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Comet

Williams, 1985 — shot-by-shot rules and strategy guide.

Open Comet in the Pinball Genie app →

Comet is a carnival-themed early solid-state machine with a short rule set and one famous shot. Barry Oursler designed it, Python Anghelo did the art, and it holds a small place in history as the first solid-state game with a million point shot. Everything feeds toward that: two target banks, a centre ramp, a corkscrew, an eject hole and a jump ramp with three rings on the end. No modes, no multiball, no wizard sequence — just a few features you learn to chain.

The layout

The banks drive everything

Ducks light the Corkscrew, Rabbits light the Funhouse, and both together light the Comet ramp. That third one is where the scoring is. A lit Comet ride pays 30,000 and then climbs: 50,000 on the second ride, 100,000 plus an extra ball on the third, and 100,000 plus a special on the fourth. The catch is that each advance has a time limit — miss it and the value drops back to 30,000, or the lights go out entirely once you have already banked the first 100,000. After four rides the whole thing resets and both banks have to be cleared again.

Repeat completions keep paying. A second clearing of both banks arms an extra ball on the Cycle Jump: the lower ring lights for five seconds, then the centre for ten, then the upper for fifteen, and missing all three simply restarts the sequence until you take it. A third clearing lights more extra balls and specials, collected on the Corkscrew — worth 20,000 regardless, so never a wasted shot.

Multipliers, and there are two of them

The playfield multiplier comes from completing the four 1-9-8-6 lanes, which also scores 50,000. It runs for twenty seconds, and the value depends on which ball you are on. In a five-ball game it goes 2x, 3x, 2x, 2x and then 5x on the last ball; in a three-ball game, 2x, 3x, then 5x. Because the lane change sits on the right flipper button, you can shuffle the lit lanes at any time, even with the ball nowhere near the top — get in the habit of tapping it constantly.

The bonus multiplier comes from the dummy. Drop the target, then hit the bull's-eye behind it before the target resets: first time 2x, then 3x, 4x and 5x, after which each hit is worth a flat 20,000. Treat this as a two-shot combination rather than two separate visits, because the window is short. It is worth doing early, because the multiplier applies to the Duck and Rabbit bonuses you have been building all ball — Ducks collected on the Corkscrew, Rabbits in the Funhouse.

The million

The Cycle Jump rings pay by height: 10,000, 20,000 and 30,000 unlit, or 20,000, 50,000 and 200,000 once the left return lane has lit them. On your last ball, with the 5x playfield multiplier running and the Jump lit, the upper ring is worth a full 1,000,000 — and the game will not let you forget it, announcing the million and lighting up the whole backglass.

The order matters. Light the rings first with a left return lane, because the multiplier lasts only twenty seconds and you do not want to spend it hunting a return lane. Then complete 1-9-8-6, then take the upper ring. The Jump also resets whenever the ball reaches the eject hole beside the lower right pop bumper, so you may need another return lane before your next attempt.

Small print worth knowing

Comet also plays very differently from one machine to another, and the reason is usually physical rather than software. Five adjustable posts around the return lane and outlanes decide how forgiving it is, and pitch decides whether the ramps are comfortably reachable: nominal is roughly six degrees of rake from front to back, with no lean across the width at either end of the playfield. Most timed features sit in the fifteen to twenty second range, though operators can change them. Glance at the outlane posts before your first ball; they tell you how much risk each ramp attempt is worth.

How Comet plays

Comet is an early-eighties Williams named for its roller coaster, a carnival of funhouse ejects, ring jumps and duck-and-rabbit target banks. Everything points at one last-ball prize: a five-times playfield multiplier stacked onto a lit upper ring for a full million points.

The loop

  1. Feather the plunge into the 1-9-8-6 rollovers, then work the right flipper button to shift the lit lanes and roll all four for fifty thousand and a twenty-second playfield multiplier.
  2. Clear the Duck bank on the left and the Rabbit bank on the right -- each lights its own collect, and finishing both together lights the Comet ramp down the middle.
  3. Ride the lit Comet ramp for a value that climbs with every trip, and cash your Duck bonus on the Corkscrew and your Rabbit bonus in the Funhouse.
  4. Roll the left return lane -- the only shot that lights the three Cycle Jump rings -- then aim high, because only the upper ring can pay the big one.
  5. On the last ball, stack the five-times multiplier onto a lit upper ring and the machine hands you a million.

Reading the lights

  • 1-9-8-6 Top Lanes (lanes) — lit: A lit top lane is one of the four 1-9-8-6 rollovers you have already rolled through; light all four and the game pays fifty thousand and switches a playfield multiplier on for twenty seconds. · then: Keep shifting the lit lanes under wherever the ball will roll until all four are in. The multiplier steps up over the course of a game and only reaches five times on your last ball, which is exactly why the million is a last-ball shot -- so know which shot you will spend the twenty seconds on before you finish the lanes. · control: Right flipper button: tapping the right flipper button shifts which of the four lanes are lit, and it answers even while the ball sits down by the flippers, so you can pre-set the lit lanes long before the ball ever reaches the top (any time, ball up top or not)
  • Duck & Rabbit Banks (status) — lit: Two four-target banks flank the outlanes: clearing the Ducks on the left lights the Corkscrew, clearing the Rabbits on the right lights the Funhouse, and finishing both is what lights the Comet ramp. · then: These banks drive nearly everything the machine does -- a second clear of both arms an extra ball at the Cycle Jump, a third lights specials around the playfield. Draining is not wasted either: the left outlane bumps your Duck count by three, and the right does the same for the Rabbits.
  • Comet Ramp (ladder) — lit: Unlit the centre ramp is worth ten thousand; lit by both banks it jumps to thirty thousand and then rises each trip -- fifty, then a hundred thousand with an extra ball, then a hundred thousand with a special on the fourth ride. · then: Keep the rides coming inside the time limit, because a miss drops the value back to thirty thousand, and the fourth ride turns the lights out until you clear both banks again. Take it at full strength from a settled ball -- a short shot rolls back into the middle and down the centre gap.
  • Cycle Jump Rings (shot arrows) — lit: Only the left return lane lights the three rings at the top of the jump ramp, and with no return lane on the right side, that single rollover matters more than it looks. · then: With the rings lit, aim high off the jump -- the lower ring pays twenty thousand, the centre fifty, and the upper two hundred thousand, the one ring that can climb all the way to a million. The moment the ball drops into the eject hole the rings go dark, and it takes a fresh left return lane to bring them back.
  • Dummy & Bull's-Eye (multiplier) — lit: Drop the dummy target and the bull's-eye it was hiding opens up for a moment; strike that bull's-eye before the dummy resets and the bonus multiplier climbs a step -- two, three, four, then five. · then: Play the pair as a single combination -- drop, then bull's-eye -- because the exposed window shuts the moment the target pops back up. Once the multiplier is maxed each hit simply pays twenty thousand, and that multiplier rides on every bonus you cash at the Corkscrew and Funhouse.
  • Corkscrew & Funhouse Collects (status) — lit: The Corkscrew in the upper left cashes your Duck bonus and, once you have cleared both banks enough times, an extra ball or a special; the Funhouse eject beside the ramp cashes your Rabbit bonus. · then: Build the bull's-eye bonus multiplier first, then collect -- Ducks pay only at the Corkscrew and Rabbits only at the Funhouse, and leaving them uncashed is one of the quietest ways to bleed points on this game. The Corkscrew is worth twenty thousand a ride and the Funhouse ten even unlit, so neither is a wasted shot.

Lane change: the flipper buttons move the lit lane. The right flipper button shifts which of the four 1-9-8-6 lanes are lit, and it answers even when the ball is down by the flippers, so you can pre-set the lit lanes before the ball ever reaches the top. Roll all four to score fifty thousand and start a twenty-second playfield multiplier -- and since that multiplier only reaches five times on your last ball, this lane change is the setup for the million-point shot.

Start scoring

  • Ball one — Take the safe carnival points first. Feather a plunge into the rollover lanes, clear the Duck and Rabbit banks since they light almost everything on the machine, and start stepping the bonus multiplier up at the dummy and bull's-eye. — Plunge Into The Lanes, The Duck Bank, The Rabbit Bank, Dunk The Dummy
  • Building — Complete 1-9-8-6 for the playfield multiplier and know where its twenty seconds will go. Ride the Comet ramp up its ladder, feed the left return lane so the Cycle Jump rings light, and collect your Duck and Rabbit bonuses at full multiplier. — Light 1-9-8-6, Ride The Comet, The Cycle Jump, Collect Your Bonuses
  • The big one — The whole machine is built for one shot: the million. On the last ball the playfield multiplier reaches five times, so light the Cycle Jump rings from the left return lane, complete 1-9-8-6 to turn on the 5x, and land the upper ring before the twenty seconds run out. — The Million Point Shot, The Cycle Jump, Light 1-9-8-6

Does Comet have an action button?

Nothing dedicated on the cabinet — flippers, a start button and a manual plunger. The right flipper button does pull double duty as lane change, and that is the closest thing to an extra control you get.

Goals in Comet

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

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