How to Play the Game of Pachinko

A patron either purchases balls from the service counter or puts money into the Pachinko machine, which then dispenses a number of balls into the upper tray on the front of the machine. The player then turns a knob that adjusts the amount of force used to fire the balls into the machine. The player must also touch a metal ring or some other firing mechanism to initiate the game.

As the balls are fired into the machine they pass down through the vertically mounted maze. The player’s objective is to get as many balls as possible into one of several pockets. The most important pocket is the centermost hole just under the video screen.

The secondary pockets award more metal balls to the player. The central pocket sends a metal ball to trigger a game on the video screen. Balls that drop into the pockets are lost. These are considered “played” balls. Balls that do not drop into pockets are returned to the player to be fired again. In this way if you do not win any more balls you’ll eventually use up your initial supply of balls and either end your game or purchase more balls.

The balls you win are dropped into a lower hopper on the front of the machine. You can either use these balls to refill the upper hopper or you can drop them into a collection basket that holds the balls until you are ready to exchange them at the service counter.

How the Video Game Works
When a ball drops into the central pocket and triggers a game sequence on the video screen, the film clips that were playing are replaced by a video game that looks like a slot machine. Usually three randomly selected symbols appear. If a winning combination forms you are paid more pachinko balls. Whereas the secondary pockets may award you 10-15 balls, the video game winning combinations can award you a far greater number.

Some winning combinations trigger special bonus games. These bonus games may award you even more pachinko balls. The more balls you win the better. However, there is a twist to the bonus game feature. Every now and then the spin results in two of three numbers matching each other. You need a third number to win the bonus. The number you need must fight a duel with another number that foils your luck. The numbers may be represented by Samurai or characters from the movie or television show upon which the game is based. For example, Yoda may fight Darth Vader in the Star Wars Pachinko game. This pre-bonus duel is called The Reach.

Because players can constantly fire balls into the game it is possible that more than one ball will enter the central pocket before the first video game has finished. The game records these triggering events in a queue of up to four games. After that point the machine simply ignores more successful hits until it has finished at least one video game. Players must therefore learn to stop firing the balls when their video game queues fill up.