VP8 Bally SS Recreation Fireball Classic (Bally, 1985) VP8 v1.1

Skill Shot - The plunger launches the ball up to the top of the playfield onto a ramp (made out of a section of the playfield bent up, unique!) and either the ball drops off the end of the ramp or rolls back, hopefully over one or both of the switches for points and to light the top two bumpers, giving them higher values. Tricky part: when the ball leaves the bottom-right of the ramp (instead of going over the edge) the ball is heading right down towards the flippers. It's not terribly uncommon to drain right off the skill shot!

Thumper Bumpers - Three bumpers near the top of the playfield kick the ball around in a fairly confined space, scoring points. The top two bumpers have different values based on the skill shot (see above.)

Permanently-captured ball - Hitting the ball in the permanent capture location on the left hard enough makes it hit a target at the top, releasing any captured balls and giving a bonus and/or lighting the special score outlane. It also activates the right exit gate.

Ball captures - Two ball capture points, one on the left with the name of "Odin", the other on the right with the name of "Wotan", capture any balls that go into them. The ball is held until the mushroom bumper on the opposite side of the playfield is hit or if the permanent-captured ball hits the target. The score for Odin goes from 10k-50k sequentially very quickly, so if your timing is good you can get more points. Wotan's score, when released, is based on the number of lights lit (multiple playfield elements light Wotan's bonus lights.)

Mushroom bumpers - There are three mushroom bumpers, two that release the captured ball on the opposite side of the playfield, a third that gives a bonus.

Playfield spinner - Probably the most prominent and unique element of this game is the playfield spinner, located in the center of the table. If your ball is moving fast, it often just rolls right over the spinner. If it's languishing across the playfield, however, the ball can do loops and other unique moves. The spinner might also put spin on your ball but it's not significant in my experience. The spinner is spinning during the entire game and doesn't score anything, but it certainly makes the play interesting!

Rollovers - surrounding the spinner are a set of rollovers that score points. One at the top turns on the leftmost lane kicker, the two at the lower-left and lower-right turn off the kicker. It's not uncommon for the ball to be heading towards the left drain lane and the kicker to be on, only to roll over the lower-left rollover. Quite suprising/frustrating, when that happens.

Right lane - There is a lane right below the Wotan ball capture that has a diverter, either returning the ball to the playfield or to the plunger lane. The diverter only sends the ball to the plunger lane after the captive ball has been hit (and you can either plunge the ball back onto the playfield for more points if multiball is active or wait until the other balls drain.)

Left drain lane - has a kicker at the base that is activated by the rollovers above. I've seen the kicker: miss the ball (very fast balls seem to miss), kick the ball all the way across the playfield into the Wotan capture, kick the ball over to the flippers, and kick the ball over to the right drain lane (frustrating!)

Right drain lane - gives points and a special bonus when lit (special is lit when the boop ball is hit again after getting to 5x bonus.)

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