Rules Sheet for Swords Of Fury, v0.0, (c) B. Elmore, [email protected].

ObLegal: Swords Of Fury is undoubtedly (c) Williams, etc. etc.
I believe it was released in 1987, but I'm not 100% certain of that.

Playfield features: 2-level machine, 4 flippers, 2 ramps.  Kickback on
left side.  Normal inlanes and lower flipper setup.  No jet bumpers
anywhere on the machine!  Upper playfield is small and in upper-left:
one right-side-type mini flipper and 5 drop targets of an unusual kind
across the top; more about this later.  Full-sized left flipper just
to the left of center high up on the machine.

Like most games of this era, it has 7-digit scoring, and a jackpot
that ranges in value from 500K to 4M, held over from game to game
slowly building till collected.  When collected, the jackpot drops to
500K and builds from there; when a game (or multiple games at once)
finish and credits are 0, the jackpot increases to a minimum of 1.5M.
Again, like other games of this era, scoring rolls over at 9,999,990,
and any score that exceeds this is automatically given #1 on the high
scoreboard and displayed as 9,999,999 no matter what the final score
is or what the final scores of the other games on the high scoreboard
were.  Replay does not autoincrement after a game where replay is
obtained, unlike newer machines.  In fact, replay will only adjust by
100K at a time, no matter how badly it needs to be adjusted, and
replay is always xx00K points.  During the game, once 10M is reached,
only the rightmost 7 digits of the score are displayed.  If replay+10M
is reached, another replay is awarded, similarly for replay+20M, and I
presume for all further ones.

High on the right side of the top half machine is a plastic gate
system that can direct a ball sent into it down one of 3 paths; it's
reached by the center ramp or by the plunger.  The mechanism is
similar to that across the top of High Speed.  The first path sends
the ball across the machine on a habitrail into the upper playfield.
The second sends the ball across the playfield on a parallel habitrail
into the ball lock; if another ball is already there, it's ejected
before the first lands (if the sensor is functioning properly), and if
no ball is there, it's locked as Ball 1 locked.  The third path drops
the ball back onto the upper part of the lower playfield, above the
upper flipper, and awards a bonus multiplier increment, if it is less
than 7x.

The algorithm for which gate is open at any given time is somewhat
complicated to explain, but becomes intuitive after some play.  The
first few times the ball is sent down path 1.  After this the ball is
sent down path 2, and path 1 is lit briefly.  Path 2 is again lit
after path 1 is successfully shot or timed out.  After a few times of
this it's sent down path 3 a few times, then back to path 1, etc.


The upper playfield can be reached via the first path from the center
ramp (or plunger), or from the right ramp.  It consists of a
mini-flipper and 5 drop targets across the top, with lights above
each.  Unlike most drop targets, there's nothing immediately behind
them; a ball that goes through where a dropped target is falls off the
back of the upper playfield and exits onto the lower playfield through
the same exit that locked balls exit, onto the upper flipper on the
main playfield.  Early in the game, dropped targets pop back up almost
immediately, and as the game progresses they come back less quickly.
All five need only be collected once to collect the value for the set,
whether they are up or down.  Once the final one is collected, all
five will again pop back up, no matter how long or short they've been
down.  A score from 50K to 250K is awarded via a scheme as follows:
the initial value is 150K (?), and drops by 50K whenever the ball
leaves the upper playfield, and raises by 50K whenever the U-Turn is
shot.  (is this right?)  A bonus multiplier is awarded, and if the
multiplier is to 7x, special is lit for the next one (on harder
settings, 2 more may have to be collected before special is lit).

The upper playfield is also used to collect jackpot in multiball.  Its
normal function is suspended until jackpot is collected or multiball
ends.


The center ramp is used to advance and collect Lionman.  It starts out
at 100K, is advanced 25K by shooting it the first time, 50K the
second, 75K the third, 100K the fourth, to a maximum of 1M.  Thus it
can have the values 100K, 125K, 175K, 250K, 350K, 475K, 625K, 800K,
and 1M.  Lionman is lit by spelling AVENGER.  I forget whether
collecting Lionman resets its value to 100K, I believe it does.

The Lionman value is not multiplied by the playfield multiplier during
multiball.


Seven round contact targets are scattered around the main playfield
spelling AVENGER: two on the upper left above the upper flipper, three
to the right of the upper flipper and above and to the left of the
right ramp, and two below and to the right of the right ramp (and
above the right outlane area).  Hitting the apropriate one spots the
corresponding letter.  Making the return lanes (labelled with *) spots
the next letter in AVENGER and lights the right ramp to spell out
AVENGER.  (Thus if the * gives you the last letter in AVENGER, making
the right ramp immediately afterwards can collect 2 AVENGERs quickly).
Making AVENGER scores 50K, 150K, 250K and then Extra Ball, resetting
to 50K afterwards.  Multiple extra balls can be collected this way
simply by making sufficiently many AVENGERs.  AVENGER also lights the
center ramp for Lionman.

The AVENGER value resets to 50K after each ball, unless it's on Extra
Ball, in which case it stays there until collected.  If ball 1 and 2
are very low-scoring (score after ball 2 of around 400K or less), the
AVENGER value is advanced to Extra Ball at the start of ball 3, as a
"pity" award.


The left tunnel (Titan?) is shot to lock balls.  It is always lit to
lock balls except during multiball itself.  Multiball starts after the
3rd ball is locked.  At the start of multiball the drop targets are
raised on the upper playfield, and all 3 balls are kicked out.  A
roving light moves back and forth on the drop targets that are still
up on the upper playfield; hitting this target awards jackpot.  While
3 balls remain on the playfield, all playfield scores excluding the
jackpot and Lionman are multiplied by 3; after 1 ball drains and 2
balls remain all scores are multiplied by 2 with the same exceptions.
Jackpot on the upper playfield goes away as soon as multiball ends.

There is a spinner at the entrance to the Titan tunnel, with lights
under it reading 1000, 1500 and 2000.  I don't know what controls its
value, but I suspect it's tied to the bonus multiplier somehow.

The lower exit from the upper playfield underneath the mini-flipper
drops the ball halfway up the Titan tunnel, where it falls toward the
lower flippers.

Starting multiball also relights the kickback.  This is the only way
kickback can be relit, except for draining the ball.


After a player's score reaches 2M (this score seems to be fixed
regardless of the replay value), the game does several things to
increase game difficulty.  Lionman on the center ramp times out very
quickly (within about 3 seconds), as does scoring AVENGER on the right
ramp.  There are some other things that happen as well, I believe, but
I can't remember what they are.


Low on the left center of the machine is the U-turn.  It has two
spinners, one in front of each entrance.  Unlike the U-turn in Black
Knight 2000, it isn't buried back under anything.  Each spinner adds
200 to your bonus, and can be lit for 3x for a little while (600 to
bonus) by the star on the return lanes.  They also advance the clear
droptarget value on the upper playfield.


Behind the upper ramp, there's another u-turn with entrances on either
side of the upper ramp named Ogres Alley.  One side is lit to advance
its value, and the other side to collect.  The values are
xx-xx-xx-xx-100K-500K; it can be collected at 500K only once per game.
Since Ogres Alley values are multiplied by the playfield multiplier,
it's often a good strategy to save collecting it at 500K until the
start of multiball, so it can be collected for 1.5M instead.  When
it's at its maximum value, one side is lit to collect and the other is
unlit.  The sides are exchanged by the slingshot kickers.  Both
outlanes are also part of Ogres Alley, and mimic their upper-playfield
counterparts.


Please send corrections and additions to [email protected].