Pinball Fantasies

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Pinball Fantasies
Developer(s) Digital Illusions CE
Publisher(s) 21st Century
Entertainment
Release date(s) 1992/1993
Genre(s) Pinball
Mode(s) 1-8 players
Platform(s) Amiga/CD32/AGA/PC/
Jaguar/SNES

Pinball Fantasies is an Amiga pinball game developed by Digital Illusions CE in late 1992, as a sequel to Pinball Dreams. A further sequel was released in 1995 called Pinball Illusions.

Contents

[edit] Tables

Like Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies contains four themed tables with various difficulty levels.

  • Party Land is a table oriented around an amusement park, where the letters of either PARTY or CRAZY must be lit to start a high-scoring event. This is the easiest table due to several high scoring targets such as the Arcade and the Loop Ramp.
  • Speed Devils is focused on car racing, and the player must overtake cars to take the lead. This is more difficult due to much fewer high-scoring targets.
  • Billion Dollar Gameshow is a gameshow-style table where the player attempts to win prizes by achieving certain combinations of ramps. This is the most difficult, as if the player loses the ball before winning the jackpot the prizes are lost.
  • Stones 'N Bones is based on a haunted house, where the player must go through different modes of play (by hitting targets spelling out "Stone" and "Bone"), with the later modes scoring more points. This table is similar in theme to Nightmare in Pinball Dreams.

[edit] Ramps

Each table has one certain ramp (Speed Devils has two) which has a value that increases every time the ramp is hit. The first time it is hit though, an extra hit is awarded. For each ramp hit, an extra 100,000 is added to the bonus. Different tables have different names for ramp hits:

  • Party Land - Cyclones
  • Speed Devils - Miles
  • Billion Dollar Gameshow - Skills
  • Stones 'N Bones - Screams

Most table offer special bonuses, such as starting a high-scoring round or lighting an extra ball.

  • Party Land has no special bonus.
  • Speed Devils starts Off-road at 10, lights an Extra Ball at 20 and alternates between lighting the Jump and starting Off-road every further 10.
  • Billion Dollar Gameshow starts Money Mania every 6, alternating between the two kinds of Money Mania. The exception is at 12 which lights the Extra Ball.
  • Stones 'N Bones lights the Extra Ball at the Tower at 10 and lights 5 million for each further 10.

[edit] High-scoring rounds

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Each of the four tables has one or two high-scoring rounds that can be started by achieving certain targets.

[edit] Party Land

  • Happy Hour - started by lighting PARTY, all targets worth 1,000,000, jackpot lit, lasts 30 seconds
  • Mega Laugh - started by lighting CRAZY, all ramps and sinkholes worth 5,000,000, jackpot lit, lasts 30 seconds

[edit] Speed Devils

  • Off-road - started by earning 10 miles (or later amount), all targets worth 100,000, lasts 30 seconds
  • Turbo mode - started by placing 1st and scoring goal, all ramps worth 5,000,000, jackpot lit, super jackpot lit for 20 seconds if jackpot collected (jackpot lit on placing 1st before goal), lasts 30 seconds

[edit] Billion Dollar Gameshow

  • Money Mania - started by earning every 6 skills (except 12 which lights extra ball), EITHER all targets worth 500,000 OR all ramps and sinkholes worth 1,000,000, lasts 30 seconds

[edit] Stones 'N Bones

  • Tower Hunt - started by achieving 2nd mode, the Tower target is worth 5,000,000, 10,000,000 and 20,000,000 subsequently, lasts 30 seconds.
  • Ghost Hunt - started by achieving 5th mode, all targets worth 1,000,000, jackpot lit, super jackpot lit for 10 seconds if jackpot collected, lasts 30 seconds.
  • Grim Reaper - started by achieving final 8th mode, all ramps and sinkholes worth 5,000,000, jackpot lit, super jackpot lit for 10 seconds if jackpot collected, lasts 50 seconds.

[edit] Community

Both Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies are considered cult games in the pinball simulation world. Pinball Fantasies was more technically advanced than its predecessor, offering many new features that the original didn't. For example, each of the pinball tables was now three screens high (instead of two in Pinball Dreams), tables now included three flippers (except Stones 'N Bones) and more advanced animations.

The Stones 'N Bones table even offered fake multiball - two "traps" could lock the ball in certain situations and the player could launch another ball to play with.

[edit] Versions

  • The original, distributed on three Amiga floppy disks and which runs in all Amiga computers with 1MB of RAM.
  • A special version with a fourth floppy which allows it to run on 512kb Amigas.
  • An Amiga CD32 version, which was released in 1993.
  • An improved AGA version for the Amiga 1200 & 4000 was released later (4 floppies).
  • It was later ported to PC 286 computers running MS-DOS. Compared to the substandard port of the previous game in the series, Pinball Dreams, the Pinball Fantasies port was outstanding in quality. The PC version is notable for offering extremely high quality music and sound (albeit quiet) for the simple PC speaker, previously unheard of without a separate sound card. The port ran well even on a 12 MHz 286 and only required a VGA card. It was fast because it used Mode X and split screen scrolling to avoid having to redraw the screen every frame.
  • An Atari Jaguar conversion with extra colours, but with slower ball movement.
  • A Super Nintendo version of the game, while it contained all four tables and the same music as the Amiga version, suffers from a limited color palette.
  • A version for the original Game Boy, which required some features to be limited due to the Game Boy's little power.
  • A compilation including the tables from Pinball Mania released as Pinball Fantasies Deluxe for MS-DOS.
  • A Game Boy Advance version of the game, under the title Pinball Challenge Deluxe, with tables added from Pinball Dreams.
  • A version will be available in the future over Microsoft's "Xbox Live Arcade" on the Xbox 360.

[edit] Cheats

On any table while the table is scrolling up and down type any of the following: (may require typing cheats first, some don't work on certain versions)

  • andreas: displays a message about Andreas.
  • barry: displays a message about Barry.
  • digital illusions: ball can't be lost (doesn't work on all versions).
  • earthquake: disables the tilt.
  • extra balls: five balls instead of three.
  • fair play: disables all cheats.
  • fredrik: displays a message about Fredrik.
  • highlander: displays a message.
  • markus: displays a message about Markus.
  • olof: displays a message about Olof.
  • the silents: displays a message from The Silents.
  • ulf: displays a message about Olf.
  • vacuum cleaner: zeroes the high scores.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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