Silverball guide · Houdini: Master of Mystery
Seven letters, and each one is a different game
Houdini spells its own name from seven separate areas, and you need all seven for the wizard mode. That structure is unusually honest: it tells you exactly what it wants, and it will not let you win by being good at one thing.
What the letters cost
Master Magician needs all seven letters of HOUDINI, and each comes from a different part of the machine: ten stage modes completed, five movie modes, eight items from the magic shop, five jail escape hurry-ups, five secret mission combos, three jackpots in Trunk Multiball, and two in Seance Multiball.
Each area has its own colour, and holding both flippers brings up a dashboard showing where you are in all seven. The escapes, movies and missions are also tracked on the chain link inserts by the flippers, so you can read your progress without stopping.
The milkcan combo is the multiplier
The milkcan loop is the awkward lower left shot that feeds the left inlane. Hit it and follow immediately with the ramp, and the playfield multiplier goes up. Do that combo again and it climbs from two to three to four.
That is only half the trick. Starting a stage mode through the Stage Alley lane starts it doubled, so a mode begun that way with the milkcan multiplier at maximum runs at eight times. If there is one thing to practise on this machine, it is the milkcan and the ramp, in that order.
The escapes are two shots you cannot aim at
Spell E-S-C-A-P-E on the standups and shoot the jail hole to start a hurry-up. The catch is built into the layout: E, S and C are shootable targets, and A, P and E are not. You reach those through the pop bumpers and off indirect shots.
The five jails each want a different shot: the trunk, the key lane, the ramp, the spinner and the milkcan loop. Two escapes light the Escape Death outlane mode, three light an extra ball, five give you a letter and open the mini wizard.
Secret missions are the hard letter
Five combos, started at the scoop, one active at a time, each longer than the last: ramp then scoop, right orbit then scoop, ramp and right orbit then scoop, ramp and right orbit then inner loop, and finally the milkcan loop, ramp, right orbit and scoop.
Break the sequence and you go back to the first shot of it. Three missions light an extra ball, five give the letter. Everyone agrees these are the hardest objective on the machine, so if you are chasing Master Magician, start them early while your ball is behaving.
The magic shop is spinner work
Spin the spinner enough and the magic shop lights at the jail hole for a mystery award. Eight items collected is a letter.
The awards are worth reading rather than skipping: twenty seconds of ball save, a trunk lock spotted, an extra ball, a bonus multiplier held, or one of the two outlane modes lit. It is the cheapest route to several things you would otherwise have to earn.
Two ways to survive an outlane
Return From Beyond gives you thirty flips to spell SEANCE on the mini standups, and is earned by scoring two jackpots in Seance Multiball. Escape Death gives you thirty seconds to spell ESCAPE, and comes from completing two jail escapes. Escape Death is the harder of the two.
There is a detail worth knowing. Earned through the magic shop, the lit outlane bounces from side to side with each flip; earned through Seance or the escapes, it stays put. Earn one each way and both outlanes are covered. Each can only be had once per game.
What stacks, and what does not
Stage and movie modes both run through multiballs, but only one can be started, they cannot be stacked with each other, and the mode has to be running before the multiball starts.
Jail escapes, secret missions and the magic shop are single ball work and cannot be played during a multiball at all. The best stack on the machine is Trunk and Seance together with a third multiball on top, either of the two multiball stage modes or the Man From Beyond movie mode. Milkcan multipliers can be started at any time, which is why they belong in every plan.
The odd modes
Two of the ten stage modes are not really stage modes. Bullet Catch is a multiball using the upper catapult, and Straight Jacket Escape is a multiball with the flippers inverted, which is exactly as disorientating as it sounds.
King of Cards is a video mode. All three still count towards the ten, so none of them can be avoided if the wizard mode is the goal.
If it feels punishing
It is worth knowing that this machine is unusually configurable, and that the designer's own suggested home settings exist for a reason: easier stage difficulty, longer mode timers, and the jail escapes ordered easiest to hardest rather than at random.
On easy escapes you only need the first part of a shot rather than the whole thing, so a milkcan attempt that dies halfway still counts. On a machine you are visiting rather than one you own, assume the harder settings and pick your letters accordingly.
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.
- Houdini: Master of Mystery rule sheet (author not recorded in our copy)
