Silverball guide · Harry Potter
Terms, then exams, then everything else
The spine of Jersey Jack's Harry Potter is a school year: ten lessons at the scoop, then a final exam, then the multiball those exams unlock. Almost everything else on the playfield hangs off that timetable.
The scoop runs the school year
Terms are started at the scoop, and if the scoop is not lit, the right spinner lights it. A term is ten lessons, and you move to the next lesson either by making the shots it asks for or by letting its time run out.
That is worth reading twice: a lesson you fail still advances you. You are always progressing through the term, the only question is how much you scored on the way.
The skill shots come in levels
You start with the level one set available and unlock the next tier by making one, then the next after that. The action button changes which is lit, so this is a menu rather than a lottery.
The level one shots mostly light things you were going to want anyway: the left ramp advances your Quidditch position and starts a match, and the HARRY lane, RON targets and HERMIONE targets each light their own Golden Trio lock. Level two is where it gets interesting, with an extra ball under the flipper, three wizard travel advances at the scoop, and a double on your next Explore Hogwarts multiball at the staircase.
Three plunges into a doubled multiball is a better use of ball one than most of what you can do with the flippers.
What ten lessons buys
After ten lessons, the scoop starts the final exam. Six final exam lessons light the centre lane for OWLs multiball.
There is a smaller milestone on the way: completing four lessons is one of the three requirements for the Deathly Hallows mini wizard mode, so the early part of the term is not just groundwork.
Diagon Alley is a shop you choose
Spell DIAGON at the centre lane to qualify one of the Diagon Alley shops. Which shop is lit can be changed with the action button, or by hitting Hagrid's standup target.
Two ways of changing the same thing usually means it matters. Pick the shop you want rather than taking whichever came up.
Five multiballs, four needed
Explore Hogwarts comes from the centre and staircase ramps. Golden Trio needs HARRY spelled at the inlanes and RON and HERMIONE at their targets to light the wand lock, then three locks. Death Eater needs two Death Eaters beaten, each started at the drop target in front of one. Quidditch World Cup needs three completed Quidditch matches, with the left ramp establishing your position and starting it. OWLs comes from the exams.
Playing four of the five lights Battle of Hogwarts. You do not need all five, so the sensible plan is to leave whichever is furthest from your shooting.
Two ball saves, and one is a gate
Shoot the right orbit repeatedly to light the left outlane for the Fawkes save, which then asks for three lit shots before time runs out to actually rescue the ball.
The right outlane is different. Spell HARRY while the Golden Trio lock is already lit and you light Protego, a gate that saves any ball heading down there, with nothing further asked of you. On a Jersey Jack machine with fast outlanes, that is worth going out of your way for.
Combos travel
Completing combos lights the scoop to advance wizard travel, and the combo award alternates between a timed playfield multiplier and other awards.
A playfield multiplier you can turn on by shooting combos is the sort of thing to line up before starting a term rather than during one.
Potions
Landing the ball in the cauldron starts you browsing through the potions. Shoot the left ramp, the centre ramp or the right orbit twice to collect whichever award is listed.
It is one of the few places on this machine where the ball stops and you get to read what is on offer. Use the moment.
Allies and supers
Shoot the allies target and then either the inner loop or the right orbit to enable the super modes. Both ally factions have two of them.
Supers are the background scoring here, the thing that quietly raises what everything else pays, and they are easy to leave switched off for an entire game.
The order to play it in
Spell the Golden Trio locks off the plunge where you can, since three of the five level one skill shots do exactly that.
Start terms early, because lessons advance whether you win them or not and the term is the longest road on the machine. Bank the Protego gate when the Golden Trio lock is lit anyway. Take combos before terms rather than during them.
Then pick your four multiballs and ignore the fifth. Battle of Hogwarts does not care which four they were.
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.
- Harry Potter rule sheet (author not recorded in our copy)
