Pinball Archive Rule Sheet: Fish Tales (2024)

Keefer's Guide to Fish Tales
V 1.3.2 - 10-Jun-95
*** FINAL VERSION ***

This rules compilation is freely distributable. I retain any and all rightsto this guide. You may even take this guide and change it or use it inother manners and then redistribute it as long as it remains freelydistributable and this policy is stated at the beginning of it. No chargemay ever be made for distributing this guide and no one may make a profitfrom it. Please send any comments/updates/suggestions/corrections.

Fish Tales is probably a registered trademark of Williams Electronics, etc.etc. So there.

No holds are barred in this Guide. I'm going to talk about EVERYTHING Iknow about. If you really want to learn all the undocumented featuresyourself, then stop reading!

Important Things

This section describes key elements and/or shots to be made in Fish Tales.They will be constantly referred to in the play discussion.

Rod: This is the auto-plunging device on Fish Tales. It's a little fishingrod handle with a button on the top of it. Hit the button to launchthe ball. You also use the button during video mode to launchtorpedos. Really.
Autocast: This is a timed device designed to protect you from instantdrains. While it is flashing, you will get any ball back thatyou lose, instantly. If the game sees it hit an outlanemicroswitch, you'll get the next one before it even finishesdraining! If you can death-save the ball you lost, you can havea mini-multiball. It is on briefly when a ball is launched fromthe Reel during a multi-player game, even though it isn't lit.
Long Cast: This is the right looping shot, exactly like the Chase Loop inTerminator 2. Making this shot when lit scores million+, andlights the next thing on the captive ball. If this shot is notlit, then the upper left gate will be closed, and the ball willgo into one of the LIE lanes.
LIE lanes: Spell LIE to increase your bonus multiplier up to 7x. After7x, each LIE made will be worth 5M, 10M, 15M, then 20M for thenon (until you lose the ball (unless you had bonus held)). Don'tforget you can change which lanes are lit with either flipperbutton, so you should never repeat a letter.
Boat: This is the inclined plastic figure right in the center of the game.There are 3 shots: The left ramp, the right ramp, and the captiveball. Because it is inclined, it is harder to hit the ball than onmost other games with one (like Earthshaker). Any one of these 3shots counts as a "boat shot" during Rock the Boat.
Captive ball: The captive ball is trapped in the middle of the boat. Adead-on shot will send it up to the top, where there is atarget that it can trigger. If you don't hit it hard enough,it won't hit the switch. Only hitting the switch has anyeffect and counts as a captive ball hit.
Eject hole: This shot is equivalent to the Escape Route shot on T2. Youusually get it by shooting up the left side, through thespinner, and into the hole. However, whatever it is lit for,you can still get it if it just happens to plop in there (ifit's bouncing around the LIE lanes, for example). This iswhere you collect the regular Jackpot, the Fish Finder, andVideo Mode.
Fish Finder: If you hit the Fish Finder, you are given ("randomly") one ofseveral awards from points to multiball to light extra ball.
Video Mode: Lit by hitting the 2nd value on the captive ball. Shooting theeject hole will start it, and you have to shoot boats withwater skiers going across the screen at 3 different distances.
Stringers: There are 2 targets on the left and right sides near theslingshots which have a 3-part fish in front of them. Hittingeither target spots one of the segments, and a whole fish lightsa Stringer, which is one of the 4 big fish with lights in themon the lower part of the playfield, just under the boat. Thisalso lights the spinner for "Stretch the Truth" for 10-15seconds. 4 Stringers starts the Feeding Frenzy.
Spinner: Located on the left lane shot. Note that any spinner award(Stretch the Truth or Monster Fish) just needs to barely get it togo around to get credit. Also note that hitting the spinner fromthe wrong direction (as from a Long Cast) DOESN'T count.
Stretch the Truth: When lit, scores 1 tale (for end-of-ball bonus, andthe current set of 4 is displayed under the stringers)per Stringer you have hit before the award times out.The value of your fish ranges from 0-5M per fish. 4tales starts a 30 second Rock the Boat.
Feeding Frenzy: There are 4 purple fish you need to hit. One on each ofthe ramp shots, one along the Long Cast, and one at thespinner. You have 15 seconds to hit a fish for 5M points.Doing so gives you another 15 seconds to hit the next one,etc., until you have 15 seconds to hit the last fish for20M points (a total of 35M).
Rock the Boat: For a certain amount of time (20 seconds from the captiveball award; 30 seconds for 4 tales), each boat shot counts10M (including U-turns).
Monster Fish: Right under the boat is a string of 6 fish (a "school" offish - look closely!). Each time you make a LIT ramp shot,you light another fish. Getting all 6 lights the spinnerfor the Monster Fish award, which is a hurry-up award.
Caster's Club: A fairly hard-to-hit shot where you shoot balls to lockthem. The balls don't even stay here; the game kicks themup a habitrail which leads to the reel all the way on theleft side of the game.
Reel: Nothing really important, except this is where balls are stored. Itcan spin to accept new balls, or to let a ball out to have it kickedback into play. Balls kicked out go around the top of the machineand out a habitrail aimed for your left flipper.

What Lights What

The left return lane ALWAYS lights the Long Cast. (The light is always on.)Also, shooting the ball up the right loop while Long Cast is NOT lit willlight Long Cast (seemingly until you make the shot). After making a LongCast or lighting it from the left return lane, it will time out after 10-15seconds or so. (So I'm not TOTALLY sure...) The first Long Cast you makescores 1M points, then 2M, etc. maxing out at 5M. As stated, each long castlights the next highest value on the captive ball that isn't already lit.You can light all of the values before collecting any of them if you wanted.If your current value is about to time out, and you go through the leftreturn lane, it will relight for the full amount of time again, and KEEP thecurrent value.

The right return lane lights Fish Finder when lit. It starts the game lit,and will remain lit until the Fish Finder is collected. When you go overthe microswitch, you have around 15-20 seconds to shoot the eject hole. Ifyou get it, the right return lane will go off. To relight it, spell LIE(this is non-cumulative; i.e. you can't spell LIE 3 times and expect to get3 Fish Finders in a row). The right return lane will NOT be lit duringmultiball and if Video Mode is lit. If it goes off for one of thosereasons, it will come back on when it can.

The left and right ramps start the game lit, so you get 1 "free" shot ateach side. After that, shooting the right ramp OR going through the rightreturn lane will light the left ramp, and vice versa. The point is toalternate ramps, shooting the left ramp from the right flipper and the rightramp from the left flipper. It is fairly easy to backhand the ball up theramps too, so if the left ramp is lit and the ball is on the left flipper,you should be able to make it up. Depending on the machine, it may even beeasier to backhand! Making 6 LIT ramp shots lights the Monster Fish.

The two Stringer fish targets are lit at the start of the game, too. Aftercompleting the first one, it'll stay unlit until you complete the other one.The targets then alternate sides upon completion of each Stringer.

You can light the extra ball 1 of 2 ways: Hitting the Fish Finder, or asthe 4th award on the captive ball. The extra ball is just to the left ofthe Caster's Club, and is probably the hardest extra ball target to hityet. You may THINK you have a shot at it from the left flipper, but thebottom right of the Boat is in the way. The only way to aim for it is tobackhand it from the right flipper, and even then it's not terribly easy.Depends on your machine. The one I played on the most you had to make anabsolutely direct hit on it because I think it may have been a littleflaky, but I also have played on one where it wasn't too bad.

To light the special, you have to complete the captive ball awards (getinstant multiball), then hit the captive ball a certain number of timesafter that, usually (and probably is the default) 4 more hits. The specialis collected on the outlanes, is always lit on both of them, and stays litthe entire game. However, you have to light the special ON THAT BALL, oryou lose the chance to light it until completing the next set of captiveball awards.

The Stretch the Truth spinner shot usually shots all 5 lights lit, butevery time you spell LIE, the lowermost light will go out (until only the 5xis left). The spinner will then just circulate between the lit choices.Thanks to all the people who pointed this out to me, even though I figuredit out the day I originally posted this message! Oh well. %)

Misc. Scoring

The Fast Cast is scored by hitting the Caster's Club (or the drop targetwhen it's supposed to be up) right after a Long Cast or ball launch (not anAutocast, though). The first Fast Cast is worth 2M and goes up 1M eachtime you get it. Fast Cast maxes out at 10M.

There's an amusing bug involving Video Mode... If you tilt the ball, thenit wanders up into the ball trap where Video Mode is lit, you'll be able toplay Video Mode, even though you're in tilt mode! Cool. :) There's someother bugginess about tilt mode like being able to get the music to play (orkeep playing or something). Nothing else major like the Video Mode bug,though.

During the course of the game, various things will swim by in thebackground (various fish, turtles, snails, mermaids...). One of them is askeleton fish. If you slam on the cast button many times (like 10), thenyou'll get "Russ' Fishbone Bonus" which scores 10 points. It looks prettycool, though. NOTE: Please do NOT post this to the Net! Keep it toyourself if you've bothered to read this guide. Consider it my present toyou for enduring it. :)

Multiball

The main goal in multiball is to get jackpots! Nothing else really matters.However, some people have taken issue with this statement, and so I offer acouple more ideas: Hit the captive ball a lot at the start if it's lit andespecially if it's a drain shot on your machine. Autocast will save you.Also, Rock the Boat can be worth an awful lot of points if you can keep theballs going around the ramps.

To light a jackpot, shoot a ball into the Caster's Club. The game yells "Upto the top for jackpot!" Your next goal is to shoot the eject hole within15 seconds (there's a timer on there!) to score it. The jackpots are worth20M, then 30M, then 40M. The tackle box shows you which one you're on(flashing) and which ones you've gotten (lit).

Completing the Stringers during multiball adds 1M to the jackpot. (Wow!)Notice, though, that the Stringers are also flashing during Feeding Frenzyand Rock the Boat. I'm not sure what they do here, but I think they add 1Mto the jackpot when they're completed as well.

If you have 3 balls out, the Caster's Club will flash for "Doubles Jackpot."Shooting another ball in here at this time does just that, and resets thetimer at 15 seconds. If it times out, though, BOTH balls are shot back atyou and you have to start all over. If you lose the third ball, then oneball is shot back at you, and you shoot for a single jackpot. Any othershots at the Caster's Club are blocked by the drop target (and it keepscoming up).

After getting all 3 jackpots in the tackle box, the fun really begins. Thecaptive ball becomes lit for the Super Jackpot, and I DO mean Super! Everytime you hit the captive ball, you get 100M points, until multiball ends.

Don't worry; you needn't get all jackpots in 1 multiball in order to get tothe super jackpot. Whichever jackpot you are on is remembered through thewhole game. If you lit the super jackpot, but never hit the captive ball,then the next multiball the captive ball will still be lit for the nextmultiball until you've hit it at least once.

Of course, it'd be anticlimactic to have to go back to the 20M, 30M, 40Mjackpots, now, wouldn't it? Well, after going through an entire jackpotsequence (i.e. you've gotten at least one SJ), all of the jackpots becomeworth minimum 2x their original value! INCLUDING the captive ball superjackpot! And you can still double the jackpots, so you can make majoramounts of points on this game. And it keeps increasing with each completedsequence. The multiplier will go as high as 6x (yes, I've gotten a 600Msuper jackpot). Why it goes up to 6 I know not (just seems like a strangenumber).

If you get a Super Jackpot when the next-to-last ball is registering in thetrough, you'll get an additional 100M for the SJ. The reason for this isprobably because the jackpot multiplier kicks in as soon as the ball isregistered, but just before the final SJ points are awarded to you. I don'tknow that for sure, but a way to confirm it would be to see if getting a600M SJ gives you 700M or not.

Note that during multiball, the Boat can still be hit for lighting theMonster Fish. Always be listening for the distinctive roar the game makesif you're not paying very close attention how many ramp hits you have. Alsothe captive ball can be hit for whatever it's lit for, and it can still beadvanced via the Long Cast.

Oh - one other thing about multiball... If you shoot a ball up each ramp atabout the same time (at any rate before the previous one hits the returnlane), you get 5M points for a "Double Cross."

"Properly-Set-Up Machines"

Fish Tales is probably the least tolerant of any game to incorrect alignmentof any kind. On a lot of machines, there is a little bitty piece of rubberat the end of the left loop which, if the ball is traveling against theleft side as it usually does, will cause the ball to go straight down themiddle of your flippers. Also, the upper-left gate seems to cause a lot ofproblems for people. If you look closely, you can see that it is a one-waygate that should always allow the ball to go through from left to right.However, there is a little rod that the game can control and open the gatewhen it wants. It should ONLY open for right-to-left shots when the LongCast is lit, or when you are launching a ball from the plunger (notnecessarily for an auto-launched ball during multiball, though). If thegate is always open, this is not really a bad thing except that it makes ita bit harder to get LIE, since the ball will never stop on its way aroundthe Long Cast. HOWEVER, if the gate is always CLOSED, you are in bigtrouble. This is because you can't advance the value of the captive ballexcept to get lucky on the Fish Finder. If your gate is always closed, orif the rubber at the end of the left lane is screwing your balls, thencomplain to your operator! The game is not worth playing in these cases.

Another problem that I recently discovered is the Caster's Club drop target.The game is supposed to be able to drop the target when it needs to. Whendoes it need to? Well, for example, if you get instant multiball while itis up, it should go down to allow you to light the jackpot. I've played agame where the machine couldn't retract it, and it took 2 hits at theCaster's Club just to light a jackpot, then to double it, etc. It is nextto impossible to get a jackpot when this happens. Out of 6 games, Imanaged 1. It's hard enough to light it, but when the drop target goes up,it really hurts things. THE ONLY TIME IT SHOULD COME UP is when you havegotten a jackpot during the last multiball or during multiball to block the2nd or 3rd ball from going into the Caster's Club when 2 or 3 balls are inplay.

Strategies

You can usually get replays just by going for the Monster Fish bonuses. Ifyou are good at the ramps and making the spinner shot, I highly recommendit. But after the replay, you're going to have to go for multiball.

At any rate, if you have a Monster Fish lit, ALWAYS ALWAYS go for it. Ifyou don't get it, the Fish value won't increase, and you'll be stuck rightback where you just were. Even if it's at 5M, try to get it because thepotential for the next Fish is so great. Of course, once you're at 50M, itdoesn't really matter as much if you miss the low value.

When shooting for the Monster Fish, keep a careful eye on how many fish inthe school you have at the moment. I NEVER shoot the final fish from theright flipper, because that wastes time (and points) needed to get the ballto the right flipper from the left. Be sure to check your parity rightafter making a ramp shot. If you've just shot an even-numbered fish fromthe right flipper, shoot something else from the left, like the Long Cast ifthe captive ball isn't maxed out yet, the Caster's Club otherwise.Likewise, if you shot an odd-numbered fish from the left flipper, shoot forthe Fish Finder from the right. Basically, keep careful track and you'llget the most Monster for your money.

If you're in multiball, try not to get Instant Multiball from the captiveball. It's a total waste, especially if you hit it right at the beginningof normal multiball. If you have 2 balls locked and Instant Multiball lit,always try for regular multiball first, since getting Instant Multiballmeans no locked balls after you lose them.

In Rock the Boat, go for the ramps and not the captive ball. They're bothmuch easier and much safer to shoot for, though obviously not as fast. Acouple people have had the idea that backhanding the ball up the same rampis a good idea. I agree. Backhanding the ramps is generally easier thanshooting the far one, and you can get into a pretty good groove this way.

One person says that going for the captive ball on Rock the Boat is a goodidea if you have both extra ball and multiball lit. You risk a drain on theextra ball, but then you can hit the captive ball again for multiball and apotentially very rewarding Rock the Boat.

For Feeding Frenzy, don't get the Boat fish right away. Try for the harderlooping shot ones first. If you get low on time, shoot a Boat fish, thenuse the next time to try for the looping ones again. Note that you onlyneed to hit the Boat ramp sensor to get a fish and NOT the actual rampsensor. So if you got a U-turn, you'd get both Boat fish. For the leftfish, all you need is barely touch the spinner, and the right fish is themicroswitch just before the LIE lanes.

The most important shot to master (and the one that needs the most practice)is the Caster's Club. If you can get it down, then you'll do very well. Ofcourse the captive ball and Long Cast are very important in conjunction aswell. There are several machines around that let you backhand the Caster'sClub from the right flipper. The only machine that I've been able to dothis on so far is a PAPA tournament machine.

Don't aim for the Stringers. Just let the ball hit them as it pleases.If you have nothing better to do, or are really close to Feeding Frenzy orRock the Boat, then go ahead and try for them. The reason I say this isbecause they are often drain shots. Some people always go for them anyway(if nothing else than to get Biggest Liar!) for the Feeding Frenzy and Rockthe Boat. Rock the Boat is usually worth it, but Feeding Frenzy is onlyworth 35M. It's up to you.

Find out which LIE lane the ball goes up the most from the Jets, and keepthat lane the unlit one. (This is almost always the I, from what I've seenand heard.) You'll be much more likely to complete it faster if you avoidduplicate letters this way.

Thanks!

Here is a list of people to thank for comments/additions/corrections. Theorder is who mailed me first, then the order at which they appeared onr.g.p.

Chris Crywalt
Jens
Bowen Kerins
David Stewart
Christopher Hartman
Mark Phaedrus
Joe Schwartz

Thanks to these individuals for making this guide a more definitivereference (and the world a better place!).

Editor's Notes

HTML added by David Gersic dgersic_@_niu.edu
E-mail addresses have been expunged to prevent web-bot spamming, and Web links have been updated where possible.

Pinball Archive Rule Sheet: Fish Tales (2024)

References