Version 2.0. Last revised January 27, 1995. Compiled and written by Brian Dominy.
This is version 2.0 of my Guide to The Addams Family pinball game. No major changes have been made from the previous version, although there is more detailed information about a few things, including preliminary information about TAF Gold, the 1994 collector's edition of the game that has been produced.
Comments and suggestions are always welcome. You can send mail to gt6139a@prism.gatech.edu. Credit to those people who have contributed in some way to this guide appears at the end.
These rules describe play on normal default settings and on machines without broken diverters or faulty switches. See the section on "Defaults" for a listing of defaults and operator-settable options. See your operator if anything's broken :-)
This is a special version of this rulesheet formatted especially for the World Wide Web. Your comments on this new presentation of the rules are also welcome.
The Addams Family is a trademark of Williams/Bally, Inc. This rules sheet is, however, entered into the public domain. You may freely copy and distribute it as long as you do not alter any of its contents, including this disclaimer.
On the newer Addams Family Gold Edition, you may buy an extra ball at the end of the game for 1 credit. All game features and scores resume as they were at the end of the game.
At a certain level of bear kicks, an extra ball will be lit at Thing's Eject. This value normally reflexes according to recent game play, but it is usually around 8 or 9. It is no less than 6 bear kicks, but apparently it has no maximum.
At 15, 25, 35, and 45 bear kicks, mansion rooms are spotted. The currently flashing mansion room will be awarded as if you had hit the electric chair or the swamp kickout, and happens even if the electric chair is not lit. Mansion rooms are not spotted during any of the multiballs; when the multiball finishes, one more center ramp shot will spot the room. (I'm not sure if you can stack mansion spots or not.) If you shoot the lit electric chair or swamp kickout before the room is spotted, that room will be announced before the one that was spotted. The "?" panel cannot be spotted by bear kicks.
Another extra ball is available at 50 bear kicks. This value does not reflex according to game play, but may be manually adjusted by the operator.
Mansion rooms are also spotted at 55, 65, 75, 85, and 95 bear kicks.
On the 99th bear kick, and every bear kick after that, a "Super Bear Kick" is scored. This is just 5M points, a neat animation showing "Super Bear Bonus", and a few booms off the sound board. At this point, no more mansion rooms can be spotted, no more extra balls can be lit via the ramp, and "2 Bear Kicks" has no effect.
Each bear kick ramp shot will display the cumulative number of bear kicks so far and announce the next level to be reached for an extra ball or mansion room. There is no hint to Super Bear Kicks before reaching it on the 96th, 97th, and 98th bear kicks.
"Lite Star" is lit whenever you shoot the left orbit. It remains lit until either it times out in a few seconds or you miss the left ramp shot from the upper right flipper. When this lamp is lit, the left ramp also lights a Star on the backglass. You can light up to two stars in this fashion, and when you collect the Thing Bonus, each star is worth 5M. This value does not increase.
On very early prototypes, the yellow lamp above the Thing Ramp was also lit to lock balls since there was no green lamp. Also, early versions carried over the value of the Million Plus ramp from ball to ball by default. Wow!
The Swamp Millions targets are lit, so if Thing misses you may be able to pick up some points there. The standard Graveyard timer is still in effect, so Swamp 5X will remain lit for a few seconds on a miss. If Thing misses but hits some swamp targets, the machine tries to recalculate things for the next flip based on the landing of the shot (high or low).
After three complete misses, the machine will throw out all the data and start from scratch. There is also a menu option that will let the operator manually throw out all of the data.
Thing Flips is not lit in the far left inlane during multiball, multiball restart, or Thing Multiball countdown.
If the ball happens to go into the vault while the bookcase is closed, GREED will automatically be spelled, the bookcase will open instantly, and the first ball is locked. This is called a "dirty pool". I like it.
For the first multiball, Thing's Eject and the Vault will lock your first ball (indicated by the green lamps). Lock one ball to serve another to the plunger, unless no balls are in the trough, in which case one will be kicked out from the Swamp Kickout. You may lock this second ball in Thing's Eject, the Vault, or the Swamp. Locking two balls lights both the Electric Chair and the Vault (the red lamps) to release all balls and begin Multi-Ball, and also turns on the Power magnets.
Once the third ball is locked, all balls will be released. The first and third balls will come from the Swamp Kickout; the second will come from either the Electric Chair or the Swamp Kickout, depending on where the last ball was locked.
The initial jackpot value is 10M. Shoot the Train Wreck target to collect the Jackpot. Shoot the Million Plus Ramp to score the Super Jackpot (for the first multiball, this is a Double Jackpot.) After collecting a Jackpot or Super Jackpot, the vault will open; shoot a ball in the vault to relight the Super Jackpot.
During multiball, bookcase hits and center ramp shots add 1M to the jackpot, up to its maximum value of 25M. By default the jackpot value increases until it is awarded, between multiballs and multiball restarts. Once the jackpot is collected, the jackpot value resets to 10M. You can continue to collect Super Jackpots as long as you can keep two balls in play.
If you fail to collect a Jackpot, you can restart multiball by shooting Thing's Eject within 20 seconds. During this time no mansion rooms or stars can be collected, Thing Flips is not lit, and all center ramp shots will be sent to the right flipper. The Power is not active during multiball restart.
Restart is a two-ball multiball, and begins immediately after plunging the second ball into play. The skill shot here can set up a pretty easy shot at the Train Wreck target and the Left Ramp. Both the Jackpot and Super Jackpot are lit after the restart. However, if you can't hit Thing's Eject, well, "sorry old man", multiball ends. There is only one restart per multiball.
Mansion rooms, Stars, Swamp 5X, and Thing Flips cannot be collected during this and any other multiballs.
For the second and subsequent multiballs on normal settings, you must spell GREED via five bookcase hits, and only the Vault will lock balls one and two. The third can be locked in the electric chair or the vault on the second multiball, but only the Vault will be able to lock ball three to start the third multiball. Super Jackpot is three times the base Jackpot value for all but the first multiball.
In a multi-player game, it is possible for one player to "unlock" another player's locked balls. For each unlock, the swamp will be lit to relock the ball. This is regardless of difficulty settings or which level of multiball you are playing. The ball can be easily locked again just by plunging softly so that the ball falls right into the swamp from the plunger lane; it's a nice fix to the "stolen balls" problem common in manual plunger games.
The next mansion room to be awarded will be flashing; rooms that have already been awarded will be solidly lit. The jet bumpers change the currently flashing room. The last mansion room, denoted by "?", is only available after all of the other 12 have been collected.
At the beginning of the game, and after the mansion is reset because you completed all of the rooms, either "Mamushka" or "Cousin It" will be the currently flashing room.
The total number of mansion rooms collected over the course of the game is counted and contributes to your end of ball bonus. Unlike Bear Kicks, you start the game with zero mansion rooms.
Mansion rooms can also be spotted (i.e. awarded for free) by hitting the bear kick ramp enough times; see "Bear Kicks".
When the twelve rooms have been collected, the Question Mark is lit in the Attic. Collecting the "?" starts "Tour the Mansion" (see below). You do not have to relight the electric chair/swamp kickout via the ramps or the right inlane in order to collect this award. You can't spot "?" via Bear Kicks; surpassing a level that would normally award a mansion room just wastes that opportunity whenever "?" is the only room left.
Each mansion room is described in more detail below.
In "The Addams' Family Gold Edition", this panel has been replaced by Pugsley and Wednesday's Trap Door. See the section called Metacommentary for more information about TAF Gold.
Advances all jet bumpers to flashing status; each jet now advances the Graveyard value by 30K until the end of the current ball. At the beginning of the next ball, all jet bumpers will return to unlit status.
I'm not sure if this award affects the Grave targets at all, but the normal way to advance jet bumpers is by hitting Grave targets.
The timer used in this and all other timed rounds will stop whenever any ball in play is in an eject or a tunnel. This means that rounds which continue into regular multiball tend to last a lot longer than 20 or even 30 seconds. It will also stop temporarily during a ball search but then restarts again.
Also, the target value is scored for every switch tripped, so the ramps and sinkhole shots will always trip more than one switch.
Your Cousin It bonus is initially credited with 1M points at the start of the round.
Your Mamushka bonus is initially credited with 1M points at the start of the round.
Shoot Thing's Eject to begin. Thing will take the ball and send it to the swamp kickout; another ball will be served to the plunger unless two balls have been locked, in which case it will come from the Swamp Kickout. During Quick Multiball, the Vault will be open and will score 5M points. This value increases by 1M each time "Vault Millions" is collected or the center ramp is hit, up to a maximum value of 10M.
There may be some problems with this round or Thing Multiball whenever Tunnel Hunt is running; see "Mansion: Tunnel Hunt".
If Thing Multiball is counting down while Quick Multiball is lit, Thing Multiball only will be started instead.
The round starts with the quote "Look darling, just what we've been searching for" by Morticia. The quotes for each tunnel searched are: 1st tunnel: "Perhaps it's in here."
2nd tunnel: "There it is."
3rd tunnel: "Just what we've been searching for."
If the electric chair is lit, hitting the electric chair during Tunnel Hunt will also award another mansion room. (Same goes for the swamp kickout.)
If the vault was previously lit for lock, you will not be able to lock balls during Tunnel Hunt. It will relight at the end of the round. Once the vault has been hit, it will close. If Quick Multiball or Thing Multiball is running, it may or may not close (hopefully it won't, of course).
Plunging a ball into the swamp while Tunnel Hunt is running does not give credit for the tunnel. Hitting the bookcase during Tunnel Hunt when the vault should be open will not convince the game to open it.
The round starts with Gomez saying "Seance ... knock three times." Successive ramp shots will then producing one, two, or three knocking sounds followed by Gomez saying "Once", "Twice", or "Thrice ... well done."
Bear Kick ramps will always feed to Thing's mini-flipper, except when Thing Multiball is counting down. Thing Flips is still possible during Seance.
A second ball is sent to the plunger if possible (see "Quick Multiball" for details if this is not the case), and multi-ball play begins as soon as it is plunged, in the same manner as Quick Multiball. However, the value of the vault is fixed and cannot be increased.
If Thing Multiball is counting down while Quick Multiball is lit, Thing Multiball will be started instead, and Quick Multiball cannot be collected until Thing Multiball ends.
If you have spotted Thing Multiball by bear kicks, you can shoot Thing before the mansion fanfare finishes. However, you will NOT be awarded the instant 15M points. The vault value is still fixed to 15M and an otherwise normal Thing Multiball continues.
Whenever one of the bumpers is hit for the fourth time, it becomes solidly lit. The dot matrix will show you a grave for each of the bumpers and how many more times each bumper needs to be hit.
When all bumpers have been hit four times, the round ends immediately. You can, however, continue to collect 100K per hit for bumpers which have already been hit four times until the round is over.
All of the mansion rooms become unlit. Basically, Tour the Mansion has a lot in common with Whirlwind in that the mega-award is simply to re-award everything (almost everything, actually).
50 million points is awarded (as clearly indicated by Gomez). The 3M, 6M, and 9M rooms light up at this point.
"Special" is lit in the outlanes. By default, these outlanes are "hard", meaning that only one of them is lit at a time, changing whenever a slingshot is hit. Quick Multiball lights up now, even though it has nothing to do with Specials.
The Graveyard is maximized (all jet bumpers flash). The corresponding room is lit.
An extra ball is lit at Thing's Eject, and the EB room is lit. This is a temporary extra ball, which must be collected before you drain or it will go away.
Each of the remaining room rounds is started one at a time, in the following order: Mamushka, Hit Cousin It, Seance, Tunnel Hunt, Raise the Dead, and Thing Multiball. The first five are all timed and end as soon as the timer expires or you drain. Thing Multiball ends if you fail to start the round (as usual by shooting Thing's Eject), or if you do start two-ball play, when you return to one ball.
Any rounds running when the Tour is started continue to run during the Tour. It is extremely distressing if you have to contend with the Power during the Tour because you had started the Seance round before starting the Tour.
If you reach a number of bear kicks that would ordinarily spot a mansion room while Touring, that free room is wasted. It does not carry over to the next mansion, nor does it affect Tour the Mansion in any way.
If you complete all of the above, the Tour ends quietly. For the remainder of that ball, you will be unable to collect mansion awards.
The extra ball lit by Touring is "hard" by default; it must be collected on that ball or it will disappear. Likewise, "Special" will also be unavailable after the ball ends.
Any Mamushka, Cousin It, and Raise the Dead bonuses collected before Touring carry over into the Tour, i.e. your base totals for the round are what you had before you toured, plus the 1M or 2M normally given for starting the round.
Previous versions of this guide said that "?" isn't really considered a mansion room since it isn't added to the count as part of your end- of-ball bonus. This is wrong: starting Tour the Mansion awards one mansion room just like all of the other rooms. Each mansion round played during Tour the Mansion, however, has no effect on this counter.
500K for each mansion room, with no apparent limit. The display has trouble with values over 99, though.
The sum of the above is multiplied by the bonus multiplier, from 1x to 5x.
Any Mamushka, Cousin It, and Raise the Dead totals are added.
Scoring 20M or more in bonus generates a quote from Gomez: "Who says you can't take it with you?" However, the quote will not be delivered unless you played at least one of the timed rounds during the ball.
Right inlane, Adv Bonus X loop, Million Plus Ramp
Adv Bonus X loop, Million Plus Ramp, Swamp
And one 4-way combo, worth 10M:
Bear kick ramp, Adv Bonus X loop, Million Plus ramp, Swamp
Scoring the 4-way combo also awards the points for the 3-way combo (since the first 3 of the 4 forms one of the 3-way combos). This makes the 4-way very valuable: 15M + bonus X advanced + at least 1M from the ramp + at least 5M for the 5X graveyard value + 5M for the Star when you collect Thing Bonus.
1. Extra Ball Percent: desired % of games in which the first Bear Kick extra ball should be collected. This value is used internally to reflex the number of bear kicks required. Range is 15-40% It can also be set to FIXED such that the first bear kick extra ball level does not reflex. Default is 25%.
2. 1st Bear Kick extra ball level: set 1. to fixed and this option will set the number of bear kicks required for the first extra ball. Default is 8.
3. 2nd Bear Kick extra ball level: This value ranges from 30-99 and does not reflex. Default is 50.
4. Train Wreck Extra Ball Available: Default is to award extra balls at a certain number of train wrecks.
5. Bear Kick EB Memory: Default is to hold between balls.
6. House EB Memory: Default is to hold between balls.
7. Train Wreck EB Memory: Default is to hold between balls.
8. Last Thing Lock: This is the final multiball level on which Thing will lock balls. Default is for the first multiball only. This value ranges from 0-5.
9. Last Swamp Lock: This is the final multiball level on which the Swamp will light to lock ball two. Default is for the first multiball only. The value ranges from 1-5.
10. Last Chair Release: This is the final multiball level on which the electric chair can be shot to start multiball. Default is for the first and second multiballs. The value ranges from 0-5.
11. Jackpot Carryover: When set this retains the value of the jackpot until it is hit; when off, the jackpot will reset at the end of each multiball or multiball restart. Default is to carryover jackpots.
12. Million Plus Memory: Default is to reset the value of the Million Plus at the end of each ball. Change this and scoring would become atrocious.
13. Million Plus Maximum: Default upper limit of the Million Plus is 10M. This value can range from 5M to 20M.
14. Thing Multiball Start: This value can range from 10M to 20M. Default starting value of Thing Multiball is 15M.
15. Room from Swamp: Default is to award mansion rooms from the swamp kickout.
16. Free THING Letters: Up to 5 THING letters can be spotted at the beginning of the game. Default is 3.
17. Raise the Dead Hits: The number of hits per jet bumper can be set from 3-9. Default is 4.
18. Train Wreck Hits: By default, 2 hits are required for the first Train Wreck. This value can range from 2-4. Successive train wrecks always require 1 more hit up to the maximum of 6.
19. Special Memory: By default, specials disappear at the end of the current ball.
20. Train Wreck Memory: By default, the train wreck hits count carries over between balls.
21. Quick Multiball Memory: By default, Quick Multiball will remain lit between balls until it is hit.
22. Tour EB Memory: By default, the Extra Ball lit during Tour the Mansion will disappear at the end of the current ball.
23. Tour Difficulty. Default is a medium setting, in which the 6M and 3M rooms will spot each other. On the hard setting, each must be collected separately.
Balls can get stuck inside the swamp, on the swamp, on top of Thing's box, on jet bumpers, and on the circular plate that the bookcase sits upon. The machine will perform ball searches until it finds the missing ball -- firing all the jet bumpers, spinning the vault, etc. *but* it will not fire the swamp kickout if a ball has been locked there at first. Eventually, if the ball has not been found, it will serve a new ball in the plunger lane, or if no balls are in the trough, it will try to fire one from the swamp kickout.
If you tilt, it will end the current ball, but the next ball won't start until it finds the missing ball(s). The only solution short of removing the stuck ball at this point is to power cycle the game and start over unless you have locked balls; it will kick out ALL locked balls after two or three ball searches. However, once these drain, if the ball is still lost the problem can easily resurface.
If you abort the game and start a new one, when pressing Start the game will let you know if a pinball is missing and try to find it a couple of times, but eventually it will give up and play with what's available. There are only three balls installed in the machine; it will function even if only one is available (though obviously multiball loses its meaning :-)
The only diverter is located in the upper left corner where the two ramps meet. If it gets stuck, you may find all balls going to the same spot -- either the mini-flipper or the right inlane. This may or may not be a "problem". I've also heard of balls getting lodged back there somehow.
If the machine decides that there are faulty switches (because they haven't been hit in a while), it will try to compensate. If one of the ramp switches is bad, the other ramp will award both of them. If the bookcase won't open, you can lock balls at the Thing Ramp. If Thing can't pick up the ball from the eject, then it will just remain there. I'm sure that there are many more that I haven't seen.
Addams Theme: Played at the beginning of your first ball until you plunge the ball into play. Also played during attract mode and the explanation of "Tour the Mansion."
Normal Game Theme: Played during normal game play, when no special rounds are active.
Mamushka Theme: Played during the Mamushka round.
Cousin It Theme: Played during Cousin It round.
Tunnel Hunt Theme: Played during Tunnel Hunt round.
Seance Theme: Hardly music, but played during Seance round.
Raise the Dead Theme: Played during Raise the Dead round.
Thing Multiball Countdown Theme
Quick/Thing Multiball Theme: Played during quick MB rounds.
Multiball Release Theme: Played while two balls are locked and you're trying to lock the third for Multiball.
Multiball Theme: Played until you score your first jackpot.
Jackpot Theme: Played after you score a jackpot UNTIL YOU END THAT BALL, even after multiball is over, or until you start multiball again. It's a souped-up version of the Addams Theme.
It's also the Enter Initials Theme.
Multiball Restart Theme: Played while Thing Multiball restart is lit, it's just one particular part of the Addams Theme being played over and over. The same music is also played while the features of "Tour the Mansion" are being explained.
Using the notation L=left flipper, R=right flipper, and S=start button:
Cows: 7L, 1S, 14R, 1S, 20L, 1S
Credits: 13L, 1S, 1R, 1S, 2L, 1S
These sequences only work for L-1 machines and later, and sometimes you may have to power cycle the game to get it to work. Also, there can't be any credits on the game at the time, since hitting the start button would thus begin a game.
To commemorate this noteworthy accomplishment, in the spring of 1994 TAF was placed back onto the production line -- 2500 "Gold Edition" machines were made, mostly for collectors and not distribution. There are differences between the new TAF Gold and the original, such as:
Gold-colored lockdown bars, jet bumper caps, vaults, and Thing boxes.
More quotes have been added; none have been removed.
A new game feature called "Cousin It's Lost items". Some of the mansion rooms contain hats, hairbrushes, keys, etc. worth bonus points and even extra balls and specials.
The 3M mansion room has been replaced by "Pugsley and Wednesday's Trap Door". It scores 3M but serves as a link to another one of the mansion rooms. Because of this, it does not automatically spot the 6M mansion room anymore.
For more detailed information on TAF Gold, see Keith Johnson's rulesheet.