Silverball guide · Pulp Fiction
Multiply the playfield before you cash anything
Pulp Fiction hands you two enormous collect shots and a playfield multiplier that reaches 6x on a single ball. Taking them in the wrong order is the difference between a good game and a forgettable one.
Big Kahuna first
Shoot the two flashing standup targets near the bumpers to qualify the Big Kahuna Bonus, then advance it at the flashing target above the bullseye magnet. Both are single-ball-play jobs.
Every advance on the same ball adds another x to all playfield scoring: 2x the first time, then 3x, 4x, 5x, and 6x for five advances. It runs until the ball drains rather than on a timer, which is unusually generous.
What makes it the first thing to do rather than a nice extra is what it multiplies. The Roll Scene collect is subject to it, during both the build and the cash-out. So is the Gun Bonus collect. Those are the two largest single numbers you will put on the board, and both of them are worth several times more under a stacked Big Kahuna.
So the shape of a good ball is: qualify and advance Big Kahuna as far as you can, then go and collect.
Roll Scene, and the value that compounds all game
Shoot the right drop target to qualify the saucer behind it, then shoot the saucer to start a Scene. Each runs forty seconds, and in the final ten you shoot that same saucer to collect.
The collect is not just what you built in this Scene. It is that, plus the base value from every previous Scene you successfully collected in the game. So collects compound, and a Scene you fail to cash out costs you on every Scene afterwards as well as this one.
The four are Twist Contest at the bumpers, BMF Wallet at the red arrow targets, Gold Watch at the target above the bullseye magnet, and Clean the Car at the spinners. Their base scoring differs wildly, from a couple of thousand a hit up to a hundred thousand, which is worth knowing before you decide whether a Scene is worth the risk.
Play all four and the fifth appears: The Shot, an untimed four-ball multiball paying ten per cent of your accumulated base value for as long as it lasts. It also resets that accumulated value afterwards, so it is the end of that particular ladder rather than a step on it.
Scenes pause rather than die
A Scene cannot be stacked with a multiball. But rather than ending, it pauses and picks up exactly where it left off once the multiball is over.
That is unusual and it changes the risk calculation completely. Starting a multiball in the middle of a Scene costs you nothing, so there is no reason to hold a lit multiball back while a Scene runs down.
Multiball modes are mutually exclusive with each other, but progress towards starting any of them can be made during single-ball play at any time.
The right drop target is your ball save
Shoot the right drop target and a ball save lights at the left outlane. Shoot it again on the same ball and a second lights at the right. Up to two can be lit at once, and if only one is available it alternates between the outlanes with every slingshot hit.
Lit saves are not remembered after a drain, so this resets every ball.
Given that the same target also qualifies the Scene saucer, it is close to a free action and it should be the first thing you do with a new ball.
Starting a multiball is not the same as completing the objective
Five objectives sit above the flippers and all five must be solid before the wizard mode opens. The trap is that three of them are not completed by starting the feature.
Briefcase Boogie needs at least one super payoff, which means working through the payoff phases until the green payoff at the briefcase, and only then shooting the drop targets and the scoop for the super payoffs. Pawn Shop Panic is the same: one super payoff, at one of the five major shots after the green payoff.
Roll Scene is only marked complete when you start The Shot, which means playing all four Scenes first. Cast Chaos completes on collecting all five characters. Pulp Fiction Frenzy needs eleven target bank completions to spell the title, then a shot to the pawn shop.
Two useful details: briefcase drop target and lock progress is remembered between balls by default, and the Pawn Shop Panic payoff level is held across attempts where Briefcase Boogie's resets when the multiball ends.
Characters, and how to keep them
A ball entering the top saucer qualifies one of five characters, either from the skill shot or from an unlit orbit. You then collect them at the saucer behind the right drop target, the same one that starts Scenes.
Collecting more than one character with a single shot multiplies the value, so there is a real argument for letting two or three qualify before you go and take them.
Collecting also lights the left standup near the bumpers for hold cast, which keeps your collected characters at the start of the next ball. Without it you begin again, so this is the shot that turns a good ball into progress.
Drive Fast, and the extra ball hidden in it
Roll through an already lit 3 or 4 return lane and the opposite orbit briefly lights for Drive Fast. A completed orbit scores 20,000 and sends the ball round to the other orbit for another shot at 40,000, then 60,000, up to a maximum of 100,000. The shot has to complete the full orbit to count.
Every spin while Drive Fast is running adds to an MPH bonus, at one per spin on the first orbit, two on the second, and up to five per spin on the fifth consecutive orbit. The bonus is worth a thousand times the MPH figure and is collected at the hidden standup near the pawn shop, at any point in the same ball.
Reach 146 MPH or more and collect it, and an extra ball lights. Later Drive Fast sessions on the same ball start again at one per spin but add onto whatever you have not yet collected, so it is worth building rather than cashing early.
The lanes, the hurry-up and the Gun Bonus
The 1-2-3-4 lanes, two at the top and two at the inlanes, change with the flippers. Completing all four advances the bonus multiplier and lights the yellow standup on the far left for the Royale with Cheese hurry-up.
Scoring that hurry-up lights two things: collect gun bonus at the target above the bullseye magnet, and super spinners at both orbits, worth a thousand a spin on the next hit of each.
Gun bonus itself caps at 160,000 and the bonus multiplier caps at 10x. Collect it mid-ball and it is multiplied by the bonus multiplier and then again by your playfield multiplier, which is the whole argument of this guide in one shot. Collecting that way resets both the bonus inserts and the multiplier, so it is a decision rather than a freebie.
The other extra ball comes from completing the lanes five times on the same ball while at 6x bonus, and lights at the right standup near the bumpers.
Divine Intervention doubles your score, or resets your game
With all five objectives solid, either the left kicker or the saucer behind the right drop target starts the wizard mode. It is a multiball in six phases: the briefcase drop targets and then the kicker three times, the pawn shop three times, the right drop target five times, the top saucer five times, all seven red arrow targets, and finally the target above the bullseye magnet.
Drain out at any point and the mode fails and all your progress towards the game's features resets. Get through all six and your score is doubled outright, and the progress resets anyway.
That is an unusually stark bet for a modern machine, and it is worth entering with a full playfield multiplier and both outlane saves lit rather than the moment the fifth objective goes solid.
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.
- Pulp Fiction community rule sheet (author not recorded in our copy)
