Hey guys,
Farsight is now looking for some pro tips for Roadshow.
Feel free to email me or post to this thread if you want to share any tips, as well as whether you want to be credited for those tips on the game or prefer to be anonymous.
Thanks,
Josh
are they compensating folks for providing content? just asking for you pros (not me) since I know it’s a commercial product.
Souvenirs, souvenirs, souvenirs. These can be the key to big scores. If you’ve visited a city and have the corresponding souvenir, it’s 10M bonus, multipliable, so up to 60M per city/souvenir pair. It’s not unheard of to have a billion points in bonus. If you visit Crazy Bob’s (lock lane, lit via the half-orbit between Ted and Red) and he offers to sell you a souvenir, it’s probably worth buying unless you know for certain it’s a bad one (“bad” meaning “doesn’t correspond to any city at all”). In tournament mode, the souvenirs are given in a fixed pattern, starting from the least expensive to buy, so all the more reason to just buy them all. (Even the “bad” ones can have value in Albuquerque… you often prefer to keep your souvenirs rather than selling them in Albuquerque, but selling might be the right choice in some situations… particularly if it’s the last ball, you have a high bonus X, and you have no valid city+souvenir pairs.)
Generally, southern cities (gold and orange) are more lucrative than northern cities (white). However, you can’t play the same color city back to back, so there is strategy in selecting which cities you want. Hitting a colored pop bumper or standup target selects that color of city if possible. For example, at the start of the game, your first city will be either New York (white) or Miami (gold)… Miami is much more valuable than NY. On ball 1, you may consider forgoing the opening skill shot (and accompanying NY city start) to try to light and start Miami, then pound the bumpers and spinner. Nashville and Kansas City are both multiballs, so playing those is usually a good idea.
You can collect skill shots for souvenirs + increasing points ANY time you plunge the ball into the skill shot hole, including after ball locks and ball savers. Some players choose to “skillfully drain” at the start of their ball to get extra skill shot opportunities. If you try this, be aware that the ball save timer continues to run while a city start animation plays, so you may have less ball save time than you expect (possibly none at all after the animation).
The most powerful shot combo in Road Show is: left ramp, (perhaps left ramp again), right ramp, blast hole. This awards bonus +2X, a Super Blast, a wheel award, and usually starts the next city.
Speaking of Super Blast, here’s a trick that works on most Road Shows: if the ball is coming to the mini-flipper (either via the right ramp or the left U-turn), simply hold the flipper… the ball will come to rest. You can then deliberately shoot the blast hole. Much more reliable than trying to shoot on the fly.
The wheel award “Bad Weather”, which seems to be an unremarkable hurryup, has an interesting undocumented feature: it stops the mode timer of whatever city you’re playing.
Immediately below the upper left flipper is a standup target, sometimes referred to as the Magic Standup, that’s facing “the wrong way” (toward the back of the game). During city modes, if you shoot the lock and then let the ejected ball just fall and hit this standup, something good will happen in the mode: in most cases, it will spot you a shot or two.
During multiballs (regular, Nashville, Kansas City), if you know you have multiple valid city+souvenir pairs, you’re probably better off focusing on collecting bonus X rather than jackpots, until you’ve maximized bonus X (6X).
Hope these help.
No compensation . . . just part of the sponsorship we (IFPA) have with Farsight as a cross promotional tool to help get the virtual players aware of the IFPA, competitive pinball, etc.
Rather than me sending them a tip list, it’s always nice to get some fresh names and perspectives on game strategies for those willing to volunteer that up.
Do not underestimate the power of the Magic Standup! (It’s the one that faces upward that you pretty much only hit by not flipping on the release from the lock on the upper left.)
Some highlights of what it can do, courtesy of the rulesheet (http://pinball.org/rules/roadshow.html):
In New York, it awards one hit on the Bulldozer.
In Atlanta, it adds 16M to the hurry-up value.
In New Orleans, it counts as two Ramp/Loop shots.
In Dallas, it counts as two Ramp/Loop shots.
In Kansas City, it awards the hurry-up value (usually 25M).
In Minneapolis, it unfreezes 2 people. [ <-- The only one I knew about for sure and the one I was planning on sharing; I figured I should check the rulesheet to see if it did more stuff.]
In Denver, it counts as two Left Ramp hits.
In Las Vegas, it awards a Wheel award.
In Salt Lake City, it awards 60M.
During modes, the Magic Standup only gives its special award once. After that, it behaves like the other standups.
Gotcha if it’s an IFPA thing that’s great! Love these tips 
Awesome stuff!
In Atlanta, which is the Blast Zone hurry up, if you combo the shot, it’s multiplied; left loop to BZ doubles the value, and Bridge Out right ramp to BZ (if it goes all the way around) is triple the value. Craziest of all is that if you’ve lit The Big Blast from the wheel, it’s a 5x shot! A 200 million collect if you go straight to the Magic Standup and into the Blast Zone is a pretty nice award.
When you’re going for a Super Payday, you only have to lock the first ball in Bob’s; the second one can be collected off a skill shot, or either the Start City or Blast scoops on a miss. If you hit the skill shot on the plunge after starting, a fourth ball will get served to the shooter lane for a 4-ball MB. The other way to get a 4-ball Super is to lock one before starting any of the West Coast cities; the game usually will still serve up number 4 to the plunger on the start.
I don’t think that’s quite correct, unless there are two balls in the lock already at this point. AFAIK, the rule is “lock two balls, then plunge the third to start Super Payday, at which point all balls on the playfield (not in the trough) are released”. You’re certainly correct, though, that the second locked ball can be put in either the regular lock or the skill shot/blast hole/start city assembly.
Could swear that’s how I recall it, but I guess that means I’ll have to find one to test it again.
Joe thank you for the info on souvenirs. Always somewhat a mystery to me if they were worth it and their actual value. Very helpful, thinking of picking up another roadshow for location and league. I think it has the depth, but if I do it I will post a general rule sheet for the public. For many people it’s a bit scattered on certain rules. The linear cities got to me before, but I’ll admit I didn’t give it a proper long term chance.
@doublestack, I don’t want to discourage you, but take a look at the rulesheet at http://pinball.org/rules/roadshow.html before taking the time to write your own… the existing one is really quite good.
Road Show certainly isn’t the deepest game out there – it’s got minimal stacking of features, and as you note the somewhat linear order of cities would get old if the game was in a small collection. For competitions I think Tournament Mode is the only way to go, but for non-competitive purposes I think it’s fun to turn off Tournament Mode and take luck of the draw of souvenirs… what you get can certainly change how you play any given game. (e.g. you might intentionally try to play a “worse” city if you’ve gotten one or several souvenirs that go with that city) And it’s one of those games where timing out modes and making a beeline for the wizard mode (Super Payday) won’t be that useful, since the shots in Super Payday are based on how you did in the cities. (OK, potentially you could jack up the frenzy value before starting Super Payday and then just play it like a multiball frenzy…)
Overall I consider it a B to B+ sort of title, with bonus points given for some good humor and dots, and a really engaging wizard mode. (Red and Ted are screaming their heads off, the shaker motor is going crazy, great lighting effects, just lots of fun.)
Yea I would definitly use the existing rule sheet for sure, and if I had to add to it I would. Your points on tournament mode are noted. I do remember that working out pretty well for us. Honestly it’s got charm and some good shots. It’s not one of my first choices, but it seems beggars can’t be choosers lately on b/w pins. Some of the casual players did like the pin, but even then some complained about the same modes as they couldn’t progress past the midwest area. My thought with posting the rules were so that people would understand the other objectives a bit more. I’m still on the fence on this one as I have limited space. Anyways I don’t want to derail the thread too far, perhaps I should start a new one, thanks again!
Ryan