History Main / PinballTropes

[[/index]]

* [[FictionalVideoGame Fictional Pinball Game]]\\
When real games aren't good enough.
* MatchSequence\\
A mechanic in a pinball game where part of your score are matched up with random digits to get a free game.
* PersonalArcade\\
A character has commercial pinball and/or video game machines for his own amusement.
* PinballGag\\
Someone acts like a ball in a pinball machine.
* PinballProjectile\\
A projectile ricochets off several objects before hitting its target.
* PinballProtagonist\\
A protagonist who passively bounces from one situation to another.
* PinballScoring\\
Inflating scores to make a game seem more awesome.
* PinballSpinoff\\
Take a popular VideoGame and make a DigitalPinballTable of it.
* PinballZone\\
A video game stage that takes place in a pinball machine.
* ScoreMultiplier\\
Increase your score by multiplying your bonuses.
* SkillShot\\
Launching a pinball carefully to hit a high-scoring target.
* SpellingBonus\\
Spell words for points and advancement.
* VideoMode\\
A MiniGame in the middle of a pinball game.
* WizardMode\\
The [[FinalBoss hardest objective]] in a pinball game.

A mechanic in a pinball game where the last two digits of your score are matched up with two random digits to get e free game.

Tropes related to, named after, or used in {{Pinball}} machines.

For a list of tropes commonly appearing in pinball games, see TropesInPinballGames.

A video game setting in a pinball machine.

* [[FictionalArcadeGame Fictional Pinball Game]]\\

* FictionalPinballGame\\

For a list of tropes appearing in pinball games, see TropesInPinballGames.

* PinballGag: Someone acts like a ball in a pinball machine.
* PinballProjectile: A projectile ricochets off several objects before hitting its target.
* PinballProtagonist: A protagonist who passively bounces from one situation to another.
* PinballScoring: Inflating scores to make a game seem more awesome.
* PinballSpinoff: Take a popular VideoGame and make a DigitalPinballTable of it.
* PinballZone: A video game setting in a pinball machine.
* SkillShot: Launching a pinball carefully to hit a high-scoring target.
* SpellingBonus: Spell words for points and advancement.
* VideoMode: A MiniGame in the middle of a pinball game.
* WizardMode: The [[FinalBoss hardest objective]] in a pinball game.

* PinballProjectile
* PinballProtagonist
* PinballScoring

* SkillShot
* VideoMode
* WizardMode

[[/folder]]

For a list of tropes used in pinball games themselves, see TropesInPinballGames.

Tropes related to, named after, or invocative of {{Pinball}} machines.

This page is an index of Tropes often found in {{Pinball}} games, whether they're [[PhysicalPinballTables physical machines]] or [[DigitalPinballTables digital games]].

An article in this index will be about these things:

* Gameplay mechanics—including mechanics borrowed from VideoGames and TabletopGames.
* Characterization and setting tropes specific to game characters and settings.
* Setting tropes that aren't necessarily specific to games but are used in games to the degree they are pretty much stock elements, or without which many games would be unrecognizable/unplayable.

'''NOTE:''' If a trope is specific to a particular pinball title, consider adding it to the game's Works page instead.

----
!!Pinball games and machines often demonstrate the following tropes:

* ArtificialBrilliance: To an extent. The pseudo-random awards given in many pins really do deserve the "pseudo" in their name and will usually try to give you the most helpful award that it reasonably can (for instance, in ''Attack From Mars'', if you have Martian Attack lit at the same time, you usually get a [[SmartBomb martian bomb]] for use in that mode). [[AIRoulette Seemingly just as often though, it will just give you a mediocre amount of points]].
** Perhaps even more genius is the Match feature, which is also pseudo-random and designed to pull in more money for the operator. For example, the match feature has a disproportionately higher chance of giving player a match if two have just played, so the other player will deposit money and they will both play again. See [[http://cheaptalk.org/2009/11/17/the-economics-of-pinball/ this article]].
* AttractMode
* AnnouncerChatter
** ''FunHouse'' was the first to do this. Rudy, a talking ventriloquist head, will frequently compliment players for good shots, tell players about scoring opportunities, and tease players during the course of each game. He even nicknames the individual players.
** Capcom's ''Flipper Football'' also has an Adult Mode, where the referee uses very colorful language and a number of four-letter words. "Hey! Let's talk about your sister!" It only gets better from there...
* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Much more common in modern tables is called a "ball saver"--an extra chance on that ball if you manage to lose the ball immediately after launching it.
** A less common variant is the "Consolation Extra Ball" (a.k.a. "Pity Extra Ball"), where if you lose your first ''two'' balls quickly and/or without scoring much, the game simply lights the Extra Ball at the start of your third ball. You usually still have to make the shot to get it, though.
* ArcNumber: Software revision 1.4 of ''Star Wars Episode I'' awards 19992510 points for spelling "Jar Jar"; this represents the day that Williams left the pinball manufacturing industry, October 25, 1999.
* AllThereInTheManual
* BattleThemeMusic
* BettingMiniGame
** ''Jack*Bot'' is ''Pin*Bot'' with a casino theme. The whole game revolves around this trope, although you are always betting hypothetical points. For instance, you are given a chance to double-up the points you won on a casino game by shooting under the left ramp. The Casino Run wizard mode, which operates very similarly to TheJokersWild has you spinning a slot machine and each time allowing you to take your "bank" of points (and maybe even extra balls and specials) or risk it. Getting a bomb on the slot machine or running out of time to shoot another hole costs you your bank.
** ''Who Dunnit'' has slots which give out various awards, as well as a roulette mini-game where you can bet your points. Unlike ''Jack*Bot'', you actually are wagering your already-earned score, making this a rare example of a pinball game where you can ''lose'' points.
** ''The Sopranos'' has the "Executive Game" which is a game of seven-card stud poker where the bet increases dramatically for each card (a few tens of thousands for your first card, and then millions by the last card). You can lose points here.
* BiggerIsBetter: ''Hercules'', a 1979 Atari pinball is the largest pinball ever made at 39" wide, 93" long, and 83" tall. It uses a billiards cue ball as its pinball. YMMV on the "better" part though, as it is considered a mediocre to horrible game on IPDB.
** To a lesser extent, the Bally widebody games such as ''Paragon'', ''Future Spa'', ''Space Invaders'', and ''Embryon'', which had significantly wider playfields than other pins. To an even lesser extent, the [=SuperPin=] line of Williams/Bally games such as ''Twilight Zone'', ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', ''Indiana Jones'', and ''Demolition Man''.
* BossBanter
** A lot of the post-1995 Williams/Bally games also have a Midnight Madness mode if you start a game at midnight.
* {{Cap}}: Long before dot-matrix displays became commonplace, many tables had score displays that were limited to a set number of digits.
** Even with modern dot-matrix displays, the score displays on some games will usually roll back to 0 if they go over the maximum number of digits that can be displayed. Most dot-matrix games will roll over at 10 billion points; Who Dunnit and Dirty Harry are examples of games where this is not very hard to do. The high score tables usually can display the full scores though.
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: In modern pinball games, multiball locks are usually colored green, "shoot this shot" arrows are colored yellow, and extra ball lights are colored red.
* {{Combos}}, which usually involve completing a specific sequence of shots.
* ContinuingIsPainful: Bonuses, missions, combos, multipliers, and such reset if you lose a ball, unless the table has a "multipliers held" or similar function you can enable to preserve them for your next ball.
** However, there are pinball tables in which any increased bonuses and multipliers that are earned stick around until a player's game ends.
* CutScene: Games with dot-matrix displays will stop the action for a movement to show one.
* DifficultyLevels: There are operator-adjustable preset difficulty levels, usually five: [[EasierThanEasy Extra easy]], easy, medium, hard, and [[HarderThanHard extra hard]]. These adjust things like the ball saver length (or the number of ball saves; you might get multiple or no ball saves), the number of times a shot needs to be made to start a mode or get an award, whether hit targets have "memory" between balls (a common trait of harder settings is to unlight hit targets when a ball drains), and other things.
* DoWellButNotPerfect: If you want your high scores to save into a machine's memory, particularly on most older solid-state games, you better not get a score that will go over the maximum that can be displayed. A score that's slightly over a million points on a six-digit display probably will not save, though some games are nice enough to save this as the maximum displayable score.
* DynamicDifficulty: The replay value on modern machines is adjusted every so often based on recent scores gotten on the machine so that a certain percentage of scores will get a replay. Obviously, these tend to be much higher on privately-owned machines than public machines.
** Some tables will award a pity extra ball if the player did badly on their first (or first and second) ball(s).
* EndlessGame: Almost every pinball. A few games like ''Safe Cracker'' and ''Flipper Football'' avert this, where the player has unlimited balls, but the game lasts a finite amount of time.
* EventFlag
* EveryTenThousandPoints: Virtually any pinball machine will give you a "replay" (or sometimes an extra ball) for reaching a certain score, known on most games as the "replay value". Older pins usually have several of these.
** 1986's ''High Speed'' was the first game to feature automatic replay adjustment, in which the replay score automatically adjusts based on the players' performances on location.
* EverythingsBetterWithCows: In pinball, {{Easter Egg}}s are sometimes referred to as "cows".
* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: There are squares that you spin to score. They are called, appropriately, 'spinners'.
** Some tables also include spinning wheels on them that can alter a ball's trajectory.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Stern made a 1977 pinball called ''Pinball''. It was made in both electromagnetic and solid-state versions, though this was the case with many games released that year.
* ExcitedShowTitle: ''Earthshaker!'' When balls are locked for multiball, there is a TitleScream and ''the machine shakes''.
* ExcusePlot: You are smashing a ball around; it's hard to write a story about that.
** As Brooke Shields' 1978 film ''TILT'' would indicate.
* [[OneUp Extra Balls]]: These are usually rewarded for completing specific goals on any given table. However, some tables reward extra balls after reaching specified scoring plateaus.
* FanService: Though it depended on the subject matter, many machines featured artwork of scantily clad females for no other reason than to have scantily clad females all over the machine.
* FinalBoss: In pinball, it's called the "Wizard Mode". Introduced in 1989's ''Black Knight 2000''.
* GeniusProgramming: In an interview, Steve Ritchie called Larry [=DeMar=], the main programmer of Williams' pinball operating systems, "the most powerful programmer in pinball".
* GoldenSnitch: A prime example is ''The Machine: Bride of Pin*Bot''. The single highest shot on this table scores an immediate 1,000,000,000 -- yes, one '''''billion''''' -- points. The next highest point reward is a mere 50 million, which still is worth about as much as an otherwise well-played game.
** On a lot of early solid state games, the key to getting a high score usually is learning how to light the spinner for 1,000 points a spin (instead of 100/spin, or in really mean cases 10/spin), or figuring out how to get a 5x bonus multiplier. Bonuses can often be the majority of your score; they can amount to well over 100,000 or even 200,000 on games that can only display six digits. Even better if you can do both.
* HaveANiceDeath: Expect the CelebrityStar to pity you if you lose the ball.
* HighScores
* InconvenientlyPlacedConveyorBelt - [[AvertedTrope Averted]], because somebody has to maintain the game.
* IWillTearYourArmsOff: In ''Medieval Madness'', one of Sir Psycho's threats.
* KobayashiMario
* LastChanceHitPoint: ''Who Dunnit'' has a variation of this; either outlane can be lit to start the slots when the ball drains. Matching two of the reels ([[DoWellButNotPerfect but not all three]]) will give a Second Chance, where a ball is plunged back in and shooting one of the lit shots will match the third reel. Whether you match the third reel or not, it won't count as a drain and you get to keep playing on the same ball. Getting Multiball on the slots will save you from ending the ball too.
* LoopholeAbuse: Ubiquitous among skilled players on both the mechanical side and the "rules" side. On the mechanical side, players will often try to find low-risk shots or kickouts that can always (or reasonably consistently) be trapped on the flipper. On the "rules" side, sometimes there can be [[GoldenSnitch a single shot that is worth far more than anything else]].
* LuckBasedMission: Still very much prevalent today, as even a wizard playing their favorite game can really [[IncrediblyLamePun drop the ball]] every once in a while, though there is quite a skill component on the mechanical side (being able to shoot shots) and knowledge component on knowing the table's rules. However, very old (before 1947) pinball games were almost entirely this as they had no flippers. In fact, pinball was [[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/toys/4328211-new#slide-1 banned in some major cities]] for about three and a half decades on the basis that it was a game of chance that costed money and therefore constituted gambling. It was not until a 1976 court case where the plaintiff played, announced what he would aim for, and shot it in order to demonstrate pinball was now a game of skill that the ban was lifted.
* MacroGame: Progressive jackpots that carried from game to game were popular on alphanumeric and early DMD games. ''Black Knight 2000'' has the R-A-N-S-O-M letters carry from game to game. Most games after about 1993 did away with having any sort of gameplay-effecting macrogame.
* MadScientist: Multiple tables have this theme.
* MercyMode: The "pity" extra balls some games give (see AntiFrustrationFeatures and DynamicDifficulty). Some games, like ''Shrek'', will even light a pity ''multiball'' on the third ball if the player has done poorly on the first two balls. ''Bram Stoker's Dracula'' will light Mist multiball on the third ball for free (on default settings) if you have not played it yet.
* MiniGame: "Video Mode", a basic VideoGame controlled with the flipper and plunger buttons. Smaller playfields within the overall playfield (such as ''TheTwilightZone''[='s=] "Battle The Power" section) also count, in a sense.
* NintendoHard: Controlling the ball is easier said than done, and some table layouts are infamous for easily sending the ball toward the outlanes or straight down the center drain. Even then, pulling off some required shots can be tough, especially toward the lower part of the table.
** {{Rareware}} makes the {{NES}} adaptation of ''PIN*BOT'' even more difficult than the real table (already a notorious drain monster, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtZJfBteurE&feature=related and this version is no different]]) by adding monsters that will eat your ball, missiles that will permanently destroy your flippers after two hits until you lose the ball, and other such nasties! However, these monsters will only appear after starting multiball and earning the game's jackpot.
** {{Rareware}} also "modified" ''High Speed'' by adding obstacles not on the original table, such as a mad mechanic that would attempt to slap the ball down the flippers. Unlike ''Pin*Bot'', the monsters and hazards from ''High Speed'' appear within minutes of starting a game.
* NoFairCheating: Overdo the nudges and the game [=TILTs=], which locks off the paddles until you lose your ball and negated any end-of-ball bonuses. Older electro-mechanical pinball machines had no end-of-ball bonuses, so they would outright end the game then and there, regardless of whether or not you have any balls remaining.
** Then there's the Slam Tilt to detect people trying to cheat the machine out of money, either by trying to trick the coin mechanism into thinking it accepted a coin when it hasn't, or outright trying to steal the coin box. It triggers a NonstandardGameOver for ''all'' players and voids all credits in the machine.
*** Slam Tilt also triggers in a literal manner if you are needlessly violent with the machine, such as physically lifting it up and slamming it to the floor. Either way, getting a Slam Tilt in any shape or form is a good way to get ejected from the establishment.
** Averted with the "cheat" mechanic in ''Jack*Bot'', where you can "cheat" at pretty much anything by [[ButtonMashing repeatedly hitting the Extra Ball buy-in button]]. You can gain advantages in the casino games, the casino run wizard mode (you can usually negate one [[{{Whammy}} bomb]] in this fashion), and even increase your bonus multiplier at the end of the ball. [[AllThereInTheManual The attract mode sequence will even tell you that you can do this]]. Of course, you still have to be careful not to TILT.
* ObviousBeta: The very buggy ''Bram Stoker's Dracula'' can be viewed as this. The programmer Pfutz left Williams after only a single ROM revision was released, leaving many rough edges in the software.
* ObviousRulePatch: Most modern pinball games usually go through several ROM revisions to balance the game, and the changes made usually can be viewed as this.
* PinballScoring: The TropeNamer. This generally applies, but is not exclusive to, newer tables.
** As an early example of score inflation, Gottlieb's ''Ace High'' (1957) has a minimum scoring increment of 10,000 points. However, because ''Ace High'' has several ways for players to lose balls, this table's highest displayable score is [[{{Cap}} 7,990,000 points]].
** This is certainly a CyclicTrope. Until rolling score counters became commonplace in TheFifties, pinball tables gradually increased the minimum scoring unit from 100 to 1,000 to 10,000 and then 100,000. When rolling counters were introduced, 3- and 4-digit scores became commonplace (though some early rolling counter pins would "paint on" some zeroes). This gradually increased to 5 digits and then 6. The transition from electromagnetic to solid-state games in 1977 picked up scoring-wise where the electromagnetic games ended, though in the early 80s score counters expanded to 7 digits and then when the score display was consolidated, to 8 digits. The 1991 game ''The Machine: Bride of Pinbot'' went really over the top with the possibility of getting a billion points, though the transition to dot-matrix displays accelerated this trope; most could display up to 10 digits and high scores in the billions became common. A few pins like ''Jack*Bot'', ''Johnny Mnemonic'', and ''Attack From Mars'' could display up to ''11'' digits with the knowledge that scores of 10 billion or more would be reasonably common (''Johnny Mnemonic'' can display '''12''' digits; it will happily render scores in the hundred billions in either the main game or high score tables). ''Tales of the Arabian Nights'' dialed back a good game to being in the tens of millions of points, and most other pins up to the modern day have had scores of roughly the same magnitude.
* PlotCoupon
* PressurePlate: When you aren't hitting stuff, you are rolling over it.
* ProgressiveJackpot: A few games (''High Speed'' being the first, as mentioned above) have these which carry from game to game, normally as a jackpot, but earlier DMD games will have these as the award for completing the wizard mode.
** ''Party Zone'' has the Big Bang award.
** ''White Water'' has a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] version of this in the White Water Vacation Jackpot, which ''does'' increment, but it starts at 200M and only increments at a rate of 10K per game where it's not collected; even if 1000 games are played without it being collected (pretty unlikely), the jackpot will only have increased to 210M. By comparison, older pins usually have jackpots that can vary by a factor of 3 or more and playing at the right time can be crucial to a high score.
* PromotedFanboy: Lyman F. Sheats Jr.
* RagdollPhysics: Kinda the point.
* RankInflation: Jackpots. When they were first introduced, even a normal Jackpot would usually provide about the same as the replay value. Eventually their significance declined and there were Double Jackpots, Triple Jackpots, and Super Jackpots. As an example, in Multiball Madness in Medieval Madness, even a Double Super Jackpot is worth only 800K to 2M when a replay on that game usually takes about 20-30 million.
** ''The Champion Pub'' takes this to [[UpToEleven ridiculous extremes]]. The normal Jackpot is worth 100K. Then there are double, triple, quadruple... all the way up to Octuple Jackpot, Super Jackpot, Mega Jackpot, Ultra Jackpot, Turbo Jackpot, Maximum Jackpot, Cow of a Jackpot, and Jackpot Deluxe. That's ''15'' jackpot levels.
* RealSongThemeTune: Usually done with licensed tables, but are occasionally thrown in to non-licensed tables. Noteworthy examples include:
** ''TheTwilightZone'' uses, appropriately enough, the guitar solo and the main chorus from Music/GoldenEarring's "Twilight Zone".
** ''Party Zone'' features Music/TheWho's [[Music/{{Tommy}} "Pinball Wizard"]] which is selectable as a request.
*** Appropriately enough, music from ''Music/{{Tommy}}'' is played through the Data East table of the same name.
** ''The Getaway: High Speed II'' includes Music/ZZTop's "La Grange" as the main music.
** ''Red & Ted's Roadshow'' has Carlene Carter (Red's voice) perform her song, "Every Little Thing", for the following: the jackpot tune, the "Super Payday" [[FinalBoss wizard mode]], and during the high score name entry.
** ''[=WhoDunnit=]'' features a remix of the ''PeterGunn'' theme as its main music, as does the ''SpyHunter'' pinball briefly (which should not be too much of a surprise considering the video game also did).
* RecycledInSpace: Williams has done an inversion of this twice with ''Attack From Mars''. ''Attack From Mars'' has a space theme with martians invading Earth. SpiritualSuccessor ''Medieval Madness'', which features a very similar playfield layout and gameplay, has a medieval theme as the title would suggest. ''Monster Bash'', which could be viewed as another SpiritualSuccessor to ''AFM'' has a horror/rock theme. Stern's ''SpiderMan'' pinball is also very similar in design; it was designed as a homage/tribute to Brian Eddy and ''Attack From Mars''.
** Stern has done this twice: ''TheSimpsons Pinball Party'' was re-themed as ''The Brain'', and ''FamilyGuy'' was re-themed as ''{{Shrek}}''.
** ''Jack*Bot'' essentially uses the exact same target and obstacle layout that ''Pin*Bot'' uses.
* {{Retraux}}: Capcom's 1996 pinball ''Break Shot'' has the appearance of pinball from TheSeventies, even simulating electromagnetic score reels on the DMD.
* RuleOfThree: Almost any pinball from TheEighties and onward gives three balls on default settings (five balls was more common for older pins). Most games also require the player to lock three balls to start multiball, and three is probably the most common number of balls in multiball.
* ScoreMultiplier
** Bonus multipliers
** Available in some games in the traditional sense as well for a (usually) limited amount of time. For instance, ''White Water'' has a 5X Playfield award which multiplies the value of pretty much anything (though it doesn't stack with double or triple jackpots; this was [[ObviousRulePatch fixed from the earliest versions of the ROM]]) by 5x for 25 seconds.
** Some games, such as ''Black Knight'' and ''Pin*Bot'' multiplied playfield values by the number of balls in play.
** ''Bram Stoker's Dracula'' multiplies the value of all jackpots by 2x if there are two concurrent multiballs, and 3x if all three multiballs are active at once.
*** Software revision 1.6 of Stern's ''Music/{{ACDC}}'' has this feature as well - It also stacks geometrically with the field multiplier which can go up to 3x, meaning that having the field multiplier maxed with all three multiballs going at once can result in '''''9x''''' Jackpots.
*** 2003's ''The Lord of the Rings'' has the highest known jackpot multiplier: 84x jackpot during The Two Towers Multiball. To achieve it, the player must have the 2x Scoring (Gift of the Elves award) and started Gollum Multiball before starting The Two Towers Multiball.
* SelfImposedChallenge: Quite common in tournaments to reduce play times. Turning off extra balls is almost always done, and setting the software to the hardest possible difficulty is very common. Other adjustments include putting extra-wide posts on the entrances of ramps and other shots to make them narrower, using "lightning" flippers (1/8 of an inch shorter than normal flippers) on games that don't normally use them, making the playfield steeper, or putting extra-bouncy rubbers on flippers.
* {{Sidequest}}
* SignatureStyle: Each pinball designer has the following signature:
** Steve Ritchie's tables have the following:
*** "Picard Maneuver" combo shot (left loop shot to upper right flipper shot to the upper loop or side ramp)
*** The left outlane is wide, and features a kickback that shoots the ball back into play
*** Emphasis on combos and non-stop flowing shots; Steve is known as the "Master of Flow" by pinball enthusiasts
** Pat Lawlor's tables have several similar characteristics:
*** At least three flippers on a table. Flippers located higher than the standard positions are usually the only ones that can hit high-scoring jackpot shots during multiball play.
*** "Soft plunge" skill shots, requiring players to apply the right amount of power from the plunger so that the ball hits a specific target on the playfield.
*** The "bumper shot", where the player has to shoot the ball between the pop bumpers to hit a crucial target.
*** Spinning discs or magnets beneath the board that throw off the ball's trajectory during particularly tense modes, occasionally referred to as "The Power".
*** Dual inlanes on either side of the playfield.
*** Toys and gimmicks (''Banzai Run''[='=]s vertical playfield, ''[=FunHouse=]''[='=]s "Rudy", ''Twilight Zone''[='=]s "Battle the Power" mini-playfield [which uses magnets as "flippers"], ''Family Guy''[='=]s miniature pinball mini-game).
** Mark Ritchie's timed jackpot shots, where the player has to first light the jackpot and must shoot the jackpot shot within a couple of seconds
* SlidingScaleOfVideoGameObjectives
* SmartBomb: Data East games ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' and ''Film/LastActionHero'' have a Smart Missile feature (activated by a button on the back of the gun-shaped plungers) that has various effects depending on the mode that is currently running, but most of the time they have the effect of collecting all lit shots.
* SongsInTheKeyOfPanic: Variant-- tables of the late 1970s-early 1980s often had the music rise in pitch and/or tempo the longer the ball was in play in an attempt to distract the player. It rolled back around to the original tune after a while. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neNiMNH1MHk This]] 1979 ''Flash'' machine is a good (annoying) example.
* SpaceCompression
* SpellingBonus: The purpose of "spot letter" targets.
* TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything: Most any modern pinball software will do the best it can to compensate for malfunctioning hardware to keep the game playable.
* ThisTropeIsBleep: From ''Medieval Madness'': One of the [[PunnyName King of Payne]]'s subordinates is a New York mobster named [[IncrediblyLamePun Lord Howard Hurtz]]; one of his intros is, "I'm Lord Howard Hurtz. Who the f**k are you?" Whether or not this gets bleeped is up to the operator.
* TimedMission: A favorite of the genre. Virtually any modern pinball has modes that are timed. A variant of this is the "hurry-up", a shot worth an amount of points that decreases the more time that it takes the player to shoot it. Another variant of that is a hurry-up that when collected lights several other shots for the same value that the hurry-up was collected at; ''The Addams Family'' and ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' among others have such modes.
** Yet another variant is a hurry-up that will not end with a single shot; the value can repeatedly be collected by making shots until it times out. The Yakuza Strike mode in ''Johnny Mnemonic'' is an example of this.
** A third variant takes place on the ''Mean Machines'' table in 21st Century's ''SlamTilt'' AMIGA pinball package. In this variant, the hurry-up value actually increases as the timer decreases, encouraging the player to trap the ball until just before time expires, in order to collect the maximum point value possible.
* {{Trope 2000}}: ''Black Knight 2000'' (the sequel to 1980's ''Black Knight''), and Williams' "Pinball 2000" platform.
** A 1980 Stern pin is called ''Flight 2000''.
** Data East's audio controller used from ''Batman'' (1991) to ''Terminator 3'' (2003) is called the BSMT 2000[[labelnote:*]]"BSMT" stands for "Brian Schmidt's Mouse Trap", after its creator, music composer Brian Schmidt[[/labelnote]].
* WackyRacing: Been there, designed a table about that.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Two Pinball 2000 tables, ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZcqZwEi5P0 Wizard Blocks]]'' and ''Playboy'', were in the prototype stage when Williams went out of business.
* WhatTheHellPlayer: The "Lyman's Lament" EasterEgg in ''Monster Bash'' has the programmer Lyman Sheets mock the player for making unsafe shots.
** If you Tilt the ''Scared Stiff'' table, the FemmeFatale voice that normally tries to seduce you sometimes says "You just don't listen do you.", usually after saying "Easy tiger!" and "I'm warning you!" as Tilt warnings.
* WideOpenSandbox: You are free to hit anything for points. Of course, there are usually missions.