Silverball guide · Batman 66
Play Bookworm first
Every minor villain hands you a perk that expires at the end of your ball. One of them changes that to the end of the game, which makes the order you arrest them worth more than the arrests.
The perks expire, unless one of them does not
Fourteen minor villain modes sit behind the three TV targets and the left orbit, and each one completed awards a perk. The default is that a perk lasts until the end of your ball, which is why most players treat them as garnish.
Bookworm's award is that minor villain awards last until the end of the game. Everything you win afterwards is therefore worth several times what it would have been won in the other order, and the case for going after it early is simply arithmetic.
The others are worth knowing for the same reason. Mr. Freeze freezes every timer in the game, including the Bat-Phone hurry-up, other minor villain modes, playfield multipliers and Bat Turn. Shame adds a ball to your multiballs and ten seconds to their ball saves. King Tut saves minor villain progress and, once won, adds +1x to the main channel multiplier for each further King Tut. Mad Hatter lets you replay failed minor villain modes, and carries over between balls by itself; win both Mad Hatters and you can replay completed ones too.
The super jackpot is a decision, not a reward
This is the choice the whole game is built around. In a major villain mode, completing a phase lights the super jackpot at the scoop. You can cash it and take the mode total, or decline it and keep playing, which adds +1x to the mode multiplier and builds a bigger super jackpot for the next phase.
The value being multiplied is the mode's own accumulated total, and every lit shot has been feeding it: each scores 500K plus 50K for every shot already made in the mode plus 50K per Bat-Phone hurry-up increment. So the longer a mode runs, the more the decision is worth, and the more a drain costs.
Most final stages are generous about it. In nearly all of them the shots re-light after being hit, so you can keep scoring indefinitely before you take the super. Catwoman's first mode is the exception the sheet calls out: its final stage un-lights shots and does not re-light them, so there is no infinite build there.
Qualify more villains before you answer the phone
A major villain mode does not start by shooting its own shot. Making a villain's shots rotates the turntable to reveal the Bat-Phone, and scoring the hurry-up at the phone is what starts the mode.
The hurry-up value starts at 1.5M and rises 250K per completed villain, up to 12M with all four qualified, and each hit on the Commissioner Gordon target raises it too. That value is not just points: every increment adds 50K to each shot for the whole mode that follows.
So qualifying a second and third villain before answering the phone raises both the hurry-up and the entire mode behind it. Catwoman needs both ramps, Joker the Villain-Vision targets, Penguin the scoop, and Riddler the orbits. Each can only be qualified once per hurry-up attempt, and qualifying another switches which villain you will get.
Two multipliers to set up before the first shot
Two things must be done before you make any shot in a major villain mode, which makes them easy to miss entirely.
Shoot the Commissioner Gordon target twice before your first mode shot for +2 bonus and +1x scoring during Villain Multiball. If you collect that and do not start Villain Multiball during the mode, doing it again in the next mode adds another +1x.
Shoot the scoop then the left orbit, lit orange, before your first mode shot for the Batcave Combo, which doubles the base value of every shot you make for the rest of the mode. Both stack with the playfield, shot and channel multipliers, and with the +1x you get for declining a super jackpot.
The channel rule, which quietly halves your multiplier
Several things run at once here: major villain modes, minor villain modes, Villain Multiball and Bat Turn all continue in parallel, and the display shows whichever you started most recently. Hold the action button for about a second to change channel.
This matters because the main channel multiplier from King Tut applies only to the channel currently showing. A multiplier earned and then left on the wrong channel is doing nothing. Gadgets follow the same rule: they spot a shot in the mode on the main channel, prioritising the left side of the playfield, so holding the button to switch channel first is how you aim a gadget.
Villain Multiball, and locking with a gadget
During any major villain mode, the two targets either side of the turntable light the three locks at the right orbit. Later multiballs need a target per lock, then both targets per lock. Making both targets also lights the Atomic Pile for the playfield multiplier.
Jackpots start around 300K and climb 50K each. After twelve jackpots the turntable rotates to the Batcave and the super jackpot is the Atomic Pile shot behind the Batmobile spinner, with each subsequent super needing two more jackpots, up to twenty. Mystery always awards add-a-ball during multiball.
There is a second way to lock. With lock lit and a ball in the saucer at the top of the left orbit, press the action button just as it ejects and the diverter sends it to the lock. It costs a gadget, and it works from the shooter lane too.
Skill shots, combos and the extra balls
Three skill shots exist. The top lane skill shot pays 600K plus 200K a time and +5x bonus, and rolling the switch with all three arrows lit lights all three top lanes. The Penguin skill shot, soft-plunged into the scoop or shot there quickly afterwards, pays over a million, +5x bonus, and advances whatever the scoop would have advanced. The super skill shot, held left flipper, qualifies the major villain matching the shot you make, or gives a gadget if a villain is already running.
Combos are worth more than they look: a ramp or full orbit qualifies the major shots, and each further shot pays 125K more than the last, with every combo also worth 250K in end-of-ball bonus. Twenty, fifty and a hundred combos in a game each light an extra ball at the left orbit saucer.
Extra ball also lights at the left orbit after two different major villains are arrested. Arrest all four and the left orbit lights for Villain Escape. Completing a minor villain from each of the three seasons unlocks a choice of three six-ball wizard multiballs.
A note on this source, and this cabinet
This was compiled from a community wiki rule sheet written against code revision 1.03, whose author is not recorded in our copy. It states its own code revision, which is unusually careful, and Batman '66 saw consistent updates adding content, so treat specific values as belonging to that revision.
One thing does not need hedging. Batman '66 was released only as a Premium and an LE, with a Super LE for Stern's thirtieth birthday, and there is no Pro. Every listing on UK floors is a Premium. Nothing in this guide is a cabinet claim, because there is no other cabinet to compare against.
Where this came from
Silverball wrote this, but not from scratch: it was compiled against the published rules below and checked against them, rather than written up from one person’s games. None of the wording is theirs. Machines get code updates that move the right shot, so a guide has a date on it for a reason.
- Batman '66 wiki rule sheet, based on code revision 1.03 (author not recorded in our copy)
