Santa Pinball: a Sunburnt Santa bonus game

How to play Santa Pinball

• Hold anywhere and let go to launch the bauble: the longer you hold, the harder it goes. Land it in the flashing lane for a skill shot.
• Touch the left half for the left flippers, the right half for the right ones. Use both thumbs at once.
• Score on the backyard and the hole lights up: sink it to climb to the rooftop, then spell NOEL or knock down the possums to open the chimney and ride the sleigh over the outback.
• Pop-up Santas rise out of the table now and then: bowl them over for points, and get the whole squad for a bonus. Present stacks come apart a present at a time.
• Drain off the roof or the sleigh and you just drop back to the backyard. Only a drain in the backyard costs a ball.
• Sleigh ride: multiball! Hit the roo sleigh for jackpots. Keyboard: Z / left arrow, M / right arrow, Space launches.

Scoring

Everything you hit is worth 2x on the rooftop and 3x on the sleigh ride. Quick shots one after another add combo points, and lit words raise your end-of-ball bonus multiplier up to x5. The backyard hole opens after 70,000 points on the backyard. Draining off the roof or the sleigh drops you back to the backyard; only a backyard drain costs a ball. An extra ball comes at 2,500,000. Opens once 24 doors have a star.

Bonus game: opens once you have at least one star on 24 doors. It has its own top 100 for signed-in players.

Tips for a big score

1. Go up. The same shots are worth double on the rooftop and triple on the sleigh, and draining from up there only drops you back to the backyard instead of costing a ball. Score your 70,000 on the backyard quickly, then aim for the hole as soon as it lights.
2. On the rooftop, spell the lane word or knock down the possum targets to open the chimney gate, then shoot the chimney: that's the way to the sleigh ride and multiball, where every hit on the moving roo sleigh is a jackpot.
3. Hold your launch for the skill shot. The longer you hold, the harder the ball goes (full power at 0.8 seconds); land it in the flashing lane for 50,000 or more. Use both thumbs, one per side, and don't flip early: a ball cradled on a raised flipper is a ball you can aim.

The real story: the game of skill that was banned in New York

Pinball grew out of bagatelle, an 18th-century French parlour game where players shot balls across a board full of pins and scoring holes [1]. In the 1930s American makers put a glass top on it and a coin slot in it, and David Gottlieb's Baffle Ball helped set off a pinball craze during the Great Depression [1]. The flippers came later: Gottlieb's 1947 game Humpty Dumpty added electromechanical flippers that let players aim and fire the ball, turning a game of chance into a game of skill [1].

Not everyone was convinced. New York City's council approved Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's ban on pinball machines in public places in January 1942, police raided candy stores and bowling alleys, and LaGuardia smashed machines with a sledgehammer for the press [2]. The ban stood for decades, until a top player named Roger Sharpe showed the city council that pinball was a skill by calling his shot and making the ball go exactly where he said it would; the council overturned the ban [2].

Santa Pinball is our tribute: a backyard barbie, a rooftop full of possums and a roo-drawn sleigh, all played with two thumbs. Call your shots.

When it opens

Santa Pinball opens once at least 24 doors have a star. How the calendar works.

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Sources for the real story

1. Pinball, The Strong National Museum of Play
2. That time America outlawed pinball, History.com