Silverball guide · Monster Bash
The mini-wizard is worth not playing
Monster Bash lights as soon as you have started all six monsters. Monsters of Rock needs all six finished, and reaching it without ever having started Monster Bash pays fifty million more.
Starting a mode and finishing it buy different things
This is the distinction the whole game turns on. Starting all six monsters' modes lights Monster Bash at the scoop, a four-ball multiball. Completing all six modes collects the six instruments and lights Monsters of Rock, the real wizard mode. Starting is not progress towards the instrument; only completion is.
Monsters of Rock pays 5M per instrument and a 25M bonus for each complete set, cumulative across the game, so a first Monsters of Rock is worth at least 55 million before the multiball has even begun. And if you reach it without having started Monster Bash at any point, it pays another 50 million on top.
That is the argument: Monster Bash lights itself as a by-product of playing the game, and taking it costs you fifty million. If the instruments are within reach, leave the scoop alone.
Every timer stops during multiball
Mode timers freeze during any multiball, and the modes still play. The machine says so on the display. This single rule is worth more than any shot on the playfield.
So the order is always the same: light a multiball, start a mode, then start the multiball. A twenty-second Creature Feature or a forty-five-second Mummy Mayhem becomes untimed, with three or four balls to do it with. Ball and Chain is the extreme case, because once the Bride's microphone is collected all scoring triples until the timer runs out, and during a multiball that timer is not running.
The same logic makes Frankenstein's last chance worth setting up. If you finish Frank Multiball without the keyboard, Frank re-exposes the centre ramp for a fifteen-second window that resets on every hit, and that window survives into Mosh Pit Multiball if you start the multiball after it.
What each monster actually asks for
Creature Feature is five major shots in any order on a twenty-second timer that resets each shot, the first a 1M hurry-up and the rest multiplying it up to 5x. Full Moon Fever is four hurry-ups collected on the loops, and the ball has to complete the loop, so a ball dropping into the bumpers does not count. Ball and Chain is each ramp three times to start and three times again to collect, with the mosh pit lane resetting the thirty-second timer up to three times.
Frankenstein Multiball needs six super jackpots on Frank himself, and doubles and triples count as two and three of them, lit by taking ordinary jackpots in between. Mummy Mayhem is a points target rather than a shot list, 7.5M in forty-five seconds, which is why it is the mode most transformed by having a multiball running underneath it. Drac Attack is five hits on a moving Dracula, the timer resetting each hit, and hitting him while he moves doubles the score but still counts as one hit.
Monster bombs are shots you already own
Each monster has a bomb, fired from the launch button, and it spots one hit or shot towards that monster's instrument: garlic for Dracula, a hair dryer for the Bride, a scroll for the Mummy, a silver bullet for the Wolfman, a spear gun for the Creature, a torch for Frankenstein.
They are not equal in value. The torch spots the next lit super jackpot on Frankenstein, so if a double or triple super is lit it is worth two or three hits on him. The spear gun spots a Creature Feature shot and resets that timer. Bombs come from the skill shot, from mosh pit shots at three and every six after, and from the scoop, so a game played through the mosh pit accumulates them without trying.
The instrument bonus, and why it is a per-ball asset
Collecting an instrument lights every major shot for an instrument bonus worth 900K plus 100K per instrument collected on that ball. Collecting another relights them all and raises the value; the mosh pit relights them without raising it.
The catch is in the last sentence of that rule: an instrument bonus is only live for the ball on which the instrument was collected. Two instruments on one ball is worth considerably more than one instrument on each of two balls, and instrument bonuses lit before a multiball stay lit into it.
Mosh Pit is the multiball you can start on purpose
Six shots to the centre lane lights Mosh Pit Multiball at the scoop, and it also lights itself at the twenty-fourth mosh pit shot in single-ball play. It starts with two balls and you can add two more by shooting the centre lane again, each with a fresh short ball saver.
Jackpots are 750K plus 5K per mosh pit shot, capped at 1.5M, on every major shot. Ten shots to Frankenstein pay a super jackpot built from the jackpots you have collected, then his standups raise for five shots and a second super at three times the jackpot value, and the cycle repeats. Being able to light this one on demand is what makes the start-a-mode-first rule practical.
Where the extra balls and the special are
An extra ball lights on a number of monsters collected, on twelve mosh pits, and from the scoop, and the monster extra ball comes back after every Monster Bash. The special is different: a number of instruments collected lights it on alternating outlanes, it swaps outlane on every slingshot hit, and it is only live for the current ball. Collect it or lose it.
The scoop is a random award in the manner of a stroke of luck, and it can start or advance any monster's mode, light Drac Attack or Mummy Mayhem, or hand you a bomb. Advance Mummy is the odd one, spotting ten jet bumper hits rather than a shot.
Phantom Flip, and one honest warning about it
Seven hits on the three phantom flip targets light two phantom flips on an inlane, and they stack and carry between balls. The machine flips for you and takes what it judges the best shot; using one moves the remainder to the other inlane, and the flippers switch which side it sits on.
The source is candid that it does not work reliably, describing it as landing perhaps half the time on the machine it was written on. Treat it as a bonus rather than a plan.
A note on this source
This was compiled from a community rule sheet whose author is not recorded in our copy, written when the machine was new. Several of the numbers it gives are operator-adjustable, and it says so, including how many monsters light an extra ball and how many instruments light the special.
It is also honest about the shape of the game in a way worth repeating: the two big multiballs are described as unbalancing, with one Monsters of Rock accounting for sixty per cent of the author's best game. A guide that told you to play everything evenly would be describing a different machine.
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.
- Monster Bash rule sheet (author not recorded in our copy)
