Commit to one of two strategies: either try to always be in multiball, or work toward completing the Mansion with center ramp -> electric chair combos. To play multiballs, hit the Bookcase in the top right to spell Greed, then lock balls at the vault behind it once the bookcase swivels out of the way (or lock balls in other places if the DMD says you can). Bonus is a pretty significant portion of scoring, and scoring from timed modes is only added during the bonus, so take care not to tilt after a long ball or at the end of a good game.
The skill shot is a precise power plunge to the Thing's saucer in the top right of the game. The first skill shot scores 2,000,000 points, increasing by 1,000,000 each time to a maximum of 5,000,000. It is available any time a ball is in the shooter lane, including immediately after locks.
Shooting the electric chair scoop in the center of the playfield or the Swamp kickout in the lower right awards a Mansion room when lit. (If there is no yellow light next to the electric chair, shoot either ramp to qualify a Mansion room. The center Bear Kick ramp is almost always easiest.) The award will be whichever mansion room is flashing, which rotates with hits to the pop bumpers. The mansion rooms are:
In the Addams Family Gold re-release, some rooms have Cousin It Treasures, which score bonus points in addition to the room value.
Locks toward standard multiball cannot be made to Swamp, Vault, or Thing during Mansion room modes that use those features.
The center ramp awards 1 Bear Kick, or 2 if it had just been lit by a ball passing through the innermost left in lane. At 8 and 60 Bear Kicks, an extra ball is lit at Thing's Hideout. At 15 Bear Kicks and every 10th bear kick after that, a mansion room is spotted (but not the ? room, explained below). The Bear Kicks max out at 99: any additional center ramp shots after that just award the Super Bear Bonus of 5,000,000 points.
The 13th and final mansion room is always Tour the Mansion, the game's wizard mode. In Tour the Mansion, all of the mansion rooms are awarded again (sort of). The mode starts with an up-front 50,000,000 point award, lights the out lanes alternately for a special, lights the extra ball, and maxes out all the pop bumpers. Then, all of the timed mansion room modes will start automatically, one after the other, in the following order: The Mamushka, Hit Cousin It, Seance, Tunnel Hunt, Raise the Dead, Thing Multiball. If the ball drains during the Tour, it immediately ends and the next ball starts with a blank mansion. If all of the Tour modes are played and completed before the current ball ends, the Mansion will remain fully lit, and no more Mansion rooms can be collected on the current ball in any way.
Hit the Bookcase in the back right of the game to earn letters in the word Greed. Spelling Greed lights locks. On the first multiball, the Swamp entrance (upper left flipper shot), the Vault (behind the bookcase), and the Thing's Hideout (from the center lane shot) can all lock balls, and both the Vault and the electric chair will start multiball once two balls are locked. On the second multiball, only the Vault can lock the first two balls, but the electric chair and vaule can both still start multiball. For the third multiball and on, all locks and MB starts are at the Vault only.
During multiball, the goal is to hit either of the upper flipper shots- the side ramp or the Train Wreck lane just above the side ramp. Train Wreck scores a jackpot, and the side ramp scores a super jackpot. The jackpot value starts at 10,000,000 points, and increases by 1,000,000 up to a maximum of 25,000,000 every time the bookcase is hit or the center ramp is made. Collecting a jackpot resets its value to 10,000,000 points. The super jackpot at the side ramp is always a double jackpot during the first multiball of a game, and a triple jackpot in all other multiballs. Once the super jackpot has been made, the bookcase will swivel out of the way to reveal the Vault once again: shooting the Vault relights the super jackpot and restores the bookcase's position.
The Power runs whenever multiball is lit or when multiball is running. However, it will shut itself off after a certain amount of time passes with no switch hits, allowing a patient player to aim a shot. In competition play, The Power is usually disabled outright.
If no jackpots were hit before returning to single ball play, a multiball restart will be available for 20 seconds at Thing's Hideout. This is a 2-ball multiball that follows the standard multiball rules. Mansion rooms cannot be collected during the countdown clock for the multiball restart.
If the ball somehow lands in the Vault scoop without spelling Greed first, the game will immediately open the bookcase, and that will count as ball 1 being locked via a sneaky lock/dirty pool.
During regular gameplay, the side ramp scores Million-Plus, which starts at 2,000,000 points and increases to a maximum of 10,000,000 points during the current ball. The side ramp also spots a letter in Grave from around the playfield, and lights a letter in Thing on the backbox of the game. Immediately after making a left orbit shot between the pop bumpers, the side ramp will be lit for Light Star briefly, which lights one of the stars next to the word Thing on the backbox. When Thing is spelled, shooting Thing's Hideout via the center lane scores 5,000,000 the first time, 10,000,000 the second time, and 15,000,000 the third time, plus an additional 5,000,000 for each lit star, before unlighting all stars and letters.
5 switches are designated as the Grave letter targets around the playfield. G and R are standup targets in the lower left; A is the post target just between the Thing's Hideout and center ramp shots; V is the center ramp itself; E is the swamp kickout shot in the lower right. Make the shot associated with an unlit letter to light it and advance the status of one of the game's 5 pop bumpers. Spell Grave to earn an award that starts at 2,000,000 points, increases by 1,000,000 for each subsequent completion of Grave, and maxes at 10,000,000 over the course of the game. The side ramp also always spots a Grave letter for free.
The Graveyard value, scored by shooting the Swamp entrance (typically from the upper left flipper), starts at 1,000,000 points at the beginning of each ball. It is raised by 10,000 for hitting an unlit bumper, 20,000 for hitting a lit bumper, and 30,000 for hitting an unlit bumper, up to a maximum of 4,000,000 points. The Graveyard at Max mansion room instantly advances all 5 bumpers to flashing status, but does not instantly increase the graveyard value to 4,000,000.
A small hidden switch just above the upper left flipper lights 5X Graveyard for a few seconds. During this time, making the Swamp entrance hole scores 5X the Graveyard value (max of 20,000,000), and the near miss targets on either side score 1,000,000. It's possible to hit these targets more than once in a single activation of 5X Graveyard.
When the ball rolls through the far left in lane, the center ramp will be lit for Thing Flips. This will redirect the ball to that upper left flipper, guaranteeing a start of 5X Graveyard, and then the machine will autoflip the ball toward the Swamp. The game tries to be about 50% accurate with the Swamp shots (though it can be much better or much worse depending on the individual table), and recalibrates its timing on a near miss.
The left orbit can be lit for Advance Bonus X briefly after going through the right in lane. Bonus X maxes out at 5x. This left orbit always lights the side ramp for a Star whether the Bonus X chance was lit or not.
The lane shootable from the upper flipper just above the side ramp is the Train Wreck lane. The first Train Wreck is awarded after 2 hits to this target: each successive Train Wreck over the course of the game needs one more hit than the last, or a maximum of 6 hits. The target scores 1,000,000 points, or 5,000,000 if the Train Wreck collect is ready. Collecting a Train Wreck holds the Graveyard value over to the next ball. Collecting 4 Train Wrecks in one game lights an extra ball at Thing's Hideout.
A Three way combo worth 5,000,000 points can be earned by making, in sequence, center ramp -> left orbit -> side ramp, or by making left orbit -> side ramp -> Swamp entrance. Combining these together to form center ramp -> left orbit -> side ramp -> Swamp entrance is a Four way combo worth an additional 10,000,000 points (awarded on top of the 5,000,000 you got from the Three way combo that the first three shots made up).
The Addams Family has a conventional in/out lane setup, but with two separate in lanes on the left side instead of 1. The out lanes are lit alternately for a special by starting Tour the Mansion. The far left in lane lights the center ramp for Thing Flips. The near left in lane lights the center ramp for 2 Bear Kicks (which does nothing once Bear Kicks are maxed out). The right in lane lights the electric chair for a mansion room or lights the left orbit for advance bonus X. Everything lit from an in lane (left or right) is only available for about 3 seconds, and pretty much needs to be collected immediately with the next use of the corresponding flipper.
Bonus is scored as 100,000 points per bear kick (max 99), plus 500,000 points per mansion room collected (no max, see below), all times the bonus multiplier: then, scoring from Mamushka, Cousin It, or Raise the Dead is added at the end. Bonus multiplier is collected by making the left orbit between the bumpers immediately after the ball goes through the right in lane.
If over 100 mansion rooms are collected during a game, the DMD will display the number in a slightly wonky way, due to the text overflowing the sides of the display slightly. The bonus will still be calculated correctly up to 198 mansion rooms being worth 99,000,000 points, though. However, if more mansion rooms past that are collected, the odd numbered mansion rooms award 500,000 as expected, but even numbered mansion rooms add 99,500,000 to the bonus, due to what I can only assume is a bug. This gets out of hand very quickly, with the highest total I've seen (227 rooms) giving 1,499,500,000 points in bonus. I do not know what happens at 255 rooms, but that's probably where the counter maxes out. Naturally, only 13 mansion rooms are available on a single ball, so this would require an amazingly good player having a lot of patience and playing a lot of extra balls, but still, it's there.
In competition/tournament play, specials score 1,000,000 points. Extra balls cannot be set to have a point value, and are either on or off. The maximum number of extra balls a player can earn on a single ball or have in reserve at any time can be set to any value from 0 to 10.
The first Bear Kick extra ball is lit at between 4 and 12 kicks, and the second is lit at between 30 and 99 kicks (default 8 and 50).
The jackpot value can be set to carry over between multiballs for a single player. Even if this is on, the jackpot will still reset to 10,000,000 points after a collect.
The Million-Plus on the side ramp can be set to build its value over the whole game or be set to 1,000,000 at the beginning of each ball (default is the latter). Also, the max value of Million-Plus can be set to anywhere from 5,000,000 to 20,000,000.
The hurry-up value for Thing Multiball can be set to anywhere from 10,000,000 to 20,000,000.
The Swamp kickout can be set not to award mansion rooms even when the electric chair is lit.
All lit extra balls, specials, and lit Quick Multiball can individually be set to carry over or turn off between balls if not collected before the ball drains.
The 3 Million and 6 Million mansion rooms can have their tie cut, forcing each to be collected separately. This does not apply to the Gold edition of the game, where the 3 Million room is the Trap Door.
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