Not to be confused with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Stern Pinball, 2020).
Multiball is started by completing all 4 banks of standup targets. A bank can be completed in a single shot by hitting the moving flashing target when the other two targets in the bank are unlit; otherwise, you must hit all 3 targets in the bank. Every 7 shots to either of the left ramps will spell Turtles and start Twin Millions, where the goal is to shoot both ramps within a short time limit (ideally yellow then green, for the easier combo) for 1,000,000 each followed by a shot to the sewer lane worth 10,000,000. Always be working toward one of these features.
The ball must be plunged manually, but anything short of a full plunge will not put the ball in play. The plunge feeds the ball to the right in lane. Both left ramps are lit for 250,000 points times the number of the current ball in play. The skill shot chance ends if any switch other than one of the ramps or one of the in lanes is registered. The yellow ramp feeds the ball to the right in lane, and the green ramp feeds the ball to the left in lane. The skill shot can be scored on both ramps in the same ball; it's far easier to do this by shooting the yellow first so that the ball comes to the right flipper for an immediate chance at the green.
The game's two ramps are right next to each other in the upper left of the playfield. The yellow ramp is on the left and directs the ball to the right flipper. The green ramp on the right directs the ball to the left flipper. Any shot to either ramp scores 50,000 points and lights the next letter in the word Turtles on the back of the game. 7 total ramps spells Turtles and starts Twin Millions mode.
Twin Millions is initially a 14-second mode. You must shoot both the yellow and green ramps within this time for 1,000,000 points each. Subsequent playthroughs of Twin Millions have their timer decreased by 2 seconds for each 1,000,000 collected in the game so far, down to a minimum of 5 seconds. Unless the left flipper is so strong that it can backhand the yellow ramp, it's strongly recommended to shoot the yellow ramp first so that the ball comes to the right flipper for an immediate shot to the green ramp. If you do manage to shoot both ramps before time runs out, you'll be given a 10 second timer to shoot the Sewer lane for 10,000,000 points, the highest single award in the game. Try to make the most of the first time through Twin Millions, since if you make one or both ramps and fail the 10,000,000 shot, future Twin Millions will just get harder.
After passing the replay score, the green ramp will be lit for Victory Lap for 10 seconds. Shoot it during this time for 3,000,000 points.
One of the captive ball awards lights the yellow ramp for Looping. The next shot to this ramp scores 500,000 points and starts the Looping combo. You are given 5 seconds to shoot the yellow ramp again. If you succeed, it will be worth 50,000 more than the previous shot. This lasts until you miss with no limit that I have encountered. If you break the record for Loops on the yellow ramp, you get to enter your initials.
The four banks of standup targets each correspond to one of the four ninja turtles: purple for Donatello in the lower left, red for Raphael in the middle left, orange for Michaelangelo in the center, and blue for Leonardo on the right. At the start of the game or immediately after multiball, just one of the three targets in each bank will be flashing, and the flashing light will move every few seconds. If you hit the flashing target, that bank is instantly marked as completed. If not, you must now hit the other two targets in that bank to complete it. Flashing targets score 10,000 points. Lit or unlit targets score 5,000 points. Completing 3 different banks for the first multiball, and all 4 banks after that, lights the Sewer lane for multiball.
Putting one ball in the Sewer when it is lit for Release is all it takes to start multiball. Two balls will be autoplunged to the playfield. Priority 1 is to immediately put one of the three balls back into the Sewer; it will not be held there, but doing this lights the two ramps for Jackpots. Once per multiball, shooting the Sewer will also re-add a third ball back into play in case one of the three drained before the jackpots could be lit. Both jackpots start at 2,000,000 points. The jackpots steadily increase by about 200,000 points per second for as long as the multiball continues without collecting them; they can be as high as 4,000,000 points. However, if more than about 3 seconds pass without a switch being hit anywhere in the game, the jackpot will start going down instead, and bottoms out at 1,000,000 points, meaning you can't cheese a larger jackpot by just trapping two or three balls on the flippers. The jackpots are untimed and can be collected at any point until the multiball ends. Each ramp's jackpot can only be collected once. After both ramp jackpots have been collected, there are no multiball-specific features left to play; jackpots cannot be relit. The best thing to do now is trap one or two balls up on the left flipper and use the right flipper + the remaining ball to shoot ramps all day and work toward Twin Millions mode. Twin Millions can be started and played during multiball. Banks of standup targets can also be re-completed during multiball, but this does not count as progress toward the next multiball once the current one drains.
5 switches in the captive ball lane each score 10,000 points, so a full hit to the captive ball is worth 50,000. A full hit to the captive ball also gives the Splinter Award shown on the backglass. This can be:
The game randomly picks one of these six awards to light at the beginning of the ball, and randomly picks a new one when one is collected. There is no skill based way to change the lit Splinter award that I could find. I've also never seen the game pick Instant 3 Ball or Lite Extra Ball, ever, but they must just be generally rare since there don't seem to be game settings that assign specific probabilities to those options.
In general, I think it's better to just shoot ramps than bother with the surprisingly-precise captive ball and the possible out of control return feeds.
When not lit for anything else, the Sewer gives its own mystery award, taken from this list:
The right spinner is the April target. I believe it scores 1,000 points per spin, but it's impossible to know for sure because the entire DMD always displays an animation of someone's eyes while the spinner is spinning.
A full shot to the right spinner that hits the Save April target in the back of the game immediately after making the left in lane, or a full shot to the captive ball immediately after a right in lane, is called an Awesome Shot. Making an Awesome Shot scores and advances the values shown between the flippers: 75,000, 100,000, 125,000, 150,000, Light Awesome Scoring, Light Super Awesome Scoring. Progress on this ladder is carried from ball to ball until you have played one of the Awesome Scoring modes at least once; after that, it resets back to the 75,000. Awesome Scoring and Super Awesome Scoring are both lit at the Sewer lane. Progress on the Awesome Shot awards is reset after playing either flavor of Awesome Scoring, so to play Super Awesome Scoring, you must avoid the Sewer that is lit for regular Awesome Scoring and make another Awesome Shot first. I don't believe there's any specific award for making an Awesome Shot when Super Awesome Scoring is already lit.
Awesome Scoring and Super Awesome Scoring are 20-second frenzy modes. You get 100,000 points just for starting it, and then for 20 seconds, all switches anywhere in the game are worth 50,000 points for Awesome Scoring or 100,000 points for Super Awesome Scoring. (Note: the game manual indicates that the time limit for Awesome Scoring should be 14 seconds on factory settings and cannot be set to be longer than 18, but I have only ever seen Awesome Scoring start with 20 or 21 seconds on the clock.) The ideal outcome here is a very hard shot to the spinner that also ends up with the ball getting stuck in the pop bumpers for a while. Points earned during Awesome Scoring, including the 100,000 point startup bonus, are not given right away- they are part of the end of ball bonus. Absolutely do not tilt a ball where you've played any kind of Awesome Scoring! It's very easy for a single round of Awesome Scoring to be worth more than the entire multiplied end of ball bonus, even if the base bonus was maxed out at 200,000. If Awesome Scoring is played multiple times in one ball, all scoring from all of the playthroughs is added together and given at once in that ball's bonus.
The pizza in front of the ramps is part of the playfield, and will spin for 5-10 seconds after a ramp or in lane is registered. It doesn't seem to have as much impact on the ball's movement as the roto-discs on Whirlwind or the Fireball games, but it is definitely there and should be respected as one more thing that sends the ball out of control.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has a conventional in/out lane setup. Out lanes score Big Value, which is randomly worth 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, or 100,000 points, and give 5 bonus advances. On the final ball of the game, one of the out lanes will be lit for Last Chance, alternating with slingshot hits or anytime a flipper is pressed. Last Chance is a one-time-use ball save.
In lanes score 20,000 points and 2 bonus advances, and qualify Awesome Shots as described above.
No center peg or out lane kickback (rather unusual for Data East at this time).
I am not sure exactly what advances base bonus other than 5 advances from the out lanes and 2 from the in lanes. Presumably, standup targets and ramps give some amount of bonus as well at least. Max base bonus is 200,000 points. Bonus multipliers can only be earned as random awards from Splinter at the captive ball, or the Sewer lane. Max bonus multiplier is 8x, for a max total bonus of 1,600,000. All scoring from any Awesome Scoring modes is added to the end of the bonus and is not affected by bonus multiplier. Base bonus can be held by one of the Sewer's mystery awards. Bonus multiplier can never be carried from ball to ball. There is no mid-ball bonus collect. Hold Bonus does not carry over any Awesome Scoring points. End of ball bonus tends not to be too meaningful unless a lot of multipliers are scored or an Awesome Scoring mode was played.
In the style of an early 1980s Williams game, a 20-second bonus ball is awarded to the winner of a multiplayer game. All of the game's regular rules apply; the game will constantly autoplunge pinballs for thw entire 20 seconds, including unlimited ball save, before locking the flippers when time expires.
I am not aware of a way to set extra balls or specials to have a point value for competition/novelty settings.
On Easy mode, Turtles letters toward Twin Millions mode are a carryover award, persisting between players and games. On hard settings, all players lose Turtles progress at the start of each ball, and it will always take 7 ramp shots in a single turn to play Twin Millions.
The first multiball can require completing 2, 3, or 4 of the standup target banks. Subsequent multiballs always need one more than the previous (maximum of 4, obviously).
The initial Twin Millions timer can be set to 10, 12, 14, 16, or 18 seconds. Default is 14. Regardless of this setting, the timer for Twin Millions modes after the first will always be decreased by 2 seconds per 1,000,000 ramp scored, down to a minimum of 5 seconds.
On hard settings, the targets in each bank of standups will need to be hit in order for the bank to be considered completed.
The ability for the Sewer shot to add the 3rd ball back to the playfield alongside lighting the jackpots can be disabled.
The Winner's Circle bonus ball can be disabled.
Awesome Shot progress can be set to always carry from ball to ball or never carry from ball to ball, instead of only carrying until an Awesome Scoring mode is played once.
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