Cirqus Voltaire

Bally, 1997 — shot-by-shot rules and strategy guide.

Open Cirqus Voltaire in the Pinball Genie app →

Cirqus Voltaire asks one thing of you: collect all nine marvels. Do that and Join The Cirqus, the wizard mode, begins automatically — there is no shot to start it. The marvels can be taken in any order, which makes route planning the entire game, and they vary enormously in cost.

The nine marvels, cheapest first

• Acrobats — four Right Ramp hits, and the switch sits flush at the very start of the ramp. Shots that barely climb it still count, from either direction. This is close to free and completing it lights Super Spinner on both spinners.
• Spin — four passes through the inner loop around the Ringmaster spells S-P-I-N.
• Boom! — spell V-O-L-T on the red rollovers and a pop bumper physically rises out of the playfield for about ten seconds. Its hit counter is cumulative across the whole game, so a weak Boom! is deposited rather than wasted.
• Menagerie — a caged ball with a false slingshot beside it. The award ladder continues past the marvel into Spot Marvel and Light Extra Ball, making the cage one of the best shortcuts on the machine.
• Side Show — a hidden backward-facing scoop, lit from the start of the game and relit every five or six Ballyhoo standup hits. Its ten-item award table includes a video mode, Neon Multiball and an extra ball.
• Juggler — three Left Loops light it, three more lock balls and start the multiball.
• Highwire Multiball — work the LIGHT and LOCK standups to arm the queue beside the Left Ramp, then lock three.
• Ringmaster Frenzie — earned by defeating the second Ringmaster.
• Defeat All Ringmasters — four Ringmasters, each needing WOW spelled and then five hits. This is the long pole of the whole game.

One rule worth knowing before you rely on it: spotting the Juggler or Highwire marvel awards the marvel but does not start the multiball. If you wanted the balls, you have to earn it properly.

The Ringmaster

The main toy sits recessed beneath the playfield until you spell WOW on the target bank. You do not have to hit each letter individually — any target counts toward the total. The first Ringmaster costs a single hit; every one after costs three.

Once he is up, a magnet built into his head grabs the ball, holds it while he taunts you, then flings it somewhere unpredictable. There is a ball saver after each fling in case it goes straight down the middle. Occasionally the fling lands in the lock queue, which the game rewards as a free lock.

Each Ringmaster takes five hits to defeat, and the two yellow Ballyhoo standups beside him also spot hits — often a safer way to whittle him down than shooting him directly. Awards climb by a million per Ringmaster, and each defeat plays a different multiball: Frenzie, then Razz, then Special.

Which multiball is which

Ringmaster Frenzie is a 2-ball where he lifts a few inches to open the hole, and every shot at him pays 250K. Hitting him again while the jackpot animation is still playing pays substantially more — with four balls up, 750K and a million are both reachable.

Ringmaster Razz uses a hurry-up jackpot. It starts at 500K and counts down slowly to 250K, and wherever you stop it becomes the jackpot for the rest of the mode — so landing that first shot early is worth real money. There is also an extra ball lit.

Ringmaster Special is the one with a lever you can pull. The spinner raises the jackpot value, but only until the ball drops under the Ringmaster, at which point it is locked in. Pump the spinner first, cash in second. Despite the name there is no special.

There is a fifth, unmarked Ringmaster multiball — Ringmaster Battle — that appears nowhere on the playfield. You only reach it if you know it exists, and reaching it locks out further Ringmasters until you have played the wizard mode.

Stacking, and the open left side

This machine carries eight multiballs before the wizard mode adds four more, and up to three can run concurrently. Stacking is where the enormous scores come from, and the Left Ramp is the hub — it handles locks, Highwire, marvel spotting and Strike-An-Arc.

Finally, the left inlane and outlane are one continuous open area with no dividing wireform, just posts and a lot of rubber. The outlane post is adjustable, so no two machines drain the same way — read the setting before you commit. It is also one of the best machines in the hobby to learn nudging on, precisely because that area is so open.

Goals in Cirqus Voltaire

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

• Skill Shot skillshot · Easy

  Plunge into the sideways skill shot target. It pays 200K times the number you have collected, so the fifth is worth five times the first. It caps at a million, and the game will let you know when you have overdone it.

  Reward: 200K x collections, max 1M

• The Nine Marvels progression · Hard

  Everything on this machine points at one thing: collect all nine marvels and Join The Cirqus starts automatically. They can be taken in any order, which makes route planning the whole game.

  Reward: Starts Join The Cirqus

• Marvel: Acrobats mode · Easy

  The easiest marvel on the game. Four Right Ramp hits — and because the switch sits flush at the very start of the ramp, shots that barely climb it still count, in either direction. Completing it lights Super Spinner on both spinners.

  Reward: Marvel, plus Super Spinner at 10K per spin

• Marvel: Juggler multiball · Medium

  Three Left Loops light the Juggler, three more lock the balls and start the multiball. The real scoring is in speed: two balls into the Juggler inside ten seconds doubles the jackpot, and a third inside another ten doubles it again.

  Reward: 500K jackpots, 1M double, 2M super

• Marvel: Highwire Multiball multiball · Medium

  Work the LIGHT and LOCK standups to arm the lock queue beside the Left Ramp. For the first multiball only, lit locks can be stacked — every one after that has to be lit individually, and the target requirement climbs.

  Reward: 1M jackpots

• Marvel: Spin mode · Medium

  Four passes through the inner loop around the Ringmaster spells S-P-I-N. On prototype machines this marvel is called Crank and demands four consecutive spins instead.

  Reward: Marvel

• Marvel: Boom! mode · Medium

  Spell V-O-L-T on the red rollovers and a pop bumper physically rises out of the playfield for about ten seconds. Hit it enough and you light an extra ball — and crucially, that hit count carries across every Boom! in the game.

  Reward: Marvel, progress toward an extra ball

• Boom! Extra Ball strategy · Hard

  The hit counter on the Boom! balloon is cumulative for the whole game, not per visit. Six hits on your first Boom! and twelve on your second leaves you at eighteen — so a weak Boom! is never wasted, it is deposited.

  Reward: Extra ball

• Marvel: Menagerie mode · Medium

  A caged ball with a false slingshot beside it. Hits build a ladder of awards, and after the marvel itself the ladder starts handing out Spot Marvel and Light Extra Ball — which makes the cage one of the best shortcuts on the game.

  Reward: Marvel, then Spot Marvel / Light EB awards

• Marvel: Side Show secret · Medium

  A hidden backward-facing scoop that acts as this game's random award. It is lit from the start of the game and relights every five or six Ballyhoo hits, and the award table includes a video mode, Neon Multiball and an extra ball.

  Reward: Random award from a ten-item table

• The Amazing Roonie (Video Mode) secret · Medium

  A Side Show award. Roonie is a kangaroo and the game is a jumping game in the same family as Dr. Who's — timing rather than aiming, played entirely on the flipper buttons.

  Reward: Video mode points

• Raise The Ringmaster strategy · Easy

  The Ringmaster hides under the playfield until you spell WOW. The first one costs a single target hit; every one after costs three. Once he is up, expect his head magnet to grab the ball and throw it somewhere you did not plan for.

  Reward: Ringmaster raised and vulnerable

• Marvel: Defeat All Ringmasters progression · Hard

  The longest marvel. Four Ringmasters, each needing WOW spelled and then five hits, and each defeat plays a different multiball — Frenzie, Razz, then Special. Awards climb by a million per Ringmaster.

  Reward: 1M, 2M, 3M... per Ringmaster defeated

• Marvel: Ringmaster Frenzie multiball · Medium

  Earned by defeating the second Ringmaster. A two-ball multiball where he lifts a few inches to open up the hole, and every shot at him pays 250K. Hitting him again while the jackpot animation is still playing pays substantially more.

  Reward: 250K per hit, more for quick repeats

• Ringmaster Razz multiball · Hard

  The third Ringmaster's multiball. Same shape as Frenzie but the jackpot is a hurry-up: it starts at 500K and counts down slowly to 250K, and wherever you stop it becomes the jackpot for the rest of the mode. There is also an extra ball lit.

  Reward: 250K-500K jackpots, extra ball lit

• Ringmaster Special multiball · Hard

  The fourth Ringmaster's multiball, with jackpots from 500K. Its distinguishing feature is that the spinner raises the jackpot value — but only until the ball drops under the Ringmaster, after which it is locked in. Despite the name there is no special.

  Reward: 500K+ jackpots, raisable via spinner

• Ringmaster Battle secret · Hard

  The fifth Ringmaster's multiball, and the one most players never find — it is not marked anywhere on the playfield, so you only get there if you know it exists. Reaching it also locks out further Ringmasters until you have played the wizard mode.

  Reward: Unmarked fifth Ringmaster multiball

• Neon Multiball multiball · Medium

  One of the Side Show's awards rather than something you can shoot for directly, which makes it the least predictable multiball on a game that already has eight of them.

  Reward: Multiball

• Strike-An-Arc Multiball multiball · Hard

  Another multiball started from the Left Ramp. Cirqus Voltaire carries eight multiballs before the wizard mode adds four more, and up to three of them can run at the same time — stacking is where the huge scores on this machine come from.

  Reward: Multiball, stackable

• Sneaky Lock secret · Medium

  The lock queue sits right beside the Left Ramp, so a ramp shot that comes up short — or a ball the Ringmaster flings at random — can fall in when the lock was never lit. The game awards it anyway, and if it happens to be the third, Highwire Multiball simply begins.

  Reward: Free lock; can start Highwire Multiball

• Join The Cirqus wizard · Hard

  The wizard mode, and it starts by itself the moment the ninth marvel lands — there is no shot to begin it. What follows is multi-level and carries four more multiballs of its own on top of the eight in the main game.

  Reward: Multi-level wizard mode with four further multiballs

• Learn The Open Left Side strategy · Medium

  The left inlane and outlane are one continuous open area with no dividing wireform, just posts and a lot of rubber. It is genuinely one of the best machines in the hobby to learn nudging on — and the outlane post is adjustable, so no two machines drain the same.

  Reward: Saved balls