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AC/DC

Stern, 2012 — shot-by-shot rules and strategy guide.

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The playfield doesn't look complicated: a pair of ramps, a pair of loops, three standup banks, a spinner, a lane feeding the bell, and some bumpers rounding it out. What isn't obvious from the layout is Lyman Sheats's code running underneath Steve Ritchie's design — it wires nearly every one of those ordinary shots to whichever song happens to be playing, so almost nothing on this table scores the same way twice.

Starting the ball

A plunge nearly always lands in the top saucer, which kicks out into the AXE lanes — flip to move the blinking lane and land in it for the easy skill shot. Hold the right flipper as the ball exits the saucer instead, and it drops straight to the flippers for a harder, more valuable option: any major shot from there pays more and hands you two VIP passes instead of one. Passes matter more than they look — in regular play, pressing Fire just spots a hit toward your song's key feature, which is fairly minor, but during multiball it spots one of the five major shots toward an add-a-ball, and that's worth holding onto.

Choosing, and changing, your song

Twelve songs, twelve key shots, and picking one at the start of the game is not cosmetic — it decides which shot pays extra for the rest of the ball, through multiballs and everything else, until you deliberately change it. Hitting the key shot for a song you aren't playing lights it on the jukebox in the back of the cabinet; light eight of them and a shot into the top saucer — reachable off the right loop, or free on the plunge at the start of a new ball — offers you the choice to switch. Keeping your current song instead just resets the count back to zero. There is genuinely nothing wrong with picking one song, like Hells Bells or War Machine, and never touching the jukebox all game.

The Song Jackpot

Every point you score in your current song mode is quietly added to a separate running total. Spell F-I-R-E on the inlanes and outlanes three times — one shot is free at the very start of the game — and a lit cannon insert appears above the flippers. Shoot the right ramp to feed it, then press Fire to aim at the blinking AC/DC target. Land it and you bank the whole jackpot, easily worth fifteen or twenty million before any multiplier gets involved; miss, and the value holds while you spell F-I-R-E again for another try. Aiming the cannon at the bell instead, when you have the choice, is the safer play — it builds toward a playfield multiplier rather than risking the drain a target shot invites.

That risk is real. The bell is responsible for every playfield multiplier in the game — three hits light 2X for twenty seconds, three more during 2X light 3X — but it's also the riskiest shot on the layout: come up short and you're almost certainly draining, and even a solid hit doesn't guarantee safety. Build your multiplier before you cash in a big jackpot, not after.

Multiball, stacked

Three multiballs correspond to three playfield features: Jam to the ramps, Album to the three target banks, and Tour to the two loops. All three start the same way — shoot the lit right ramp — and Jam usually lights first anyway — not because it needs fewer shots (fifteen ramps is far more than one bank of targets), but because the ramps are safe, repeatable shots you can backhand and combo all day. Album and Tour share a neat trick: jackpots are named chronologically after AC/DC's albums or tours, and landing one while playing a song that actually belongs to that album or tour pays a full song bonus on top, no reset required.

You can't work toward one multiball while another is running, but you can light two or three ahead of time and start them all together the instant the right ramp comes up, for a Double or Triple Multiball. Twenty jackpots into any of them — fourteen for Album — lights the cannon for a Super Jackpot worth the lump sum of every jackpot you have scored to that point, and Triple Multiball adds its own bonus jackpot at the bell once you've landed one of each type.

Hidden depths, and the encore

Premium and LE cabinets hide a second playfield underneath the first. Any song with "Hell" in its name — Hells Bells, Highway to Hell, Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be — drops you down there the first time you make that song's key shot. It's a minor detour, not a second game, but it's easy to miss if you don't know to look for it.

The real finale is Encore, unlocked only after completing all twelve songs — changing away from a song completes it, whether or not you ever shot its key feature — and choosing to change one final time. Three balls walk you back through the shot sequence of your entire game, song by song, re-scoring each one as you land it. It's built to reward finishing the achievement, not to compete for high score, so don't feel obligated to chase it if you're just trying to put up a number.

How AC/DC plays

On AC/DC every track doubles as a mode tied to one key shot, and the one you choose keeps playing through everything until you swap it at the jukebox. Cash each song's hidden Song Jackpot with the cannon, stack the three multiballs, and finish all twelve tracks to reach the Encore wizard.

The loop

  1. Pick a track at the plunge; its key shot pays a bonus for the rest of the ball while every point you score feeds a separate Song Jackpot underneath.
  2. Run the F-I-R-E lanes three times over to load the cannon, then hit the right ramp and thumb the Fire button to launch the loaded shot at the blinking target and collect that Song Jackpot.
  3. Feed the ramps, loops and target banks to arm Jam, Tour and Album -- and get two or three of them lit before you start any, because the cannon's opening shot pays out once for every multiball you stacked together.
  4. Bang the bell three times for double playfield scoring, three more for triple, and get that lit right before a big cannon collect or a multiball.
  5. Complete every one of the twelve tracks -- changing away from a song counts it done -- and one final jukebox change drops you into Encore.

Reading the lights

  • AXE Lanes (lanes) — lit: As the ball rebounds from the top saucer it heads for the AXE lanes overhead, one of them blinking; steering the ball into the blinking one is the game's gentler skill shot. · then: Land the blinking lane for a few points, a bump to your bonus multiplier and a VIP pass. Filling the whole AXE set is also Whole Lotta Rosie's key shot, and holding the right flipper as the ball leaves the saucer instead drops it straight to your flippers for a two-pass award. · control: Either flipper button: a flip nudges the blinking AXE lane sideways, letting you line the lit one up with whichever lane the ball is about to roll through (as the ball comes down from the top saucer)
  • Song Key Shots (mode) — lit: Every one of the twelve songs is bolted to a single key shot -- the ramps, the loops, the bell and the target banks each stand in for a track. The song you are on keeps scoring extra on its own shot, right through multiballs, until you choose to trade it. · then: Completing the key feature for the songs you are NOT playing lights those tracks on the jukebox in the backbox. Once eight are lit, the top saucer -- reached by looping the right loop -- offers a swap next time you get there. On Premium and LE, the first key shot of any track with Hell in its title also tips the ball onto a hidden lower playfield.
  • F-I-R-E Cannon (letters) — lit: Running F-I-R-E through the inlanes and outlanes three times over loads the auto-aiming cannon above the right sling. · then: Shoot the right ramp to feed the mechanism, then fire at the blinking target for a jackpot that is often fifteen or twenty million before multipliers; a miss keeps the value but costs you another three spellings. That same Fire button spends a banked VIP pass when the cannon is cold -- a free hit toward your song, or a step toward an add-a-ball in multiball. · control: Action button: with the cannon loaded, a press of the Fire button on the lockbar launches it at the blinking AC/DC target to bank the Song Jackpot (after F-I-R-E is spelled and the right ramp has fed the cannon)
  • Bell Multiplier (multiplier) — lit: Three clean hits on the bell switch on double playfield scoring for twenty seconds, and any bell hit at all resets that timer to full. · then: Three more while double is running upgrades it to triple -- worth setting up just before you cash a fat Song Jackpot or tip off a multiball. The catch is that the bell is the easiest drain on the table, so only ever take it from a cradle.
  • Jam & Tour Shots (shot arrows) — lit: Repeating the ramps builds Jam, the quickest multiball to light because both ramps take a clean backhand; the two loops build Tour. The right ramp starts whichever one is armed. · then: Get two or three multiballs lit before you start any of them, so the cannon's first jackpot pays for every one you stacked -- a triple then cracks off three at once and opens a bell jackpot once you have banked one of each type. Rack up twenty jackpots in a single multiball, or just fourteen in Album, and the bell lights for a Super worth every jackpot collected on the way up.
  • Album Target Banks (mode) — lit: The three standup or drop banks -- AC/DC, TNT and Rock -- all feed Album, a three-ball multiball whose jackpots are named for the band's records in release order. · then: Start it at the right ramp once you clear a bank. If the album a jackpot is named after is the one your current song belongs to, you also collect that song's full bonus, and it leaves the Song Jackpot untouched -- so playing the matching track through Album pays twice.
  • Encore (mode) — lit: Encore only opens once all twelve songs are done and you take one last jukebox change; there is no other road in. · then: Over three balls it walks you song by song through your whole game, replaying each track in the sequence you tackled them and paying its value again as you make its shot. That is the reward for a complete twelve-song game, and the toughest thing the machine asks for.

Lane change: the flipper buttons move the lit lane. Tap either flipper as the ball spills out of the top saucer to slide the blinking AXE lane across into the path it is taking. Drop it into the lit lane to score, nudge the bonus multiplier up a step and pocket a VIP pass; clearing the full AXE set doubles as Whole Lotta Rosie's key shot.

Start scoring

  • Ball one — Take the AXE-lane skill shot -- flip the blinking lane under the ball -- and settle on a song whose key shot you can actually hit. That shot scores extra all ball while a Song Jackpot quietly grows in the background. — Axe Lanes Skill Shot, The Harder Skill Shot, Choose Your Song
  • Building — Load the cannon with F-I-R-E and fire the Song Jackpot off the right ramp, but light the bell for double or triple scoring first. Arm two or three multiballs before starting so the opening cannon pays per stack, and match your song to the album during Album multiball for a doubled-up bonus. — Song Jackpot, Playfield Multiplier, Stack The Multiballs, Album Multiball
  • The big one — Complete all twelve songs and change one final time for Encore, which replays every track from your game for full value -- the biggest score the machine holds. A stacked triple multiball with a bell Super is the other way to a monster total. — Encore, Super Jackpot, Stack The Multiballs

The Fire Button on AC/DC

On the lockdown bar.

AC/DC got a lockbar button a year before Stern made them standard, and it earns its keep twice over. When the cannon above the right slingshot is loaded, Fire shoots it; the rest of the time the same button spends a VIP pass. Check the cannon insert above the flippers to know which one you are about to do.

Goals in AC/DC

Every goal below is tracked step-by-step, with shot paths drawn on the playfield map, inside the app.

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