- Mar 17, 2012
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Everyone knows the game by now - this is not the only way to a high score on Funhouse, don't read this if you want to figure it out by yourself, and use my high score (205M, #11 on the 360 boards as of this writing) to decide for yourself if I'm worth paying attention to. And therefore, it's time for the...
General strategy: Multiball, multiball, multiball. But that's so obvious as to not be worth writing this post to point out. What is not as obvious is how to quickly and easily rack up the Million Plus shots once you're there, and some other features of the table that can be stacked with multiball or used on their own to up your score. But first...
Ball control: That kickout above the right flipper is your friend. Hold right flipper up for instant trap on the right. Do a dead pass for a safe trap on the left. Completely unrealistic, and not at all like most real Funhouses, which tend to allow one or the other some of the time, but never both and definitely not 100% consistently, but hey, me takes what me can gets.
Getting to Midnight Multiball: Hit stuff, almost anything will do. More specifically, the ramp is nice and safe. If you have Jet Bumpers at Max from the mirror, shoot the left orbit to drop the ball in the pops for 10 minutes a hit - a direct shot to the bumpers is too dangerous. If the ball is on the lower left flipper, shoot the lock for 20 minutes. Do the lock thing from the left flipper, using the mirror and a dead-bounce to set up the shot as needed.
You definitely want to go down there: When multiball starts, immediately apply a medium-light nudge as Rudy vomits the ball. Doing so keeps it out of the left outlane. Experiment with the direction and force of the nudge until you find one that puts the ball where you can get control of it. While doing that, try to make the trap door from the balls coming from the lock. Don't fret too much if you don't make it, just focus on control.
At first, you'll have 3 balls, which is actually quite annoying, because you only need 2 to do what I'm about to tell you, and the third ball gets in the way. There's actually an argument to be made for deliberately draining this ball to get it out of the way and to reduce the chance of double- or triple-draining. I don't go to that extreme, and prefer to throw the ball into the pops, the mirror, up the ramp, anywhere to get it safely out of play for a few seconds.
Regardless what you do with the third ball, your aim is to do the following:
Mirror, mirror: Like Whirlwind, that scoop up top awards various things and leads to Super Frenzy. Unlike the Super Cellar Door, the Mystery Mirror is quite a bit easier to complete - so easy, in fact, you can complete it on every ball. Like the Mega Door Bonus, achieving Super Frenzy locks out the Mystery Mirror for the remainder of that ball. Your awards are:
Skill shot: Pretty rough on FunHouse, but generally not an immediate drain hazard. Alternate school of thought favors a soft plunger to get control immediately on the lower flippers.
Extra balls and specials: One for 7.2M, one from the crazy steps (but if you collect more than 2 or 3 other extra balls, the game stops lighting the steps extra ball), one from the gangway, and unlimited from the mirror! Since you can complete the mirror once per ball, you theoretically could play Funhouse forever.
Special is lit by reaching 11:30 the second time. You do not need to actually start the second multiball to light the Special.
Fun with bonus: Bonus is your 50,000 x your Rudy hits, plus any Frenzy total. This actually starts becoming significant during a long game with many extra balls, 70 hits for instance is 3.5M per ball in bonus. Multiple rounds of Frenzy and/or Super Frenzy send your bonus through the roof; 10M+ in bonus is not implausible. Don't tilt!
Good luck!
General strategy: Multiball, multiball, multiball. But that's so obvious as to not be worth writing this post to point out. What is not as obvious is how to quickly and easily rack up the Million Plus shots once you're there, and some other features of the table that can be stacked with multiball or used on their own to up your score. But first...
Ball control: That kickout above the right flipper is your friend. Hold right flipper up for instant trap on the right. Do a dead pass for a safe trap on the left. Completely unrealistic, and not at all like most real Funhouses, which tend to allow one or the other some of the time, but never both and definitely not 100% consistently, but hey, me takes what me can gets.
Getting to Midnight Multiball: Hit stuff, almost anything will do. More specifically, the ramp is nice and safe. If you have Jet Bumpers at Max from the mirror, shoot the left orbit to drop the ball in the pops for 10 minutes a hit - a direct shot to the bumpers is too dangerous. If the ball is on the lower left flipper, shoot the lock for 20 minutes. Do the lock thing from the left flipper, using the mirror and a dead-bounce to set up the shot as needed.
You definitely want to go down there: When multiball starts, immediately apply a medium-light nudge as Rudy vomits the ball. Doing so keeps it out of the left outlane. Experiment with the direction and force of the nudge until you find one that puts the ball where you can get control of it. While doing that, try to make the trap door from the balls coming from the lock. Don't fret too much if you don't make it, just focus on control.
At first, you'll have 3 balls, which is actually quite annoying, because you only need 2 to do what I'm about to tell you, and the third ball gets in the way. There's actually an argument to be made for deliberately draining this ball to get it out of the way and to reduce the chance of double- or triple-draining. I don't go to that extreme, and prefer to throw the ball into the pops, the mirror, up the ramp, anywhere to get it safely out of play for a few seconds.
Regardless what you do with the third ball, your aim is to do the following:
- Get one ball on the lower left flipper and one on the right.
- Throw right ball up the ramp to relight Million Plus at trap door.
- When that ball loops around and comes down, and is roughly in line with the center of the clock, throw left ball into the lock.
- The ball from the ramp should be in the left inlane. Immediately bankshot it off the Superdog targets into the Mystery Mirror.
- The ball from the lock should have just ejected. Take your nice shot at the trap door free from interference from the other ball in the mirror.
- Do not stare at the flashing lights, and pay no heed to screaming dummies! Instead, dead-bounce the ball that just ejected from the kickout (originally from the mirror) onto the left flipper.
- As soon as the ball crosses the center gap, hold up the right flipper to catch the second ejected ball (originally from the trap door) onto the right flipper. You are now back at step 1.
- Repeat for Million Plus up to the limit, then continue repeating for unlimited Ten Millions.
Mirror, mirror: Like Whirlwind, that scoop up top awards various things and leads to Super Frenzy. Unlike the Super Cellar Door, the Mystery Mirror is quite a bit easier to complete - so easy, in fact, you can complete it on every ball. Like the Mega Door Bonus, achieving Super Frenzy locks out the Mystery Mirror for the remainder of that ball. Your awards are:
- Light Extra Ball: Get it, obviously. Note that if you collect this, the Gangway starts resetting itself to 75K after each drain. If you're going for the standard goal "Light Extra Ball from the Gangway", you may want to avoid collecting the extra ball until you light the other one. Extra balls do stack.
- Light Million: If you're close to multiball, just collect it when you shoot Rudy to start MB. Otherwise, collect it whenever, remembering to nudge to prevent Rudy-to-left-outlane drains.
- Jet Bumpers at Max: Very nice if you just exited multiball and you're faced with a clock at 5:00. Throw ball up the left gangway to drop it in the bumpers for 10 minutes a hit. It is occasionally possible to light lock in one shot doing this.
- Light Superdogs: Not worth going for. Sure, 200K is nice, but you could be making progress towards multiball and Million Plus instead.
- Light Crazy Steps: Collect whenever. The only time you might hold off is if you want to stack Frenzy onto multiball, but this is not really worth aiming for. (Super Frenzy on multiball is another story.)
- Quick Multiball: This can actually be played like regulation multiball above, although the ball goes out of control after each Rudy hit and the ramp shots really have no purpose since you're not relighting jackpots. Better to hold one ball on the right flipper and shoot left flipper to lock, upper left flipper to Rudy, careful nudge to get the ball to go down the left inlane, repeat.
- Super Frenzy: If at all possible, get this after the second lock and then quickly start multiball. If you're not near multiball, but the crazy steps are lit, go ahead and start Super Frenzy and then shoot the ramp and collect regular Frenzy to add 20 seconds to the SF timer. A 35-sec SF is nothing to sneeze at. Do not drain while the mirror is flashing for Super Frenzy; if you do, you've essentially wasted the next ball's entire mirror.
Skill shot: Pretty rough on FunHouse, but generally not an immediate drain hazard. Alternate school of thought favors a soft plunger to get control immediately on the lower flippers.
Extra balls and specials: One for 7.2M, one from the crazy steps (but if you collect more than 2 or 3 other extra balls, the game stops lighting the steps extra ball), one from the gangway, and unlimited from the mirror! Since you can complete the mirror once per ball, you theoretically could play Funhouse forever.
Special is lit by reaching 11:30 the second time. You do not need to actually start the second multiball to light the Special.
Fun with bonus: Bonus is your 50,000 x your Rudy hits, plus any Frenzy total. This actually starts becoming significant during a long game with many extra balls, 70 hits for instance is 3.5M per ball in bonus. Multiple rounds of Frenzy and/or Super Frenzy send your bonus through the roof; 10M+ in bonus is not implausible. Don't tilt!
Good luck!
