Zen Pinball

This was probably the hardest silver for me due to 2 of the experiments! If you are able to get this silver, then you will be able to get the others as well so be prepared. There are 5 experiments you have to complete to activate the teleforce. You don’t have to complete the teleforce, but it’s an easy 20 million if you do! My advice is to always have the magna save enabled and the ball save enabled just before you start an experiment. It will give you the best chance of survival and that’s the most important thing!

Before I get into the details of each experiment, I’m going to explain how to start and change the current experiment. In order to do either of these, you need to get into the magnetic field. This is generally done by shooting the ball from the top left flipper into a vertical up-kicker which is tough to see (I’ve managed to deflect the ball off the wall into the playfield, but it was never intentional and probably tough to do consistently). You’re actually aiming for the jagged yellow blob in the center of the table and it’s not an easy shot. As with the tesla coil, you’ll want to start out by hitting the spinner and then aiming your shot with the top left flipper. If you can get good at this it’s the best approach, but there is another method brought to my attention courtesy of Chronic77 which is quite nice! If you hit the ball late off the left flipper so that it deflects off one of the 2 hurry-up mode drop targets on the right, it will circle around the orbit at a slower speed. If you then hold the top left flipper in an up position the ball will roll right off of it and right into the mini playfield up-kicker! I ended up using this strategy a lot because I was getting frustrated trying to make timed shots (kept hitting the coil). The only bad part with this is that after you hit one target it goes away and it can be tough to hit the other target correctly to get a proper deflection. Also, to get the targets back after you’ve hit them both involves starting hurry-up mode by getting the ball up into that sink hole behind the targets. The good news is that you don’t have to fund hurry-up mode, you can simply let it time out after 90 seconds. I would generally use this time to practice coil shots, enable magna save or ball save, or even fund hurry-up mode for some points.

Once you are in the playfield you have to hit all 5 drop targets within 10 shots and then get the ball up the half-pipe ramp. I was confused at first about how this worked, but it’s quite simple really, hitting the right flipper throws the ball up and to the right and hitting the left flipper throws the ball up and to the left. There is a hole at the bottom of the playfield that often swallows the ball if you’re not careful, but it just drops the ball down to your right flipper for an easy catch so not a big deal (just annoying). If the ball exits the ramp on the left side, it starts the current experiment. If the ball exits the ramp on the right side, it switches to the next experiment. There is a gauge in the center of the table that shows what experiment is currently selected (if you’re having trouble reading it, hold square and tilt the controller to get a great overhead view). The arm on the gauge shifts left by one each time you change the experiment (regardless of whether you’ve completed the next experiment already) until it gets to the fifth experiment. After that it will start shifting back to the right. It will continue this pattern until you activate the teleforce and then it will switch to the red teleforce section. One of the frustrating things about this table is that it’s very easy to accidentally change the experiment when you wanted to start the current one instead. You’ll see that the ball gets crazy in that magnetic field and it doesn’t always come out how you want it to! Once you have successfully completed an experiment, the light bulb above it will turn on indicating it’s complete.