Hit the Genie to start modes and light locks. Lock two balls then hit Genie for multiball. In multiball, Genie scores jackpots, loops relight them. During modes, follow the lit shots then shoot the ramp to collect jewels.
Every 15 lamp spins is a bonus carryover, lights a Wish at the Bazaar, and starts Lightning Lamp. Wishes can spot jewels toward wizard mode or increase lightning lamp scoring, up to a maximum of 600,000/spin in the very late game.
4 jewels or 6 tiger loops lights extra ball.
The plunger sends the ball up a ramp toward three holes. On the DMD, the holes will be depicted by pots, with a snake sticking out of one of them. Plunge the ball into the hole that corresponds to the pot with the snake in it. The first successful skill shot scores 50,000 points, and successive skill shots score 25,000 more than the previous, to a maximum of 125,000.
Making the Skill Shot qualifies the Super Skill Shot. The ball must be one-timed to the ramp as soon as it is fed to the flippers. The ball does not need to go all the way up the ramp; just tripping the entry switch scores the Super Skill Shot. The Super Skill Shot is worth double the value of the Skill Shot that was just made.
In single ball play when no mode is running, hitting the Genie starts one of the Tales. The princess trapped in a bottle will flash on the playfield to denote this. The seven modes are:
There are 5 Golden Symbols around the playfield: the lower left targets, both orbits, the ramp, and the standup targets behind the lamp.
Most modes can be completed rather easily and in just a couple shots. However, the reward for completing the mode- a jewel- is not given until the ramp is shot, and a new mode cannot be started until the jewel for the previous one is collected. Jewels can also be awarded from Make A Wish, explained later. Jewels score 100,000 points plus an additional 10,000 for each spin of the Lamp that has occurred since the last Jewel was collected. Starting a Genie mode after collecting all 7 jewels will start Rescue the Princess- the game's wizard mode, also explained later.
Each spin to the Lamp scores 750 points and adds one spin to the counter. Spins made while a Genie mode is running also increase the value of the next jewel by 10,000 points each. When the spin counter reaches a multiple of 15, a Wish is granted, and Lightning Lamp begins.
During Lightning Lamp, an 8-second timer begins. Each spin of the Lightning Lamp scores the Lightning Value and resets the 8-second timer. The Lightning Lamp value is 50,000 points during the first time that the mode runs, and an additional 25,000 for each subsequent activation of the Lightning Lamp, maxing out at 200,000 points per spin. During Lightning Lamp, jewels and Make a Wish can be collected, but new modes cannot be started and lamp spins do not add to the spin counter or work toward a new Make a Wish.
The Lamp Bonus scored at the end of the ball is equal to 10,000 points times the current lamp count. Up to 119 spins can be counted, for a maximum of 1,190,000 in this bonus (before the multiplier!). The spin counter is reset back to the most recent multiple of 15 between balls- for example, any spin count between 45 and 59 will be reset back to 45. The inserts on the table reading 15, 30, and 60 denote when a checkpoint has been hit.
During Genie multiball, each spin of the lamp increases the jackpot by 25,000 points.
When Make a Wish is not lit, the Bazaar gives a mystery award when lit. The Bazaar is lit at the start of the game: to use the mystery award additional times, the word Bazaar must be spelled first. Bazaar letters are given by hitting any standup target outside of a mode, or shooting the Bazaar scoop when it is not lit for anything. At first, each target or saucer shot spots 3 letters: after subsequent uses of the Bazaar, targets and saucers will spot 2 or just 1 letter(s) each. The Bazaar mystery can be any of the following:
The Extra Ball awards are only considered if it is the final ball of the game and the player's balls up to that point have been shorter than average in length. The Bazaar Mystery cannot be collected if Make a Wish is lit.
Reaching a 15-spin checkpoint on the Lamp spin counter, or collecting 15 Lamp Spins or Light Make a Wish, will light the Bazaar saucer for Make a Wish. Make a Wish can be "lit" multiple times: up to 3, fittingly, as shown by the lamp inserts near the left slingshot. Lighting Make a Wish multiple times just means that it will be able to be shot again immediately after collecting a Wish award.
Make a Wish presents the player with a choice.
The left flipper option is always a Jewel collect: it will collect the Jewel of the current mode if one is running, or the flashing mode if no mode is running. If the Ruby has been lit by qualifying both Shooting Stars with Make a Wish lit, the left flipper will collect 2 jewels instead of 1. If all 7 jewels have been collected, the left option will start Genie Battle for free.
The right flipper is semi-random, giving different awards based on what else is available in the game:
The correct Make a Wish choice is almost always the jewel. The only other awards to consider taking are Extra Ball, the Collect Bonus if the lamp spin count and the multiplier are high, 3 Tiger Loops if doing so would light an extra ball, or 3X Lightning Lamp in the late game. My preferred strategy for the whole game, which I think is underrated, revolves around starting Lightning Lamp 7 separate times, then using 3X Lightning Lamp to make the magic lamp be worth 600,000 points per spin, and whaling on it until the cows come home.
Five hits to the Genie spells the word Genie, which lights locks. A ball can then be locked at either orbit. (The first ball can also be locked by shooting into the lock lane, between the Lamp and the Bazaar, but this is not recommended.) For the first multiball, one spelling of Genie lights both locks, but after that, Genie needs to be spelled for each lock. When two balls are locked, shoot the Genie again: his magnet will activate, pulling the ball under the table and starting 3-ball multiball. The first ball is kicked out from the Bazaar, and the other two are released from the lock lane near the Lamp.
During multiball, Jackpots are pretty much the only available scoring feature. Shoot the Genie to collect a jackpot when he is lit. If he is not, shoot whichever orbit has the Lock arrow flashing (it could be either one, or both) to relight the Jackpot. The Jackpot starts at 1,000,000 points, and increases by 25,000 points for each spin of the Magic Lamp during the multiball. If there is a maximum jackpot value, it is at least 1,600,000. Lamp spins that advance the jackpot value do not count toward the spin counter or Lightning Lamp in any way. There is no Super Jackpot or any other kind of progression available during multiball.
If two of the three balls drain and single ball play is restored without collecting any jackpots, a multiball restart is available for 20 seconds at the Bazaar scoop. This shot will restart multiball with 2 balls by feeding one more ball to the plunger lane.
Harem multiball can be started in two ways:
Harem Multiball is a three-ball frenzy multiball where every switch in the game scores the Harem value. The Harem value is 10,000 points, plus an additional 1,000 for every pop bumper hit over the course of the game. Pop bumpers hit during Harem multiball increase the Harem value by 5,000 each instead of 1,000. If there is a limit to the Harem award, it is at least 750,000. This can be quite good value if the ball has ended up in the pop bumpers a few times during the game, and is part of an exploit called Harem-Genie stack (explained later). Most of the time, though, a Harem multiball will not outscore a Genie multiball.
The Fireball is lit by shooting the left saucer a certain number of times- 2 for the first fireball, and an additional 1 for future fireballs. The base fireball value is 200,000 points times the number of saucer hits that were needed to qualify that fireball, but the saucers can still be hit after the fireball is lit to advance the value further. If there is a max fireball value, it is at least 1,000,000 points.
The fireball value is actually a hurry-up, and the hurry-up is started by shooting the ramp when fireball is lit. Shoot the genie to collect the hurry-up; over about 25 seconds, the value will tick down from the starting value down to 25,000 points, then end after a brief grace period. There are two ways to restart the hurry-up: shoot the left saucer to restart the hurry-up and add 200,000 points to the starting value, or use Make a Wish to triple the fireball value.
It's not worth making fireball progress into a strategy, but the ball will end up in the saucers a fair few times over the course of the game, and if the fireball happens to come up in gameplay, don't ignore it.
Going through an in lane will cause one of the orbits to light purple for a Tiger Loop. Shooting a loop that is not lit purple will also light it, allowing for a loop combo to score consecutive Tiger Loops. At 6 and 20 Tiger loops, an extra ball will be lit on the right orbit. (There may be more: I haven't seen them.) Extra ball is also lit at the right orbit by collecting 4 of the 7 jewels from modes/Make a Wish.
Shooting the genie or taking the left option from Make a Wish after all 7 jewels have been collected starts Rescue the Princess, this game's wizard mode. It has two parts.
In part 1, the goal is to shoot Golden Symbol shots repeatedly to destroy the skeletons that the Genie summons on the DMD. This phase can be completed very quickly with good shooting, but regardless, the genie will slow down his summoning and the mode will end after around 8-10 Golden Symbol shots. Draining during this part of the mode allows you to continue your progress on the next ball, if you have one. The last skeleton will require one of the lock shots, as the game will lock a ball to prepare for part 2 of Rescue the Princess.
Part 2 starts with a fantastic message on the DMD: "Unlimited Balls Until Someone Wins". Repeatedly shoot Golden Symbol shots! At the start of this mode, and whenever a ball drains, it will constantly be fed to the shooter lane. Get it back into play as quickly as possible, because the Genie pulls the Princess closer to him faster (i.e. accelerates toward winning) if a ball is left sitting in the shooter lane. Every Golden Symbol shot pulls the princess a little bit toward you, and as time passes, the genie will pull the princess toward him. If the Genie takes the Princess back, the mode ends with the Genie winning, all balls will drain, and you start over with a new ball in the shooter lane and a quest to get all 7 jewels again. If you pull the Princess all the way to your side, the game still locks the flippers and allows the balls to drain, but this time with a fantastic animation and sound package and awards of 20,000,000 points and both out lane specials being lit. Then, you start over, hoping to duplicate the feat. (Unlike many other games from the mid-1990s, 20,000,000 points is a massive sum- the replay score is frequently in the 6-8 million range.)
Tales of the Arabian Nights has a conventional in/out lane setup. Out lanes are lit for special after completing Rescue the Princess. In lanes cannot be lit for anything in particular, but they do light the opposite orbit for a Tiger Loop.
There is a saver similar in function to a magna-save called the Shooting Star that traps a ball above the mouth of the in lane to prevent it from going toward the out lane. The Shooting Stars can be lit by the standup targets on the same side: lower left targets for the left shooting star, targets behind the lamp for the right shooting star. Hitting any target in the bank lights the shooting star. The Shooting Stars can be used repeatedly, but time out after a few seconds. If a Shooting Star is lit but the pins themselves fail to capture the ball for any reason and the ball drains, a brief compensation ball save is awarded! Lighting both Shooting Stars at the same time while Make a Wish is lit will in turn light the Ruby, which allows the next trip to Make a Wish to collect 2 jewels instead of 1.
The base end of ball bonus is equal to (10,000 points times the current lamp spin count, max 119) plus (10,000 points per Genie hit over the course of the game) plus (50,000 points for each jewel collected over the course of the game), all multiplied by the bonus multiplier. The bonus multiplier is advanced by hitting a lit captive ball outside of multiball or Cyclops mode. Bonus multipliers can also be awarded at the Bazaar. Max bonus multiplier is 12X. Bonus multiplier is not carried from ball to ball unless the Hold Bonus X award from the Bazaar was collected. At the end of a ball, after the bonus is collected, the lamp spin count is reset back to a multiple of 15, making it just a little harder to start the next Lightning Lamp.
Bonus is massive on Tales of the Arabian Nights, so don't tilt, especially late in a game! Just the lamp spins part of the bonus in conjunction with the bonus multiplier can be millions of points even in a game that is only average or decent. Be mindful of what the bonus multiplier is (since it's not displayed anywhere except the instant info) and what you may be losing out on by tilting.
Specials score 1,000,000 points on competition/novelty settings. I am not aware of any settings that assign a point value to extra balls; they would likely be disabled outright in tournaments.
The lamp spins count can be set to carry over the full count instead of resetting to a multiple of 15.
The first tiger loop extra ball can be set to light at any value between 3 and 9. The second extra ball can only be disabled or enabled, and is always at 20 loops if enabled.
Lit extra balls and lit Make a Wishes can be set not to carry over between balls (they do, by default).
The Genie magnet can start a brief ball save when it deactivates, as an anti-frustration measure protecting against the Genie throwing the ball SDTM.
There is a well-known scoring exploit in this game known as the Harem-Genie stack that makes TOTAN not extremely viable for tournament play. The gist is that, due to what is likely a bug, the rules for the Harem Multiball frenzy mode where every switch scores points can be brought into the Unlimited-Balls-until-Someone-Wins second phase of the wizard mode, allowing players to achieve much higher than intended scores by intentionally prolonging the wizard mode.
To perform the exploit, Sinbad and the Rocs needs to be the final Genie mode started toward Rescue the Princess. Also, be sure Make a Wish is lit and that only the M in Harem has not been collected. To trigger the glitch, shoot the left orbit to collect the M in Harem, then hit a pop bumper. The Sinbad and the Rocs mode prevents the magnet that would normally start Harem multiball from working, and you'll stay in single ball play despite the DMD saying otherwise. From here, shoot Make a Wish to collect the final jewel, then start Rescue the Princess at the Genie and complete phase 1 without draining. When phase 2 starts, Harem multiball will also start, and everything in the game will be worth the Harem value in addition to the pop bumpers increasing the Harem value by 5,000 points each. By taking advantage of the unlimited balls in this mode and taking steps to ensure that neither you nor the genie win, the Harem value can reach the hundreds of thousands rather easily, and the wizard mode can unintentionally score tens or hundreds of millions of points when it wasn't intended to be worth more than 20-25 million.
A variant on this strategy involves bringing a 3X Lightning Lamp into Rescue the Princess by collecting all 7 jewels, starting Lightning Lamp, getting 3X Lightning Lamp from Make a Wish, then starting Rescue the Princess at the Genie. It's quite a bit harder to bring Lightning Lamp all the way to phase 2 of RtP, but if you can, it serves the same purpose (possibly being more valuable since the lamp could be worth 600,000 a spin!). The ability to bring scoring features into Rescue the Princess in this way makes Tales of the Arabian Nights a very poor and long-playing game at high level tournaments if the default code is used rather than a custom ROM.
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