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Surf 'N Safari

Gottlieb, 1991 — shot-by-shot rules and strategy guide.

Open Surf 'N Safari in the Pinball Genie app →

Surf 'N Safari is built around one thing, and once you see it the machine makes sense: a five-by-five grid of lights above the flippers. Five major shots each own a column. Filling a column starts a timed round. Filling a row switches on a feature — an outlane award, a multiball lock, an extra ball, a scoring target. Everything else serves that grid, and Rodney the crocodile tells you when a column is one light from finishing.

The five slides

The inlane rollovers are marked Advance Random Slide and give a free column advance when lit. On your first grid both are lit; after that only one is, and slingshot hits swap which. Columns also cannot be advanced during multiball or any timed round except Double, so building the grid while a round runs is wasted effort.

What each row does

The rounds

Each completed column starts its own short timed round. The Pipeline column lights the Three Million target for nine seconds at 3M a hit. The Boomerang column lifts the spinner from 50K to roughly 250K a spin, also for nine seconds, so shoot it hard — the award is per spin. The Whirlpool column lights two random slides for twelve seconds and pays an extra ball if you hit both, so reading the playfield matters more than shooting fast.

The Splash column starts Safari, the best round on the machine. Four animals light for nineteen seconds — the toucan on the Rapids, the elephant on the Boomerang, the monkey on the Whirlpool and the lion on the Arcade target — and taking them in any order pays 1M, 2M, 3M and then a Special. The Rapids column instead lights the Pipeline for multiball as a hurry-up starting at 5M. That one is urgent: if the hurry-up expires you lose the multiball, not just the points.

Multiball

Lock at the Pipeline and multiball begins. Lock the ball and then make the skill shot and you get three balls; every other route, Instant Multiball included, gives two. Two random slides light — drawn from Pipeline, Rapids, Boomerang, Whirlpool and Arcade, never the Splash or Souvenirs — and hitting both lights the Rapids for a 5M jackpot. Collect it and all five light; clear those and the Rapids goes up for a 30M Super Jackpot, then it repeats. When multiball ends the Rapids lights briefly to arm the Whirlpool Million, where every swirl is a full million with no cap.

Double, and the Plunge

D-O-U-B-L-E is the single most valuable thing here. Once the Pipeline column is complete, Pipeline shots briefly light Adv. Double for a letter — and after collecting one you must hit another target before the Pipeline will relight it. The Plunge saucer can also award letters or complete the word outright. Finish it and everything doubles until you lose the ball: scores, extra balls, specials, even grid advances. Letters cannot be collected during multiball or a timed round, so build the word first and then go and start something expensive.

The Plunge is lit whenever you are not in multiball or a round, and its table is deep: 5K to 5M, extra ball, special, instant multiball, a lit Souvenirs target, a catch-up score, five free Whirlpool swirls, Double letters, or Award Everything — which completes the grid but skips the bonus rounds you would have earned. Shoot it on sight.

Long-game and consolation rules

Each grid you finish puts another 5M on your end-of-ball bonus, and every light still burning on it pays 10K. From the second grid onward the Special is lit, and after odd-numbered grids Extra Special lights too — but it goes out if you lose the ball before finishing the next grid. Once the Rapids column is done, consecutive Rapids shots count toward Go For The Record; beat it for your initials and a Special at the Rapids, and in Double round the counter climbs two at a time. The game is also kind to bad players: start your last ball under about 10M and the Souvenirs target is already sitting on Extra Ball, and if you have not had multiball by then, the Plunge simply gives you one.

How Surf 'N Safari plays

Surf 'N Safari is a Gottlieb table that channels nearly everything through one five-by-five light grid above the flippers. Five shots each fill a column to trigger a timed round, five rows each switch on a feature, and finishing whole grids stacks Specials onto your end-of-ball bonus.

The loop

  1. Shoot the five column shots -- the Pipeline, the Rapids, the Boomerang, the three Splash drops, and the Whirlpool ramp -- to fill columns; a full column kicks off that column's timed round.
  2. Complete rows across the grid to switch features on: the outlane Exit awards, the Arcade value, the multiball Lock, a Souvenirs extra ball, and Super Score.
  3. Take free column advances by rolling a lit inlane slide; on later grids only one is lit, and slingshot hits swap which one it is.
  4. Lock at the Pipeline to start multiball, then loop the Rapids for five-million jackpots and the thirty-million Super.
  5. Spell DOUBLE at the Pipeline and the Plunge to double everything -- scores, extra balls, Specials -- for the rest of the ball.

Reading the lights

  • Grid Columns & Rounds (status) — lit: Five shots each own a column of the grid and a lit cell shows how far that column has filled, and filling a column starts its own timed round on the spot -- Pipeline for Three Million, Boomerang for the boosted spinner, Splash for Safari, Whirlpool for an Extra Ball round, and Rapids to arm multiball. · then: Safari off the Splash column is the best round on the game -- four animals, the Rapids toucan, Boomerang elephant, Whirlpool monkey and Arcade lion, light for nineteen seconds and pay one, two, three million and then a Special. During multiball and every timed round but Double, the columns lock and take no advances at all.
  • Grid Rows & Awards (ladder) — lit: Each completed row across the grid lights a different feature rather than paying points, so the row you are closest to tells you what to shoot -- bottom lights the outlane Exit awards, second the Arcade target, third the multiball Lock, fourth a Souvenirs extra ball, and the top row Super Score. · then: The Exit awards turn a drain into a random five thousand to five million, while Super Score parks a million on the Arcade target and adds another every hit. Finishing a full grid drops five million into your end-of-ball bonus, plus ten thousand for every lit cell still showing.
  • Advance Slide Rollovers (lanes) — lit: A lit inlane slide advances a grid column for free when you roll it, and on the first grid both are lit while afterward only one is -- and it does not move when you press a flipper, since slingshot hits or rolling the lit slide itself are what swap it. · then: After each use the slide goes dark until another playfield target is struck, so you cannot milk it by rocking the ball between the lanes. Once the top row is all that remains on the grid, the slide lights switch off completely.
  • The Plunge Saucer (status) — lit: The Plunge saucer glows whenever no multiball or timed round is running, which covers most of a game, and it doubles as the target of the opening soft-plunge skill shot and as the mystery-award hole. · then: Its award table is unusually deep, so shoot it on sight instead of hoarding it -- a few thousand up to five million, a Special or an extra ball, instant multiball, a freshly lit Souvenirs target, DOUBLE letters, a slide advance, or an Award Everything that completes the grid outright. However it pays, the ball loops back through the Rapids and out to the right inlane.
  • DOUBLE Letters (letters) — lit: Once the Pipeline column is finished a Pipeline shot briefly lights Adv. Double for one letter, while the Plunge can hand out letters or the whole word at once, so a lit letter is one you have banked toward DOUBLE. · then: The light lingers only a moment after each Pipeline shot, and once collected you must strike some other target before the Pipeline will relight it, so alternate rather than firing the Pipeline back to back. Finish the word and every score doubles until the ball drains, the Super Jackpot among them at sixty million.
  • The Whirlpool (multiplier) — lit: The spiral pays for every swirl the ball makes on its way down and the per-swirl value is one you build, opening each ball at fifty thousand and climbing fifty thousand a Whirlpool shot to three hundred fifty before it falls back next ball. · then: One deep visit can score just under ten million, and better still is Whirlpool Million -- armed by the Rapids or the Plunge and lit for a moment after every multiball -- where each swirl is worth a full million with no cap at all, so keep the ball spinning. Once the Whirlpool column is done, spare ramp shots pump the Arcade value instead.
  • Multiball & Super Jackpot (status) — lit: Filling the Rapids column lights the Pipeline for multiball as a hurry-up opening at five million and counting down -- let it expire and you lose the multiball itself, not just the value -- while finishing the grid's bottom three rows also lights the Lock with no countdown. · then: Lock at the Pipeline to start it, adding the skill shot for three balls rather than two, then hit both lit slides to arm a five-million Rapids jackpot, collect that to light all five, and clear them to raise a thirty-million Super on the Rapids. Because the Rapids feeds the right inlane every time, that loop is the quickest scoring on the machine, and it doubles to sixty million a Super in Double round.

Lane change: not verified for this machine yet.

Start scoring

  • Ball one — Open with the soft-plunge skill shot into the Plunge saucer -- and if you overcook it into the pops, take an outlane while the Exit lights flash for a quick extra ball. Build the Whirlpool value early and fill a column to start your first round. — The Soft Plunge, The Too-Hard Plunge, Build The Whirlpool
  • Building — Fill columns to trigger their rounds -- Safari off the Splash column is the richest -- and complete rows for the Arcade value and the multiball Lock. Work the deep Plunge award table on sight, and spell DOUBLE when you can bank it safely. — Safari, The Five Row Awards, Working The Plunge, D-O-U-B-L-E
  • The big one — Lock at the Pipeline and loop the Rapids for five-million jackpots and the thirty-million Super Jackpot -- sixty million with Double round running. Whirlpool Million stacks on top at an uncapped million a swirl, and every finished grid keeps feeding Specials and end-of-ball bonus. — Multiball And The Super Jackpot, Whirlpool Million, D-O-U-B-L-E

Does Surf 'N Safari have an action button?

A plain 1991 Gottlieb cabinet: two flippers in the usual places, a manual plunger, and nothing else to press. Your only other input is plunge strength, and it does matter — shoot too softly and the ball rolls straight back to you with the machine telling you so.

Goals in Surf 'N Safari

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

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