Silverball guide · The Flintstones
Everything runs at once
Most machines of its era make you finish one thing before starting another. The Flintstones lets almost everything overlap, and that is where its scoring hides.
The rule that changes everything
Modes on The Flintstones run concurrently. Not one at a time — several at once, and they keep running through multiball.
For a 1994 machine that is genuinely unusual, and it is the whole strategic point. A mode started just before multiball does not pause politely and wait for you; it carries on scoring while you are collecting jackpots.
So the game rewards deliberate stacking. Get modes running, get more modes running, and then start multiball on top of them. You cannot start new modes once multiball is going, which makes the order matter: stack first, then invent concrete.
The exception worth knowing is that the Time Machine target's own modes can still be started during multiball, so that one shot stays live when everything else is closed off.
One, two, three
Modes start by completing 1-2-3 on the ramps, and the three shots are not necessarily on the same ramp — watch the lights, and watch which flipper the ball comes back to.
The shots pay 2M, 4M and 6M as you collect them, and the Bronto Crane can double those values outright.
There are four modes plus a Mystery Mode for finishing them. The jet bumpers change which one is flashing next, so if a mode is worth more to you than the one queued up, a trip through the bumpers is how you choose.
Fred's Choice lights the orbits and centre lane with three different values that climb as you hit them. Joe's Diner is a hurry-up that wants three shots then the centre lane to cash. Bedrock Water Buffalos wants the BED drop targets, then the ROCK ones. Dino Frenzy is a two-ball multiball built around the three Dino targets, starting at 10 million.
Finish all four and Mystery Mode gives you twenty seconds to knock down the BED and ROCK drops for a hundred million, with five million a target on the way.
Invent concrete
Multiball needs C-O-N-C-R-E-T-E, and there are several routes to the letters: completing BED, completing ROCK, completing DIG for your first multiball, and the Spell CONCRETE award from the Bronto Crane.
With it spelled, the orbits light to start. The balls go into the Time Machine, and here is the mechanic worth understanding: the jackpot starts at 40 million and keeps climbing for as long as at least one ball is still up there.
That is a real decision. A ball parked in the Time Machine is a ball not scoring — but it is also a jackpot getting bigger. Collect the regular jackpot at the centre lane and the ball feeds to the upper flipper for a crack at the super at the U-Turn, which is a nicely designed sequence.
The two then simply alternate — super relights regular, regular relights super — until you are down below two balls. It is generous rather than skilful, so milk it while it lasts. And if multiball ends without you collecting anything, you have twenty seconds to restart it.
The Bronto Crane is the machine's slot machine
The left orbit lights Bronto Crane, and a second left orbit collects it. What you get is random, and the spread is unusually good.
Among the awards: an extra ball, Spell CONCRETE outright, 2X playfield lit at the U-Turn, the bonus multiplier maxed at 10X, a guaranteed bowling strike, 1-2-3 values doubled, twenty million in points, and a dino race worth thirty million that you win with a couple of bumper hits.
Several of those — the extra ball, the free concrete, the maxed multiplier — are worth more than anything you could reliably shoot for in the same time. The left orbit deserves far more of your attention than its modest appearance suggests.
Go bowling
One of the two ramps is always lit for Go Bowling. Shoot it and the Bowl-A-Rama lights for about five seconds: the centre target is a strike at five million, a side target is a spare at three, and missing entirely is a gutter ball worth nothing.
Three strikes starts Bowl-A-Rama multiball, a two-ball affair where a super strike pays twenty million and a super spare ten.
This is where the Bowling Power-Up from the Bronto Crane pays off, because it guarantees your next strike as long as you hit the Bowl-A-Rama at all. Holding one when you are on two strikes is how you get that multiball on purpose rather than by luck.
Frames bowled also feed your end-of-ball bonus, so no bowling shot is wasted.
Don't ignore the DIG lanes
The bonus multiplier climbs by completing the DIG rollovers, five million a completion, up to 10X — after which each completion is worth ten million on its own.
The bonus itself is 500K for every frame you have bowled, 500K for every concrete letter collected, and a million or so of miscellany. Neither half of that is enormous, but multiplied ten times it stops being trivial, and both halves accumulate from things you were doing anyway.
For your first multiball, completing DIG also spots concrete letters, so the lanes are doing two jobs early on.
Where the machine will hurt you
The centre lane is the problem with this playfield. Balls come back down the middle from it with some regularity, often clipping the BED drop targets on the way, and there is no kickback on the left outlane — only a Drain Shield lit by the three Shell targets, and only for a while.
So the Shell targets are worth more than their scoring suggests: they are the closest thing this machine has to insurance. Hit them when they are convenient rather than when you are desperate.
And be careful with the U-Turn. It is the super jackpot and the 2X playfield shot, which makes it valuable, but a hard shot into it comes back out just as hard.
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.
- The Flintstones rule sheet (author not recorded in our copy)
