get more
Wildfire, quicker.
Hit the battering ram
when Wildfire is lit. This will start a Wildfire Mini Mode. For the
next few seconds the Battering Ram will award +10 Wildfire each time
you hit it.
At the start of
Blackwater Multiball, your Wildfire is cashed in to build your
jackpot value.
Battle
at the Wall Multiball
Completing
the top lanes moves the clock one step closer to the inevitable
Battle against the wildings. When the clock counts down, the
multiball will be ready at the Dragon Shot. Shoot the Dragon Shot to
start. The jackpot value for this Multiball can be increased by
choosing and collecting Mystery Feature and Pop Bumpers awards.