UK Machine Record
Centaur
Bally · 1981 · at 2 UK venues.
Centaur is one of Bally’s great early solid-state machines and one of the most visually distinctive games of its era. Designed by Jim Patla, with Paul Faris’s stark black, white and red artwork, it uses a dark science-fiction and mythology-inspired theme dominated by the imposing Centaur figure and an unusually aggressive layout.
The game is built around completing target banks, advancing through its progression and surviving a playfield that offers very little forgiveness. The central mechanical features and distinctive artwork give it a character that remains immediately recognisable.
Centaur is not interested in making things easy. It is a game about accuracy, control and surviving an unforgiving layout. Make your shots deliberately. On Centaur, a careless shot can become your last one.
Written by Silverball
Played Centaur enough to have an opinion? Write it up.
No guide to Centaur yet
Guides here are compiled against the machine’s published rules, credited to what they were built from, and dated. That makes them slow: the machines standing on the most UK floors get one first — but anyone who plays this machine can write their own.

Strategy tips written by players on PinTips , not by Silverball. Best-voted first.
Hit O-R-B-S drops in order to start immediate two-ball multiball.
General3 tips
- General
If the rubber is on the outlane posts you can nudge balls back into play through a gate between the inlane/outlane
- General
Completing the drops on the far right in order is worth good points and will light the right 'orbit' for 'Collect Bonus'
- General
Can you backhand the green target? Jerk machine to right as you make the shot. Live catch as it comes down. Start w. soft-plunge & nudge.
Multiball2 tips
- Multiball
Complete all four flipper lanes to add a ball.
- Multiball
Lock balls with O-R-B-S drops (out of order). Release all locked balls by upper left standup or 1-2-3-4 (in order) then upper right standup.
Tips belong to the players who wrote them. Read them all, vote, or add your own on PinTips, a Match Play project.
No tutorials for this machine
We only list videos from a short list of channels we rate, and we never run a search to fill the gap — so most machines have none here rather than a page of whatever YouTube would have returned.
Nobody we follow has reviewed this one
Same short list of channels as the tutorials. A machine with no review here has not been passed over — it simply hasn’t been covered by anyone we list.
Where a machine sits is Pinball Map’s work, not ours, find Centaur near you on their map. Ratings, tips and tournament results here are ours.
