Table of the Week Club...Week 10: THEATRE OF MAGIC

[shutyertrap]

And the TotW appears before your very eyes once more, this time with Theatre of Magic. I don't know why the randomizer loves season 1 so much, but there ya have it.

Our March TotM just finished and there were a few who commented they hadn't been doing the TotW and suffered for it. So even though ToM is as old as they come in Pinball Arcade, don't think you can just get by with the wave of a wand. See you in the thread...

 

[Fungi]

ToM may be as old as they come, but I still LOVE it.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Thought we weren't doing this the same week as a new table release. Still, I'm not complaining when it's ToM. Let's all go complain about the right orbit being impossible to shoot from a trap on the left flipper.

 

[Slam23]

Fun table, lots to do, great theme and atmosphere. Bonus (and thus multiplier) is a big part of getting high scores because of the progressive nature of it over the course of a game (Theater Letters add up for example and carryover from ball to ball). Getting that multiplier up is not easy though, in regular play only weak shots to the left orbit have a chance of dropping down the rollovers and I haven't found a shot and/or angle that will produce a weak shot. In MB and during Straightjacket there is a ball gate active that steers the balls towards the rollovers, those are the best moments to get the multiplier up, far more important actually than getting those Jackpots. In regular play my favorite thing to try is to nudge the ball upwards when over the rollover area, forcing it to stop and drop down. Mileage may vary though. I'm not sure if I'm up for another big round of ToM, my best score is 16B and that took some work. Also, a rollover detection issue beyond 10B prevents HOF points getting awarded, so I'm stuck on about 750. Will fire it up to see if I can get into it again....

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

http://digitalpinballfans.com/entry.php/191-PINBALL-DISSECTED-Theatre-of-Magic-(Bally-1995)

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Just took me ~40m to score 9B. Call it 35m of actual gameplay because there are a couple of pauses in there. That was two Grand Finales and mostly on ball 3 - I had maybe 200M after balls 1 and 2. My best score is around 23B.

I agree bonus is a large component but it's a one-off score so you need to be doing something to keep the scoreboard ticking over. Grand Finale nets you over 1B (50M per letter, 500M to complete), Tiger Saw multi-ball scores quicker and easier than regular multiball (it tops out at 70M but there's no messing around relighting it).

Typically I build the bonus multiplier in multiball.

 

[shutyertrap]

Thought we weren't doing this the same week as a new table release.

Was going to until I looked at the calendar and realized it would eventually screw up the monthly tourney. If there is an overwhelming cry to pause like there was for TAF, we will. I figured though Cyclone doesn't uite have that pull, and ToM is played enough that most will be able to divide their time.

 

[Fungi]

TAF was kind of a special case. Kinda. Sorta.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

9B in 40 minutes:

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Still haven't made a video of it yet. Probably wait until DX11 to see what happens.

My high score isn't as high as you'd think; haven't played it that much.

 

[Gus]

Cool. I haven't been back to this table for ages. Definitely one I want to improve on! Too bad to hear it's yet another table with the rollover bug though.

 

[Bahnzo]

One of my favorite tables. I'd never played it until TPA came out however and never played it in the real world. So much to do, shots don't seem to be automatic.

Looking forward to relearning this, I haven't played it much on the PC version.

And: I have no problem with ToW with new releases. I'd rather we keep to a schedule.

 

[MontanaFrank]

Yeah! A table I really like

 

[Bahnzo]

Tip for getting the 100 million multiball jackpot: let the first ball bounce transfer to the left flipper and backhand it. Take a bit of practice, but since you can't hit anything else first, it seems the easiest way I've found.

 

[vikingerik]

Getting that multiplier up is not easy though, in regular play only weak shots to the left orbit have a chance of dropping down the rollovers. ... In regular play my favorite thing to try is to nudge the ball upwards when over the rollover area, forcing it to stop and drop down

Yes, this works around 50% or so. Just nudge upwards as the ball is at the peak of the trajectory above the bumpers. (And if it doesn't, just shoot and try again.)

The most important rules tip: Grand Finale lights a Special for EB each time. That actually becomes the biggest scoring component on the table thanks to the big bonuses. This makes Grand Finale more important than multiball in the long run. Don't grind locks, grind illusions.

Yeah, continuing this with Cyclone's release is fine. Maybe Getaway is the next big one worth skipping a week.

 

[Jeff Strong]

I don't know why the randomizer loves season 1 so much, but there ya have it.

I gave it cookies.

 

[Slam23]

Yes, this works around 50% or so. Just nudge upwards as the ball is at the peak of the trajectory above the bumpers. (And if it doesn't, just shoot and try again.)

The most important rules tip: Grand Finale lights a Special for EB each time. That actually becomes the biggest scoring component on the table thanks to the big bonuses. This makes Grand Finale more important than multiball in the long run. Don't grind locks, grind illusions.

Yeah, continuing this with Cyclone's release is fine. Maybe Getaway is the next big one worth skipping a week.

I also found that grinding the basement yields enough extra balls to be worth concentrating on that for a while, especially when your "cushion" of extra balls gets thin. When I played ToM a lot, I could finish video pinball 3 out of 4 times for an extra ball. There is an excellent strategy thread somewhere that details how to best play that mode.

 

[masterthes]

Love this table so much. Still need to get the big two Wizard Goals (Grand Finale and all llusions)

 

[Kratos3]

Played a ton of ToM in college and it's probably a top five table in TPA for me. I have all Wizards and my high score is only a couple billion, but I always have fun with it.

 

[invitro]

I hate this table. It's the first one of this series that I don't love. Part of the reason is how ubiquitous the damn thing was back in 1995-1997 when I badly wanted to have other tables in driving distance. There was no Johnny M, no Congo, no Road Show, one Safecracker for a couple weeks, one broken Corvette, no Dirty Harry, one Shadow... and about fifteen Theatre of Magics. I don't hate it as much in real life, but it feels particularly crappy to me in TPA.

Also ToM and WWater are two of the few tables that are much easier in real life for me than in PAF. For WWater, it's the side ramp, which is easy on a real machine, less easy here. ToM in TPA feels floaty and strange to me and I can't hit -any- of the shots consistently. My high score is an embarrassing 6.6B, which is #850 on the leaderboard, which is by far the lowest for me of all the tables (next is HRC, which I also hate somewhat, at #572). Getting 10B on the real machine is pretty much trivial. I just played ToM for 35 min and got 3.3B. Oh well, it'll be good to get this one over with.

P.S. I do love Popadiuk... TotAN and WCS are classics, and CV is good silly fun.