Who Dunnit

Bally, 1995 — shot-by-shot rules and strategy guide.

Open Who Dunnit in the Pinball Genie app →

Who Dunnit is a four-ball game with a 1930s detective theme and one of the most unusual central mechanisms Bally ever shipped: an elevator. A wide ramp feeds three habitrails marked UP, EXIT and DOWN, and which one takes your ball decides which of eleven floors you get off at. Floors are how modes start. Once the elevator stops being a shot you take hopefully and becomes one you take on purpose, the machine opens up.

The floors

You cannot play this well without knowing what sits behind each floor, and the machine never tells you.

• Basement — a three-ball multiball.
• Main Floor — lights Slots and Roulette.
• 2nd — spots all four TAXI letters, which is a free clue, and lights the phone.
• 3rd and 5th — collect evidence for 25M, or name your killer.
• 4th — spins the slot machine.
• 6th — hands you the leftmost piece of equipment you are missing.
• 7th — starts Elevator Madness. The display will tell you it is the 8th floor. It is lying.
• 8th — interrogate a suspect, or name your killer.
• Penthouse — Penthouse Party, locked until you hold the Penthouse Key.
• Roof — Catch the Killer, open once you have visited every other floor.

A three-target bank sits in front of the elevator and sinks into the playfield. Down, the elevator is wide open. Up, you are threading a very narrow gap — and during several modes the bank cycles up and down on its own, so wait for it to drop rather than firing into a raised target.

Cases, clues and the phone

Every case follows the same shape: collect evidence, interrogate suspects, name a killer, and if you named the right one, catch them. Five cases cycle, and the case names have no bearing on what you actually do. Clues come from spelling T-A-X-I, from the super skill shot, and from three fingerprints on the slots. Each clue lights the telephone.

Answering the phone puts a question to one of the suspects, and the whole mystery hangs on a single tell: a suspect always talks about the killer, unless they are the killer. Anyone deflecting is worth a hard look. Carrying the Magnifying Glass eliminates a suspect outright when the phone has nothing else to give you.

Here is the counter-intuitive strategy, though. Naming the killer correctly closes the case and resets your clue count to zero — and five clues inside one case lights an extra ball. If you are three clues deep and already know the answer, stall. Keep spelling TAXI, keep the multiplier climbing, and cash the case when the extra ball is banked.

Equipment, the sewer and the slots

Four pieces of equipment each turn a dead shot into a live one, and they chain. Two consecutive train ramp shots hand you the Flashlight; with the Flashlight but no Map, an unlit sewer gives you the Map; with both, the sewer becomes a rotating award of a multiplier, an interrogation, evidence, a lit WhoDunnit or 50M. Without either, the same hole pays a million times the number of visits you have made. The Revolver raises multiball jackpots five million at a time in the bumpers instead of one.

The slot machine has eight results and some very large ones: three bars is 100M, three question marks starts Elevator Madness, three wilds sends you to the Roof. Every reel carries a wild, and the middle one lets you pick between the two outer results. Two matching reels gives a Second Chance redeemable by completing any spin shot — the phone, roulette, the sewer, or an elevator exit.

That Second Chance is also this machine's hidden safety net. There is no physical kickback here, but with an outlane lit for Slots, draining spins the reels on the way out — and a two-of-three match hands you an autolaunched ball.

Roulette, Taxi Chase and the ramp

Roulette raises your bonus multiplier whether you bet or not, which is the real reason to shoot it. Set red or black with the standup targets first — hit both and you have cancelled your own choice — and let the spinner rip on the way in, because how much it spins decides the size of the stake offered.

Rolling a lit inlane starts Taxi Chase, which raises the train ramp and lights both orbits. Each orbit shot extends the timer and spots a TAXI letter, which makes it the fastest clue engine in the game. With the ramp down instead, consecutive train shots pay a ladder: the first lights Roulette, the second gives the Flashlight, the third lights an extra ball, and the fourth starts a chase against the machine's own loop record.

Catch the killer

Complete the lit Taxi Chase and then the phone. A hurry-up starts at 100M and falls to 25M, and whatever value you catch them at becomes the value of every lit shot in the four-ball multiball that follows. Shoot the phone fast. Penthouse Party is the other big earner: escalating 10M steps at every flashing shot until the timer runs out, and a clean run is worth roughly three quarters of a billion. There is no wizard mode beyond these — the end-of-ball bonus is where a long game gets paid, and it can pass a billion on its own.

Goals in Who Dunnit

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

• Plunger Skill Shot skillshot · Easy

  Plunge at the TAXI targets. Hit a lit letter and you collect what the display is offering for it; hit an unlit one and you simply spot the letter. Each letter carries a different award, so watch what is on offer before you pull.

  Reward: Points, a clue, a multiplier or a lit Roulette

• Super Skill Shot skillshot · Medium

  Plunge the ball into the lock saucer instead. It is worth 20M multiplied by how many super skill shots you have already made, hands you a clue, advances your multiplier, and locks the ball. Three of these is Basement Multiball straight off the plunger.

  Reward: 20M per super skill shot, plus a clue, a multiplier and a lock

• Working A Case progression · Medium

  Every case follows the same shape: collect evidence, interrogate suspects, name a killer, and if you named the right one, catch them. There are five cases before the sequence repeats, and none of the case names actually change what you have to do.

  Reward: 20M per finished case in bonus, plus a four-ball multiball

• Reading The Elevator progression · Medium

  The elevator is the spine of this machine. Eleven floors sit behind those three habitrails, and knowing which floor does what is the difference between shooting the elevator hopefully and shooting it on purpose.

  Reward: Access to every mode in the game

• Taxi Chase mode · Easy

  Roll a lit inlane and the chase begins — both orbits light, the train ramp raises out of the way, and every orbit shot both extends the timer and spots a TAXI letter. It is the fastest route to clues in the game.

  Reward: A TAXI letter and more time per orbit

• Collecting Clues strategy · Medium

  Clues come from spelling TAXI, from the super skill shot, and from three fingerprints on the slots. They top out at 50M each, and five clues inside a single case lights an extra ball. Your clue count resets when a new case starts.

  Reward: Up to 50M each, extra ball at five in one case

• Answering The Phone mode · Medium

  The phone lights whenever you collect a clue. Answer it and one of the suspects fields a question — and here is the tell the whole game hangs on: a suspect will always point at the killer, unless they are the killer themselves.

  Reward: Suspect elimination and the WhoDunnit choice

• Catch The Killer multiball · Hard

  The biggest thing on this machine. Complete the lit Taxi Chase and then the phone; a hurry-up starts at 100M and falls to 25M. Whatever value you catch them at becomes the value of every lit shot in the four-ball multiball that follows.

  Reward: A four-ball multiball paying your hurry-up value per shot

• Basement Multiball multiball · Medium

  Three balls, with jackpots at the roulette kicker, the sewer, the Mystery Target and all three elevator habitrails. Bumper hits raise the jackpot a million at a time — five million at a time if you are carrying the Revolver.

  Reward: Repeatable jackpots at six different shots

• Elevator Madness multiball · Medium

  A two-ball multiball off the seventh floor. Shooting either side of the elevator reverses which way it is travelling and collects the value of the floor it is passing, somewhere between 10M and 35M. After twenty seconds or so the target bank starts cycling up and down to make life harder.

  Reward: 10M-35M per floor collected

• Penthouse Party mode · Medium

  Collect the Penthouse Key and ride the elevator all the way up. Every flashing shot pays an escalating value — 10M, then 20M, then 30M, and on — until the timer runs out. Keep the shots coming and this is the most efficient scoring in the game.

  Reward: Escalating 10M steps, potentially several hundred million

• Equipment strategy · Medium

  Four pieces of gear, each one turning a dead shot into a useful one. They come from the sixth floor, three magnifying glasses on the slots, a second consecutive train ramp, or the sewer — and the sewer is the one that most needs them.

  Reward: Permanently better sewer, phone and multiball awards

• The Sewer strategy · Easy

  The same hole pays four completely different things depending on what you are carrying. Unarmed it is nearly worthless; armed with the Flashlight and the Map it becomes one of the most useful shots on the playfield.

  Reward: Anything from 1M to 50M and a lit WhoDunnit

• The Slot Machine strategy · Medium

  Three reels with eight results. Three bars is 100M, three question marks starts Elevator Madness, three wilds sends you to the Roof, and there is a wild on every reel — the middle one lets you choose between the two outer results.

  Reward: Up to 100M, or a mode, extra ball, jackpot or multiball

• Nudge Slots strategy · Easy

  When Taxi Chase is not running, a post interrupts the left orbit and drops the ball into the bumpers. Each bumper drives a different reel, and any two reels that match will lock in place — so a long rattle is genuinely steering the result.

  Reward: A steerable slot spin

• Roulette multiplier · Medium

  Shoot the roulette lane while it is lit and you get the choice to bet or walk — and your bonus multiplier goes up either way, which is the real reason to shoot it. Set the colour with the red or black target first, and let the spinner rip to raise the stake.

  Reward: A guaranteed multiplier advance plus an optional gamble

• Train Combos combo · Medium

  Consecutive shots to the train ramp build a combo, and each step hands you something different: the first lights Roulette, the second gives you the Flashlight, the third lights an extra ball, and the fourth starts a chase against the machine's own loop record.

  Reward: Roulette, the Flashlight, an extra ball, then a champion chase

• The Mystery Target strategy · Easy

  A Penthouse Key target lights the Mystery Target above the left slingshot, and it then hands you whatever the game owes you at that moment. During Penthouse Party it gives you all three of that mode's awards at once.

  Reward: Context-sensitive, including multiball jackpots

• Do Not Solve It Too Early strategy · Hard

  The counter-intuitive line on this machine. Naming the killer correctly ends the case and resets your clue count — but five clues inside one case is an extra ball. If you are three clues deep and already know the answer, stall.

  Reward: Extra balls instead of a shorter case

• End-Of-Ball Bonus strategy · Medium

  Bonus here is worth caring about, unusually for a 1990s Bally. Five million per case started, a million per clue, five million per slot spin and twenty million per case finished — all multiplied. A long game can end a ball with more than a billion in bonus.

  Reward: Potentially 1B+ per ball

• The Slot Machine Kickback secret · Easy

  There is no physical kickback on this machine, but there is a synthetic one, and most players never notice it. Losing a ball down a lit outlane spins the slots on the way out — and some of those results hand the ball straight back.

  Reward: A saved ball

• Midnight Madness secret · Hard

  A time-of-day easter egg. At midnight, assuming the machine's clock is set, the game fakes its own death — flippers go dead, the balls drain, the playfield goes dark and it looks exactly like a tilt. It is not.

  Reward: A four-ball multiball at 3M per hit

• 3D Mode secret · Medium

  A display easter egg hidden behind a flipper code. Enter it after starting a game and the machine asks you to put on 3D glasses before you launch the ball.

  Reward: A 3D display presentation