Silverball guide · Whirlwind
The cellar door is a menu, and the spinner is how you order
Whirlwind's Super Cellar Door has seven awards and it is not random: a spinner beside the Skyway Ramp moves which one you will get. Collect all seven and the door pays them all again plus two million.
Seven awards, and you choose
The Super Cellar Door's seven awards are printed on the backbox below the score display: maximum lo pressure jets, a 500,000 super door score, extra ball lit, drop targets at maximum, quick multiball lit, million lit, and maximum hi pressure jets.
The spinner to the right of the Skyway Ramp moves which one is currently selected, one box per rotation, and awards already collected are skipped. So the door is a menu rather than a lottery, and the spinner's value is briefly increased after the ball runs the left inlane.
Collect all seven and every value flashes and the door lights again. Entering it then gives the Mega Door Bonus: all seven awards over again, plus two million points, plus a lit special. After that the door only awards cellar visits for the rest of the ball, so there is no reason to keep shooting it.
Lighting the door, and what else it does
The right inlane lights the door temporarily. The 3-Toll Ramp lights it permanently, until awarded, which is the reliable way to set up a door shot you have chosen with the spinner.
Entering the door also toggles the Skyway Ramp between open and closed, and that matters because the ramp does different things in each state: open, it returns the ball to the left inlane and pays one or two Skyway Tolls; closed, the ball drops into the cup for one toll and is fed to the upper right flipper. The toggle is suspended while lock or either multiball is lit or running.
The door is disabled entirely during Quick Multiball and multiball.
Tolls are a bonus you are building all game
Skyway Tolls accumulate across the whole game and pay 2,000 each at the end of every ball, multiplied by your bonus multiplier. The Skyway Ramp gives one or two, the cup gives one, and the 3-Toll Ramp gives three.
Ninety-nine is the cap, and reaching it means the Skyway is paid for: from then on every ramp shot pays 200,000. Tolls also light the extra ball at various operator-set counts, which the instant info will tell you.
The bonus multiplier itself comes only from locking balls: 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, then 6x with a lit extra ball, then 6x with a lit special. It never decreases and it never exceeds 6x.
Moving the storm
Eight direction targets sit around the playfield, two each of NE, NW, SE and SW, and the compass in the centre shows which you still need. Complete them to light lock; lock a ball and a different set lights lock two; lock that and multiball lights.
The first time round you can hit them in any order. From the second multiball on, only one direction is available at a time, and another lights once you finish the current one. The 3-Toll Ramp spots a target for you when lock is not lit and multiball is not running, which is the quiet reason to keep shooting it.
Two multiballs, and the consolation one
The main multiball needs two balls locked and a third to release them, either by the 3-Toll Ramp or by the cup. During it, Million Plus is lit and the 3-Toll Ramp pays two million, rising a million each time to a ceiling of ten million.
Quick Multiball is lit from the Tornado drop target or the cellar door, and started by locking a ball in the cup. It runs unlimited Million until you lose a ball, and the 3-Toll Ramp pays a million plus three tolls plus a spotted direction target. If two balls happen to be physically locked when you start it, you get the full multiball with an extra million on top of each Million Plus.
Cellar Multiball is the machine's consolation prize and it only exists if you did badly: it is available only when multiball was started and no Million Plus was collected. It is a two-ball version, started at the cellar door when the red light flashes.
The Tornado target tells you what it is worth
The Tornado drop target's value climbs with each trip up the Skyway Ramp, through 50,000, 75,000, 100,000, 150,000, then Lite Quick Multiball, then extra ball. Point values can be taken repeatedly, but Quick Multiball can only be taken once per lighting, and after a certain point it can no longer be lit from this target at all.
You do not need to read the display for this. The machine plays a tone when the target is hit, and the higher the tone the higher the value. If nothing is lit, the target scores nothing at all.
One combo is worth knowing: from the lo pressure jets to the upper right flipper, around the hi pressure jets, back to the upper right flipper and up the 3-Toll Ramp is a 3-Way Combo, paying 250,000 plus the ramp's current value. Nothing else may be hit in between except direction targets and the spinner.
A note on this source
This was compiled from the second edition of Jim Hoxsey's rule sheet, dated 6 January 1995, and our credit names him because the document does. It states plainly that it was assembled from long stretches of play rather than from the manual, and asks to be told about discrepancies.
It is unusually useful about broken machines, which on a 1990 game is a rule set of its own: a Skyway Ramp stuck open still allows multiball, a broken Tornado target will be spotted by the machine if there is enough jet activity, and a ramp stuck in the raised position means you should not play at all. Difficulty settings move the Tornado target's starting value and both ramps' base values, and the author says he does not know what changes on a five-ball setup.
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.
- Whirlwind rule sheet, second edition, by Jim Hoxsey, 6 January 1995
