From: phaedrus@halcyon.com (Mark Phaedrus)
Subject: Another quick take: The Addams Family

    When I saw the suggestion for "quick takes", I wrote one up too;
perhaps not surprisingly, I chose Addams Family as well.  I wrote it up before
I saw the other one, though, and the format is quite a bit different; I
tried to include some things that would be helpful for people buying pins
(likely trouble spots, etc.) as well as people playing them.  So there's not
quite as much on any particular subject, but there's more subjects covered.
Comments?


THE ADDAMS FAMILY (Bally/Williams)

SUMMARY
     Awesomely-popular game, licensed from the movie and TV series of the
same name.  Black cabinet with "The Addams Family" and Thing (a disembodied
hand) on the side trim; lit cloud assembly just above backglass.  Dot-matrix
display; three-ball multiball; four flippers.

MAIN FEATURES
     Mansion: A set of lights just above the flippers on playfield.
Thirteen special scoring rounds or point awards, awarded from
lit Electric Chair or repeated Bear ramp shots.  The bumpers change the
next award to be given (the flashing light).
     Bear ramp: Top center of playfield; feeds back to either inlane.
Counts up Bear Kicks, good for extra balls and Mansion awards; relights
the Electric Chair.
     Million+ ramp: Sideways ramp at top left of playfield; feeds
back to left inlane.  Scores Million+; relights the Electric Chair;
lights T-H-I-N-G letters.
     Bookcase/Vault:  Bookcase is the blue plastic rotating piece at top
right of playfield; Vault is the hole behold it.  Repeated hits to the
Bookcase open it, lighting the Vault (and usually Thing and the Swamp)
to lock balls for Multiball.
     Swamp: Hole on right side of playfield (with targets above and below
it, and "5x" and "LOCK" lights pointing to it).  Scores Graveyard value,
which starts at 1M and is raised by the bumpers.  Scores 5x Graveyard
value if shot after ball falls through lane above upper-left flipper
(reachable from the bumpers or from Million+ ramp).
     Thing: Hand in box at far top right of playfield, which comes out
when ball lands in saucer below it (reachable from plunger or from the
mini-ramp to the left of the Bear ramp).  Only activated by lighting all
five T-H-I-N-G letters with Million+ ramp or by opening the Bookcase.
     Power: Magnets under the playfield above the flippers; activated
during multiballs or Seance, or when two balls are locked.

HOT SHOTS
     Plunger skill shot:  Plunge ball into saucer at top right of
playfield for 2M+.  If ball misses saucer but does not touch a scoring
target, you can let it drain and take the skill shot again.
     Thing Flips:  When ball goes through the leftmost inlane, shoot the
Bear Kick ramp.  The ball will return to the upper-left flipper; don't
flip, and the machine will automatically flip for you, usually shooting
the Swamp for the 5x Graveyard value.
     Multiball:  Shoot Bookcase repeatedly to open it; then shoot lit
targets (Vault, Thing, and/or Swamp) to lock two balls.  Shoot Electric
Chair or Vault to start Multiball.  Bear ramp and Bookcase raise the
jackpot value; Million+ ramp scores Double or Triple Jackpot (the lane
just above it scores a regular Jackpot, but the ramp is always a better
shot), and Vault relights jackpot once it's collected.
     Quick Multiball, Thing Multiball: Two-ball multiballs, both
lit by Mansion.  Shoot the mini-ramp to the left of the Bear ramp to
start them (Thing Multiball value counts down from 15M to 3M and
eventually times out, so hurry); during Multiballs, shoot open Vault to
collect 5M+ (in Quick Multiball) or Thing Multiball value.

DANGER ZONES
     Bumpers:  On some machines, a ball going through the bumpers from
above (a too-strong plunger shot, or a ball shot to the right of the
Vault) can miss the bumpers entirely, heading straight for the drain.
     Electric Chair:  A missed shot, particularly one from the right
flipper, can rebound and drain down the middle before you can react.
     Power magnets:  When Seance (Mansion award) is active or two balls
are lit, magnets can throw the ball down the middle or down an outlane.

STRATEGY HINTS
     Learning to make the Electric Chair shot from both flippers is
critical, since this is the key to getting Mansion awards.  If you
can learn to shoot the Chair, shoot the ball up the Bear ramp when
the Chair kicks it out, and then shoot it from the right flipper to
the Chair again, you can rack up the awards in no time.
     Find out if the Bear ramp shot on your machine is repeatable (if
you can easily make the ramp from the right flipper); if you can, then
repeated ramp shots are very profitable.  During Multiball, consider
trapping a ball or two on the left flipper and looping the Bear ramp
with the remaining ball, driving the Jackpot value up to its maximum
25M (doubled or tripled to 50M or 75M) before you start collecting
them.

WIZARDRY
     Tour the Mansion:  After all thirteen Mansion awards are collected,
shooting Electric Chair awards Tour the Mansion; 50M points are scored,
Extra Ball and Special are lit, and a series of Mansion rounds are
automatically started one at a time.  At end of ball, Mansion resets
itself.
     Super Bear Bonus:  After 99 Bear Kicks, each additional Bear ramp
shot awards 5M.

POSSIBLE TROUBLE SPOTS
     Thing Flips:  Adjustments to the machine (slope changes, etc.) can
cause Thing Flips to miss consistently.  To fix this, trigger Thing
Flips four times, catching the ball each time after it's flipped and
before it can touch the targets.  This causes the Thing Flips feature
to reset; now let the Thing Flips shot complete itself a few dozen
times to allow the machine to rebuild accuracy.
     Opticals:  The optical switch in the lane above the upper-left
flipper sometimes goes out, eliminating 5x Graveyard and Thing Flips.
     Bear ramp:  The switch at the top of the Bear ramp sometimes gives
out, causing Bear ramp shots to be misread as Million+ ramp shots.
(Of course, this makes the Bear ramp award Double and Triple Jackpots
during Multiball...)