There are two main sources of points on Black Rose. They are not mutually exclusive, and a single game can feature both:
Black Rose's skill shot is a precise power plunge that arcs across the playfield and hits any of the three yellow standup targets in the center of the playfield. (If you know Whirlwind's skill shot, you know how this works.) Making the skill shot scores 500,000 points and instantly opens the Cannon under the side ramp.
If you choose to ignore the skill shot, you have two options. Option 1 is to plunge even softer than the skill shot requires, getting the ball cleanly to the flipper and leaving open the possibility of a playfield validation ball save if you don't like the bounces and you scored no points. Option 2 is to full plunge, which (should) send the ball up the side ramp and around the back of the game, where you can use the upper flipper to repeatedly hit the side ramp and open the locker that way. I find option 2 to be the most consistent, but many competition players go for Option 1.
If the white lightning bolt inserts that run directly up the center of the table are flashing in sequence, Broadside is lit. Shoot the Broadside hole in the back center of the game to earn an award. The award you get is whichever one just flashed, but it rotates so quickly that it may as well be random. The 7 awards are:
All three video modes have 4 levels of increasing difficulty.
The three video modes and Polly Says pull their possible awards from the following list:
Immediately after collecting any Broadside award, the ball is dropped on the right flipper via the center rail and a Hurry-up begins. The hurry-up starts at 2,000,000 points and counts down to 500,000 over about 10 seconds before timing out. Collect this hurry-up at the Broadside hole of the lone Doubloon standup target in the lower right of the game just below where the plunge comes out. If you fail to collect this hurry-up, shooting the Broadside hole or the Doubloon will restart the hurry-up; you must collect a hurry-up to light another Broadside award.
If all 7 Broadside awards are collected, the next shot to the Broadside hole lights the Jackpot on the left ramp. The jackpot is a progressive jackpot that starts at 5,000,000 points. I do not know details about what causes the jackpot to raise or by how much; I believe the maximum is 30,000,000, and I know for sure that it increases and carries over across games until collected. If you light the jackpot, there's no reason not to pick it up, but the points you get from it can be pretty easily overshadowed by other things in the game.
Open the locker by making a skill shot, completing all 3 banks of standup targets, looping the side ramp a few times (starts at 2 shots, but can go as high as 6), or making the 3-Bank Rebound. The 3-Bank Rebound is a trick shot where the ball hits a yellow target, then bounces into a blue target, then bounces into a red target, all on one shot, which also scores 500,000 points. The Doubloon target in the lower right spots one target in one of the banks of standups whenever it is hit.
Once the locker is open, use the upper flipper to shoot under the now-raised side ramp to load the Cannon.
When the Cannon is loaded, several shots around the table will be lit at random, which can include the Lock lane, the left and right ramps, the right orbit, the Broadside hole, or any bank of standup targets. At this point, the pinball is currently under the playfield, and the Cannon will be swiveling. Hit the Fire button when the Cannon is aligned with a lit or flashing shot and the ball will be launched in that direction. If you successfully make a shot, you will be awarded one letter in Sink Ship alongside the prize shown when the cannon was loaded. If the standup target banks are among the lit shots, a Cannon blast that bounces between more than one bank or into the Broadside hole awards one letter for each of those that was hit.Prizes are usually given in this sequence:
If you load the cannon and miss, you have 20 seconds to shoot the ball back into the cannon for an Instant Reload. If you fail to reload the ball into the cannon within this time, you must go to the trouble of opening the cannon again from scratch by one of the methods listed at the top of this section.
The in and out lanes have inserts that combine to spell Lock. Rolling through an unlit lane lights it. Use the lane change feature on both flippers to rotate which lanes are lit so that you aren't forced to drain to finish spelling Lock. Shooting the Pirate's Cove shot in the far left of the game when it is not lit for anything else spots you a letter in Lock. Completing the Lock letters additional times when the Lock is already lit or during multiball itself increases your bonus multiplier up to a maximum of 9x.
Once Lock has been spelled, shoot Pirate's Cove to lock a ball and start 2-ball multiball. During multiball, three things are available to you:
Collect letters in Sink Ship by successfully making Cannon shots or multiball ramps. The game will spot 4, 3, 2, and 1 letter(s) on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ships respectively, but after that, you're on your own for all 8 letters. Once Sink Ship is spelled, shoot into the Cannon. On a Sink Ship chance, the only scoring Cannon shot is the Broadside hole, arguably the hardest one to hit. If you do, you sink a ship and score the appropriate bonus- 20,000,000 for the first ship, and 10,000,000 more for each subsequent ship. If there is a limit on the number of ships and the award, it is at least 20 ships, with the 20th ship award being 210,000,000 points. If you miss on a Sink Ship shot, you have as much time as you like to reload the locker for another chance; you cannot take a regular Cannon shot until you have sunk all the ships that have been qualified with Sink Ship completions (which can be more than one if you played a multiball and got enough letters to complete Sink Ship more than once). Sinking Ships should be the main goal of the game, so practice shooting the Broadside with the Cannon if you ever get a chance.
After sinking 2 ships, a Special is lit at the Cove lock shot and the right orbit. This special is lit for 30 seconds before timing out. If it goes uncollected, it will relight with a new 30 second timer by sinking another ship.
The first shot to this ramp scores 100,000 points and starts a 20 second timer. Subsequent shots score 200,000, then 300,000, then 400,000, then 1,000,000 + Extra Ball, then a flat 1,000,000, and each shot resets the timer. If the timer runs out when the ramp value is 400,000 or less, the ramp value will decrease one level and the 20 seconds starts over. If the timer runs out when the ramp value is 1,000,000, the ramp value instantly resets to its base value of 100,000. Only one extra ball can be obtained from the right ramp per ball in play. For a ramp shot to count, it must go all the way around the circular part and reach a switch in the sharp bend near the parrot in the middle-right of the game; otherwise, the shot falls off the habitrail into the pop bumpers and does not count as a Whirlpool Ramp.
At the start of each ball, pop bumpers score 1,000 per hit. Each right orbit shot increases this value by 1,000 up to a maximum of 15,000 per hit. When the bumpers are maxed out, right orbit shots score 1,000,000 points each for the rest of the ball, which is very difficult to do without the help of a Jet Bumpers at Max cannon award.
There is one Two way combo in the game: upper loop -> right orbit, which scores 500,000.
There are two Three way combos in the game: left ramp -> side ramp -> upper loop, or jet bumpers -> side ramp -> upper loop, which score 1,000,000.
The upper loop is the semi-hidden shot from the upper flipper above the side ramp but below the red standup targets. An upper loop shot spits the ball out of the Cove entrance on the far left.
Black Rose has a conventional in/out lane setup. There is no kickback or center post. The four in and out lanes combine to spell Lock. Roll through an unlit lane to light it, and use lane change to rotate in either direction which lanes are lit.
Black Rose was shipped with lightning flippers, which are flippers that are 2.875 inches long instead of the conventional 3 inches. That difference seems small, but is actually quite major; it can affect your shotmaking, how you catch the ball, and how you get control of multiple balls at once during multiball. Be mindful of this if you don't have a lot of experience with lightning flipper games.
The slingshot posts are quite far away from the flippers, so post transfers are much harder than usual. Most of the time, it is more consistent to use a tap pass, an alley pass, or a bailout shot of your choice to transfer the ball from one flipper to the other. Alley passes specifically can be very worthwhile on Black Rose since they get you letters toward Locks.
Standard bonus, referred to as Damage Bonus, is added to by every switch in the game and serves as an analogue of ball time. The Damage Bonus is multiplied by any bonus X award from completing the Lock lanes at the bottom of the playfield while Lock was already lit or multiball was running. Max bonus multiplier is 9x. Once those are taken care of, Hidden Treasure Bonus is added to the player's score, if applicable. None of the components of bonus or bonus multiplier can be carried over between balls, and there is no mid-ball bonus collect.
Like many other 90s Bally Williams games, the manual suggests that specials score 1,000,000 points in competition/novelty play, but I believe this to be incorrect. I have a faint memory of being told that specials actually score 20,000,000, but this may not be true, and I have not confirmed one way or the other. There is no setting that can assign a point value to extra balls.
The rate at which video modes or Polly Says can give an Extra Ball or Light Jackpot is operator adjustable. By default, the Extra Ball rate is 20% and the Light Jackpot rate is 15%.
Every single timer mentioned throughout this guide can be set to anywhere from either 1-99 or 5-99 seconds. The values listed in this guide are the factory default settings.
The Skill Shot can increase in difficulty so that after being made successfully, only one or two of the yellow targets work as a skill shot instead of all three.
By default, Broadside is lit for free at the start of each ball. This can be changed to be off at the start of each ball or have its status carried over from ball to ball.
The game can be set to not start you at level 1 on each of the three video modes, and a separate setting exists to make it so that video modes never get harder after being won.
The default settings in multiball where any ramp can award Sink Ship letters at any time are the easy settings. On Medium settings, only the left and right ramps score Sink Ship letters. On Hard settings, only one ramp (left or right) will be lit at a time for a letter in 2-ball play, and ramps in 3-ball play still only give one letter, with the only difference being that in 3-ball rules, both ramps are lit instead of just one.
By default, the flipper buttons can be used to control video modes in addition to the Fire button on the front bar of the game.
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