Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade

Are you a pin-ball whizz? Do you haunt those tables in the arcade, slamming levers and paddles? Tilting and nudging like a boss? Well I don’t. In fact, I never have. In a game of “have you ever….”, my stomach would think my head had been removed should the topic of pinball machines ever be asked!

But I have seen plenty of them. I have watched the tiny shiny ball bearing go up and down. Round and round. Reaching to the top and all manner of lights and buzzers and sounds firing off before dropping to the bottom in a deafening silence. It looks wild! And from where I’m sitting, Super Skill Pinball 4-Cade has done a pretty good job of capturing the feeling of riding a static pin ball rollercoaster.

Roll & Whizz

Super-Speed Pinball 4Cade is a dry-wipe roll and write. The game comes with 4 different “tables” and each one has a matching “backglass” sheet for keeping score of all the stars you’re smashing out. Play is simultaneous and takes place over 3 rounds. Two dice get rolled each turn, you pick one, and then you’re off.

As each table has different rules, table-talk will be in general terms for now.

And although we are in the game-iverse, science still applies! Newton gets everywhere, right? So your pinball will always start at the top and want to drop down the sheet to the very bottom. The sheets are divided into sections, so as long as you go down under the next line, you’re heading in the right direction.

Having said that, however, there are all means of spinners, paddles, and bumpers that can shoot you right back up or round again for another shot at the stars in that section!

When you get to the bottom of the sheet, there are red and yellow flippers. If you have a space available, you can pinball yourself back up to a higher red or yellow section (as appropriate), and go for another turn around the table. Each time you go up and down, you’ll be crossing off boxes a box using the dice you picked. And, as with all good roll and writes, you’ll be triggering chains that lead to combo moves. And what do combo moves make? That’s right! Bonuses!

Pinballer!

From being able to put another ball in play (multi-ball), to massive multipliers, and dice manipulators, bonuses are key! And some will trigger more than once because you get to erase the cross marks on those boxes when you complete a set. Double win really because that means there are more boxes available to cross off when the dice roll again!

And boxes are what you want because what goes up must come down. And once you run out of boxes at the bottom (which can’t be erased until the end of the round), your round is over. So, just like real-time table action, you want to collect as much as you can over and over again whilst you’re in the upper sections.

Nudge Over, Mate

If the dice aren’t in your favour, and you have no bonuses that can assist you, there is still a chance you can avoid the ball bearing basement. 3 chances in fact. For every game, you can nudge your ball. Effectively you get to pick the number you want for your next turn, but you must then note down the difference between the value on the die and the value you need. If the difference in value between the two dfce on the next roll is the same or greater than the nudge number, you’re free to fling that pinball. If it’s less, however, you just “tilted” your table my friend, and your round is one and done!

Round Up

But, whilst your round of Super Skill Pinball 4-Cade may be over, that’s not to say your opponents’ round 1 is eating dust. They can keep going for as long as they have boxes to cross and flippers to flap! As such, how many turns you get, and how many chances you have to scoop up some of those eleventy billion stars on offer, is down to your pinball prowess!

Table Talk

Now, having given you the gist of the game, let’s talk tables. All 4 in the box are based on a different theme;

• Carniball has you shooting ducks, flexing your muscles in a feat of strength, popping balloons, and riding the ferris wheel;
• Cyberhack has you thieving data from big bad corporations by slipping in through back door hacks and running programmed mini-games;
• Dragonslayer will have you donning your whizziest wizard robes and defeating the flame breathing beasts; and
• Dance Fever gives you the chance to strut your stuff, 70s style, picking up points as you shimmy up and down the table dance floor!

Each one has its own bonuses and quirks, and some feel more challenging than others. They definitely do feel thematic though. And those hemispherical ball-bearings help with the illusion. Which is no easy task to achieve in this genre. One thing is for sure; no single strategy is going to work across the….table, or even game for game! And that’s cool because rewrapping the same game 4 times, or replaying the same sequence of moves would be a dropped ball by the designers. Having now played them all, I definitely have my favourites, but maybe that’s because I can chip away at those star targets better on those!

Final Thoughts

I feel like I need to start with those stars. The back glass star targets in Super Skill Pinball 4-Cade for each table look impossibly high at first glance. I mean, what other roll and write has potential for you to be scoring points in the 100s? 1000s? Not many! But, as you start to work your way around the tables, checking off boxes, picking up bonuses, and firing off more than one ball per round, they start to add up! The Hoard track in Dragonslayer becomes a veritable star generating engine if you can co-ordinate drop target bonuses ands spells! Seriously, I scored 80 stars on a single go (and it felt goooood!).

And that leads nicely onto the rounds. To get the chance to cross-fill-wipe-repeat, you need time on those tables. And you get it through having undefined round lengths. You can basically keep going as long as your skills and strategy will let you. Okay so that means a given game can be long. But when you’re the one scoring centuries, that’s not so bad. When you’re on the side-lines counting your single stars, however, it might be time to make a brew as you could be waiting a while.

There’s a lot to take in when you start playing. With each table having its own set of rules, bonus triggers, and mechanics, you can feel like your learning a new game each time. But there are cross overs in terms of basic rules of play. And the more we play, the faster we get as we know what we want to target. And I have physically slapped myself on the forehead when a ball drops out of play. Likewise, I have cheered when hitting a mega star generating bonus. And noises of any sort are always a sign of a game well received in our house!

We are definitely enjoying our table time with this game. Sometimes for speed we stick to just 2 rounds. And whilst that means we give up the chance to score as many stars in a game, it ramps up the pressure to be the whizziest pinballer with less table ammo! For the amount of game it’s also budget friendly. If you like your roll and writes with more meat on their bones, I’d recommend checking out Super-Skill Pinball 4Cade! And if you like it, why not check out the standalone expansion Ramp it up!