Silverball guide · Spider-Man
You choose which shot gets doubled
Spider-Man hands out a permanent shot multiplier several times a ball and never tells you that you are the one choosing where it goes. Most players give it to whatever they happen to hit next.
The white arrows, and the shot you pick
Six major shots carry white spider arrows: both orbits, all three ramps and Doc Ock. Shooting one pays 150,000 plus a little more each time, with the sixth worth 350,000.
Clear all six and every arrow starts strobing. The next shot you make, whichever it is, gets a 2x multiplier on all its values for the rest of the ball. That is the moment that decides a lot of your score, and it goes past most players unnoticed because the machine does not stop to ask.
Give it to a shot you will make repeatedly and can rely on. The right ramp and the side ramp are the usual answers, because the right ramp collects the Royale Jackpot and the side ramp is where the Venom battles live.
Then finish the timed mode that the same set of arrows lit, and the multiplied shot is upgraded from 2x to 3x.
The skill shot is worth most on ball three
Plunging into the flashing WEB lane pays 250,000, adds five to the bonus multiplier and doubles the jet bumper values for the rest of the ball. Make it on the third ball and it doubles your end-of-ball bonus, once per game.
The super skill shot is a weak plunge to the upper right flipper followed by the side ramp. It pays 500,000, adds 100,000 to the Venom Value and advances a Venom battle, and on the third ball it triples the end-of-ball bonus.
The catch is that the ball save after the super skill shot is very short, so it is a genuine risk rather than a free upgrade. On balls one and two it is a small award; on ball three it may be worth more than anything else you do with that plunge.
Four villains, three rounds each
Sandman is battled through the raising and lowering three-bank, Doc Ock at the right saucer, Green Goblin at the bank of green standups, and Venom at the side ramp. All four can be stacked and played together.
The rewards come in waves. Beat all four once and an extra ball lights at the left orbit. Beat all four twice and both orbits light for Battle Royale. Beat all four three times and the Special lights at the light lock target.
The battles get longer rather than harder as you go: Sandman wants six targets then eight then twelve, Green Goblin the same, and Venom's two later battles want six and eight ramp shots.
Start a Doc Ock battle early, deliberately
Doc Ock battles are the only ones that are multiballs, and they stack with Black Suit Multiball in either order with progress towards each still counting during the other.
That makes an early Doc Ock round the safest window in the game. With a spare ball in play you can go after the shots that would otherwise scare you: the light lock target on the far left, the Sandman targets in the middle. Both are how you build towards everything else and both are risky in single-ball play.
The three rounds escalate properly. Fusion Malfunction is one saucer shot for a two-ball with a free jackpot to start and a super at five times the jackpot after five collected. Bank Bust is three saucer shots, and knocking the held ball off the magnet sets the jackpot somewhere between 750,000 and 400,000 depending on how quickly you do it, then adds a third ball. Armed at the Dock is a four-ball where the super jackpot is worth the base value of every jackpot you have collected.
Spider Sense is your add-a-ball, and it may take two goes
Completing the three Spider Sense targets lights the lane behind the upper right flipper for an award based on whatever is currently running. Awards stack and stay lit until you collect them or the ball ends.
The important one is the add-a-ball, available once per multiball. But awards are added in the order the modes started, so if you began a Green Goblin battle and then a Doc Ock multiball, the first completion lights a Green Goblin award and you need a second completion before the multiball's add-a-ball is on offer.
With Doc Ock and Black Suit stacked, two separate add-a-balls are possible. Collecting a Spider Sense award during a timed mode adds time to it.
One practical annoyance: the lit awards are not shown in the status report, and only appear briefly on the display when you complete the targets. You have to keep track yourself.
The Venom Value is a game-long ladder
The Venom Value starts at 250,000, caps at 750,000, and carries from ball to ball. The spinner adds 1,250 a spin, each completed Venom battle adds 25,000, and a super skill shot adds 100,000.
Two of the three Venom battles pay the Venom Value for every hit, so building it before you fight is worth considerably more than fighting early. It is also collected on any ordinary side ramp shot, so it pays you while you build it.
The exception is Goo on You, the only timed battle in the game, which uses a hurry-up starting at a million rather than the Venom Value.
Stacking rules, and Battle Royale
You can bring a mode into Black Suit Multiball by starting it before, or with, your third lock shot. You can qualify, progress and complete any non-Doc-Ock battle during Black Suit. What you cannot do is stack Black Suit with Battle Royale.
Battle Royale itself is a multiball where every shot is lit at 250,000, rising 25,000 a round, and the four villain shots pay 750,000 on their first hit, rising 50,000 a round. Everything you score is added to the Royale Jackpot, which is collected at the right ramp.
Collecting it resets the jackpot, advances a round and adds a ball for the first two rounds. Completing every red spider shot adds another 1.5 million to the jackpot, and that figure rises 250,000 a round whether you collect it or not. The first Royale Jackpot is worth at least 3.25 million.
Once the jackpot is lit, the villains other than Venom stop scoring. Grinding the left orbit is the sensible way to keep adding value and bonus multiplier while you line up the right ramp.
A note on this source
Our copy gives two names for most modes, one for the original 2007 machine and one for the later Vault Edition. This guide uses the original names, which is what our UK data records the mapped machines as.
If the mode names on the machine in front of you do not match, you are almost certainly on a Vault Edition and the rules are the same underneath.
The sheet is unattributed and it marks its own uncertainty in places, including the ceiling on the Black Suit Multiball jackpot value, which we have left unstated rather than guessed.
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.
- Spider-Man community rule sheet (author not recorded in our copy)
