Technically the ball search going in 2:55 is caused by technical limitations and a little bug, which is in nearly all System 11 machines. Every 15 seconds the game checks if the next queued text will be status report to reset the timer without the search to be executed. When something gets on the way, which in this case is "Lock lit" message, the game remembers that by temporarily making that queue as "read only" until the animation ends by displaying the score and ball in play. If the player traps the ball on either flipper during that, the procedure responsible for status report will not execute, so the variable is still same causing this to happen.
SOme tips. 1) you can only get quick multiball a certain number of times off the drop target (operator settable) but the cellar door will ALWAYS award it. 2) there IS a hard limit on extra balls per game. it's usually six. During a good game, you WILL run into this limit. it's not a balls per ball in play setting, it's a per game setting. You will usually get two from the skyway, one from the replay, one from one of the specials, one from cellar door, and one from mega door bonus. that's all six. The game doe have a lot of extra balls. but there is always a limit. Mega door bonus and multiball are where the scoring is at. Combining quick with regular lets you keep a one ball multiball going by shooting the side ramp before the animation finishes while the others are trapped. This is the key to rolling the game. A properly set up game will make a full plunge go around every time. full plunge to side ramp is the key to this game. There is a super duper skill shot. soft plunge to a flipper and sweep the target bank. this is worth 700k (100k sweep plus all three skillshot values), and if it will get you the win on ball three is worth attempting. try it someday. if you get the ball back off of it, it's a decent source of points. Ramping out is a safe strategy, BUT just try it on a tournament spec whirlwind. the ramp is not so easy to loop. anddit's slow points. Prototype whirlwinds have four balls! I played one. you could lock three in the ramp and then shoot the fourth one under it.
Ive probably watched this 20+ times. Whirlwind was my first pin and although I traded my second pin (Swords of Fury) plus some cash for a Funhouse and then later adding Earthshaker, I think I'd still move both of those before Whirlwind. It has a challenging side ramp, fair scoring (near impossible to roll unlike SoF), and multiple goals to achieve the Wizard Mode (Super Cellar Mode), which in itself is difficult especially without being able to hit the ramp from the right flipper like mine. I don't care how easy Bowen makes it seem lol. I've had it for six or seven years, but still find myself watching this tutorial to hone strategy. The obvious strategy for getting high scores is to hit the side ramp a ton in quick or standard multi ball, but even when you feel comfortable with that shot it will never be even close to 100%, so you will always still need to lean on mode progression, upping your multiplier, ets. It's worth noting how after Bowen got through the super cellar and a few multi balls, he got caught in getting the the QMB from the ramp shots and drop target. I love his quote at 21:10 where he asks, "why am I going for this again? I guess it's fun", which I think says a lot about just how great of a game it is. Agreed on too many extra balls, but that can be adjusted in the settings if you own it. And if you dont and are pumping in quarters at the arcade, its awesome to get extra balls to keep the game going. Thank you PAPA and Bowen for what you do. I know the rules of so many games I havent played yet from your tutorials and gameplay. Thanks again.
My top score on a WW on location was about 114M. I got my 3-lock multiball Million+ up to 10M. And on that game you couldn't back-hand the ramp when it was open, but staging the flipper was easy as pie for me. Man, this game is fun due to its simplicity.
Too bad Bowen didn't say what his highest personal score was on his home machine. He was about to but then he got distracted and forgot to finish that sentence lol.
This game is really fun on pinball FX on PC now. Full plunger goes around to upper flipper like it's supposed to. Backhanding under the ramp is NOT reliable. neither is backhanding the super cellar, though it's easier than the ramp. You need to flip pretty early usually to hit the side ramp. earlier than you'd expect. There ARE lipouts on the under the ramp saucer, and, just like this one, it's NOT a clean feed out to the upper flipper. You CAN loop the ramp, and it's worth doing so to light a quick multiball while that still works. Dead bounce is not reliable from cellar. hold trap is more reliable, but not 100%. live catches work.
Here's how to actually get that elusive double multiball stack. 1) barring the flukiest fluke that ever fluked or a stuck ramp, you cannot light quick multiball off of the drop target and collect it with two balls locked. you HAVE to light it with mega door bonus or with the normal quick multiball award AFTER locking ball 2. Instead, use drop target quick multiball to progress toward a regular lock, so you will have lock and maybe the cellar door lit at the end of it 2) it's hard to relight the super cellar after locking ball two without shooting the side ramp and starting multiball early. So it's better to keep shooting the side ramp when lock 2 is lit until you have one or the other ready to collect, and THEN lock ball two. to do this, you need to learn the left orbit to side ramp shot, or shoot the spinner to change the lit door as needed to steer it off quick multiball when you don't have lock 2 lit or almost lit, and to steer it back on just before you hit the side ramp to light lock 2. If you are lucky, you can change the lit award by shooting under the left ramp, when it rolls to the upper flipper, you may get a few rotations of the spinner out of it, and a change of award. 3) if the ramp is stuck down, then quick multiball lets you skip all the arrow lighting and lock three balls to start regular multiball quickly, but you can't shoot under the ramp to set up side ramp shots, and you have to use the left orbit to feed that flipper. I don't know if this counts as a stack or not . if it's stuck UP, do not even play the game, you can't ever start normal multiball by any means, no matter how much it tries to compensate.
I have a whirlwind in my basement and there’s been a highscore on it before I got it, it was 39 mil, I have no idea how that’s even possible, I can’t pass 3 mil 😅
Great tutorial. You beat my highscore right there which is a big 33 million. Love this game, but getting the jackpot is pretty hard while keeping the other balls in play. Mostly I just hope one ball gets stuck in the top of the playfield while I make the jackpot.
best pinball game i ever played. My personal best was 92,000,000. I just kept shooting it up the ramp as many times as i could which i racked up a lot of points. I believe i shot it up the ramp at least 10 times in a row once. Great game. Verrrry addictive
