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Roller Games

Williams, 1990 — shot-by-shot rules and strategy guide.

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Roller Games has several things to chase and none pays a fortune, so a big score comes from repeating a handful of shots rather than reaching one big round. Almost everything funnels through two features: the Pit, where awards are collected, and the Wall, where they are cashed. Learn how those relate and the rest falls into place.

The Pit feeds the Wall

The Wall is pitched almost vertical, and the upper right flipper is the one place you can shoot it from — clean chances at that flipper are rare. The Pit is the fix: an enclosed saucer behind a one-way gate, where no shot is too hard because whatever goes in stays in, and it kicks onto a habitrail delivering the ball straight to that flipper.

Better still, shoot the Pit with its Magnet lamp lit and the machine holds the ball still at the flipper tip. The mistake is universal: do not flip early. The countdown runs while the ball travels the rail, and flipping before it settles switches the magnet off. Wait for the call, then shoot. It is one shot only, and the Magnet is relit each ball, at the start of multiball, by Instant Lock, and by completing S-K-A-T-E.

Three arrows at the Wall

Red for Jackpot, green for Lock, orange for Million — check them before you shoot, because the same shot pays very differently depending on what is lit. There is also a useful quirk: the switch registering a Wall shot sits on the upslope, below the flat top. A ball hit just hard enough to trip it, stall and roll back over it earns two awards from one shot.

Jetways and teams

The two Jetways are the halves of the orbit, each with a spinner and a lamp. They work independently and both can be lit at once. Each inlane lights the Jetway opposite, and a full orbit lights an unlit one. You only need to trip the spinner to collect — so with both lit, one orbit takes both.

Every collection spots one of the six team lamps in the playfield centre, and all six lights an extra ball at the Center Lane. Two are lit free at game start, but only the first time through, and teams do not carry between balls — so this is a six-in-one-ball job. Once all six are lit, the Jetways settle at 250K each.

That Center Lane runs straight up the middle: your ball has to clear the drop targets on one side and the ramp entrance on the other, then slip past the standups with the bumpers alongside. No angle works. The consolation is that extra balls stack there and stay lit.

Roller Motion and the Scoring Cycle

With Roller Motion lit, the Pit hands out a near-random award: nothing at all, Jetter Bonus, Bonus Held, a WILLIAMS letter, Spot Team, Bonus X, Extra Ball or Lite Special. Instant Lock is the one to hope for — a lock and a relit Magnet at once. It is lit at game start but not each ball; the 1-2-3 standups bring it back, and since those are nearly unshootable, the bumpers do that job.

The WILLIAMS letters carry over between balls, players and games. Complete the word and a hurry-up starts at four million and falls to one, collected at the Pit. A short pause before the countdown makes the full four million possible — the trick is finishing your last letter off the S-K-A-T-E bank at the spot where the rebound drops in. Collect it and WILLIAMS resets; miss it and you lose four letters.

Multiball and Sudden Death

The W-A-R drop targets award locks in single-ball play, and three locked balls starts multiball. Expect all of them down the right inlane at once. The Magnet is armed automatically, giving one free crack at the jackpot — take it, because it is worth one and a half to four million and every collection resets it to 1.5M. After that the target completions are better money: S-K-A-T-E pays 100K, 150K, 200K up to a 500K cap, and W-A-R runs the same ladder.

Sudden Death starts on its own once or twice a game: fifteen seconds, every Wall shot worth a million and resetting the clock. Completing both S-K-A-T-E and W-A-R ends it with two million — but if the Wall is falling, repeats beat closing it out.

Housekeeping

How Roller Games plays

Roller Games spins a roller-derby broadcast into a chase up the near-vertical Wall, the one shot that pays every jackpot, lock and million. Skate all six teams into the lineup by banking Jetways, pin the ball with the Magnet so that brutal Wall becomes a gimme, and stash three balls for multiball.

The loop

  1. Roll a return lane to arm the Jetway on the far side of the table, then clip its spinner to bank it and drop one of your team lamps into place.
  2. Rake the left-wall standups clean to earn a WILLIAMS letter and flip the Magnet back on over at the Pit.
  3. Feed the Pit while the Magnet glows, keep both thumbs off the buttons, and let it clamp the ball at the upper flipper for a free run at the Wall.
  4. Glance at the Wall's three colored arrows and shoot the upper flipper for whichever award is live; a dark Wall shot still pockets a Power Play.
  5. Stack three locks on the W-A-R drops to tip into multiball, then harvest both standup banks over and over while the balls are loose.

Reading the lights

  • Jetway Spinners (shot arrows) — lit: An orange Jetway lamp glows at a spinner's mouth the moment the return lane on the far side arms it, and nothing stops both mouths burning together; the spinner switch by itself is the collect, so an orbit that stalls partway round still pays. · then: Each Jetway you take drops one of your six team lamps onto the bare centre of the table, and lighting the whole crew opens an extra ball down the tight Center Lane. A drain wipes the lamps, so the set has to land on one ball -- once it does, every Jetway flattens to a quarter-million apiece.
  • S-K-A-T-E Standups (letters) — lit: A standup on the left wall burns steady once you have knocked it down and holds for the rest of the ball; the ones still blinking are the letters you owe. · flashing: A blinking target is a letter you have not collected yet. · then: Finishing the bank hands you a WILLIAMS letter and snaps the Magnet back on at the Pit in one motion. There is a rebound point on this wall where a right-flipper shot ricochets straight into the Pit, so one swing does both jobs; bank the full WILLIAMS to arm a hurry-up worth as much as four million.
  • W-A-R Drop Targets (letters) — lit: Each of the three drops wears a lamp showing whether that lock is banked, still open, or open but ticking down on a timer; any flipper can reach the row, and the upper one can rake the whole set in a single pass. · then: Award a lock on all three and you tip into multiball, where the balls spill down the right inlane in one rush as it begins. The Magnet arms itself the instant it starts, handing you one clean crack at that opening jackpot before the noise takes over.
  • The Wall Arrows (shot arrows) — lit: Three arrow lamps at the ramp mouth tell you what a Wall shot pays right now -- red for a jackpot, green for a lock, orange for a million -- and only the upper right flipper can fire it, which is exactly why the Magnet earns its keep. · then: Send it from the upper flipper for whatever the arrows have lit; with none of them lit the shot still banks a Power Play, and those pile up all game toward an extra ball at three and lit outlane Specials at eight. Underhit it so it stalls on the ramp switch and rolls back over, and a single shot credits twice.
  • The Magnet (status) — lit: A lit Magnet lamp at the Pit means the grabber out on the upper flipper's tip is live; feed the Pit and the ball is carried up the rail and held dead still right where you want it for the Wall. · then: While the ball rides the wire a countdown ticks -- touch a button early and the grabber lets go at once, sit too long and it drops anyway, so wait for the call and flip a single time for a gift Wall shot. It switches off after that one shot; clearing the left-wall standups is the fastest way to bring it back.
  • J-E-T Rollover Lanes (lanes) — lit: The trio of lanes over the bumpers lights toward your bonus multiplier; a lane already collected stays lit, and the dark ones are all you have left to sweep. · then: Complete all three to step the bonus multiplier up a rung at a time, to a ceiling of seven; past that, each completion is a flat hundred thousand. The lit lanes do not carry between balls, so you rebuild them from scratch every ball. · control: Either flipper button: either flipper button nudges the lit lanes across by one step, so you can park a lit lane under whatever path the ball is taking -- the orbit sails over this trio with no gate to stop it, so you almost never aim these and instead steer the lit ones under a ball already on its way (while the ball is still climbing up toward the lanes)
  • Roller Motion (status) — lit: With the Roller Motion lamp lit at the Pit, a trip inside draws a random award off a wheel that ranges from an outright blank up through a held bonus, a spotted team, a multiplier bump, an extra ball, a lit Special, and the prize you actually want -- an instant lock that relights the Magnet at the same time. · then: Bring the award back by knocking the 1-2-3 standups buried among the bumpers -- almost impossible to shoot on purpose, so let the nest bat the ball into them for you -- then collect at the Pit. It sits out during multiball, so cash it while a single ball is in play.

Lane change: the flipper buttons move the lit lane. Either flipper button nudges the lit J-E-T lanes across by one, so tap it while the ball is still climbing toward them to seat a lit lane in the ball's path -- the orbit runs over the trio with no gate, which makes steering the lit ones far more reliable than aiming for them. Sweeping the set steps your bonus multiplier up to a ceiling of seven, then pays a flat hundred thousand for each completion after.

Start scoring

  • Ball one — Lean on the safe, repeatable points first: cross the return lanes to arm the Jetways and clip the spinners to spot teams, and rake the left-wall standups to stock WILLIAMS letters while keeping the Magnet lit. Finish the A-B-C standups early to re-arm the left kickback, because the thin divider on that rail leaves you next to nothing to lean on. — The Jetways, Complete S-K-A-T-E, Keep The Kickback Alive
  • Building — Set the Magnet at the Pit for a free swing at the Wall, and read the arrows so you know what each swing is worth. Bank a Power Play every time the Wall is dark, climbing toward the extra ball, and stack three locks off the W-A-R drops to open multiball -- then farm both standup banks up their climbing ladders while the balls last. — Arm The Magnet, Shooting The Wall, Power Plays, Lock Three And Go, Bank Targets In Multiball
  • The big one — There is no wizard mode here -- the peak of the game is Locks Multiball, opened by stashing three balls off the drops, where the auto-armed Magnet hands you a first jackpot as large as four million before it resets low. The other big night is the WILLIAMS hurry-up cashed at the Pit, and Sudden Death, which starts on its own and pays a million for every Wall shot as its clock keeps resetting. — Lock Three And Go, The Scoring Cycle, Sudden Death

Does Roller Games have an action button?

A 1990 Williams front panel: manual plunger, flippers, start button, nothing more. The only button habit worth building is lane change — either flipper button rotates the lit J-E-T lanes, and since the orbit passes above them with no gate you will rarely hit them on purpose, so do the rotating while the ball is still travelling.

Goals in Roller Games

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

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