The following is an attempt at a rule sheet for Sega's (alias Data East's) latest creation Independence Day. First the legal stuff. Independence Day, ID4 and any other reference to the movie is copyright 20th Century Fox and I don't need any hassles from them so just imagine tm after each mention of their name. Sega are licensed to release the ID4 pinball. Multiball and I guess several other features mentioned here are copyrighted by somebody out there. This is of no interest to me (I just play the games, I don't own em). This rule sheet is released as freeware and as such may be used in any manner you wish, just as long as no profit is made from it's use and we still get some credit for it's existence. And now on with the show.

The Story So Far

In the beginning it was a dark and cold night when something caught my eye as I was driving home. In the front window of a local machine operator's showroom I saw it: the Independence Day pinball. After drooling on the window for a while (not a good look I admit) I didn't give it much more thought at that stage.

The scene now shifts to mid September while playing Theatre of Magic. I was told that ID4 was on site at an indoor sports Centre and I decided to check it out. It wasn't there when I arrived but was back on site 3 days later. After 2 hours playing the idea for this sheet was born.

Changes for this Version

Section on League Mode and Wizard Mode added. All text moved to the left a fair way to allow all words to appear when printed. Sorry to anyone who printed copies of version 1.0 and found it hard to read. I'm new to all this. Bragging section added. Some new awards added. A little bit of a tidy up. This version should be the last.

The Movie

Saw it, liked it but thought it was a little over the top in the realism department but entertaining none the less. At least now some modes in the game make more sense.

Playfield Layout

Starting at the drain and going around clockwise:

Outlanes- Normal. They seem reasonably forgiving. Can be lit for Special.

Inlanes- Normal. Always lit for Light Combo.

Flippers- 2 lower and 1 upper on the right like Getaway. All normal length.

Slingshots- Normal size and shape.

Area 51 targets- 3 targets in the same spot as the relight kickback on Getaway. Lighting all 3 lights Alien Scan.

Left Orbit- Standard orbit shot. When lit for combo the ball loops right around. Unlit shots feed to the bumpers. Orbits advance the bumper value. Also awards Hurry up and jackpot.

Left Ramp- Awards 5M, 10M and 20M towards Red Alert and awards jackpots. Weak shots fall back into a sinkhole behind the lock. Feeds to the right flipper.

F-18 targets- 3 targets in the same spot as the Itt targets on Addams Family. Light all 3 to start Hurry-up.

Upper Orbit- A loop shot like on Getaway, shot from the upper flipper. Awards Rockwell 1947 which is 5M + 5M per loop. Also starts Area 51 Multiball and awards Area 51 jackpots in this mode.

Yellow Target- Spots an ID4 lane.

Combo Target- A smaller version of the train wreck on Addams Family. Awards combo jackpot when lit. When not lit spots one of 5 or 6 Aliens. Spotting them all awards 50M.

Lock- An Alien head which opens when hit to reveal a sinkhole. Shoot the hole to lock the ball. Also awards the first jackpot.

Alien Ramp- Feeds the ball to above the upper flipper. Lights Extra Ball at 5 ramps and awards it at 6. Also awards 10M at 10 ramps, 15M at 15 ramps and 20M after 20 ramps. I assume this continues on in this manner. Also awards jackpots.

ID4 Lanes- 3 lanes set at a slight angle which are hard to see at times. Light all 3 to advance bonus X to a max. of 10X.

Green Alien Targets- 3 targets spaced between the lock and the ramps. Light all 3 for 10M.

Right Ramp- Spots 5M, 10M and 20M towards Red Alert. Also awards jackpot. Feeds to the right flipper.

Jet Bumpers- 3 bumpers in the usual triangle formation. Each hit advances the hurry-up value.

Right Orbit- Same as the left except it doesn't award Hurry-up.

Computer Virus- A sinkhole similar to the altar on Dracula but in a lower position. Each shot advances the virus by 20%. Reaching 100% lights the right orbit for 100M.

Rules and Modes

Not really much in the way of modes thankfully:

Red Alert- 3 shots up the left an right ramps starts Red Alert. This is a Payback Time type of mode where each shot up the 2 ramps is worth 50M for 30 seconds. This can be worth a lot.

Hurry Up- Light the upper 3 bank to start hurry-up. The bumpers advance the hurry-up value from a minimum of 20 mil. Each hit increases the value by 250k and each orbit shot increases this by 50k. After lighting hurry-up you have 30 seconds to shoot the left orbit to freeze the value. After you hit the first shot, each shot to the left orbit awards that value again until the timer expires. Each hurry-up requires you to complete the 3 bank an additional time.

Area 51- Light the lower 3 bank to light Alien Scan. Hit the bank again to collect. Alien Scan awards include: Light Area 51 Multiball, Alien Frenzy, 50M and Hold Bonus. There must be other awards.

Area 51 Multiball- The Centre orbit starts the mode. Each shot to the loop awards a jackpot which starts at 50 mil. Hitting any flashing target advances the jackpot value to a maximum of 90M. The green targets add a ball the first time they are hit. Ends when 1 ball remains.

Combos- The left and right return lanes light the orbits for combos. A combo is worth 5M and increases by 1 mil per shot. This also lights the combo target for a combo jackpot of 15M.

Multiball- Hit the alien to open the lock. Shoot the sinkhole to lock the ball. Locked balls are fed to the right flipper from a vuk like the one on Jurassic Park. Each lock must be lit individually but Multiball is lit at the start of ball 3 if you haven't had it. Lock 3 balls to start Multiball. The aim is to score as many jackpots as you can. The first jackpot is a shot to the lock worth 40M. This lights the orbits for double jackpot 80M. The 3rd wave of jackpots are the 3 ramps for triple jackpot 120 mil. During the triple jackpot wave hitting the Area 51 targets adds a ball once for each target. Getting all 3 triple jackpots lights the combo target for super jackpot 160M. After collecting the super jackpot the values reset to 40 mil and the cycle starts again, however balls can't be added in wave 3. For subsequent Multiballs the Alien must be hit an additional time to open the lock. There may be a limit but it is at least 5 hits for each lock.

Rear Sinkhole- Weak shots up the left ramp fall back into a hole. This advances the date starting at July 2 and gives a quote from the movie. I can't work out if there is any significance to this. The dates advance one day at a time up to July 4, then shows July 4 (later) before going on to July 5 and awarding 25M.

Bonus Count- As far as I can tell the end of ball bonus is worked out like this:
Area 51-- 1 mil per hit
Alien Bonus-- 1M per Alien ramp
ID4 Bonus-- 1M per rollover.
Alien Frenzy (1M jets) if started
All X bonus X value (max. 10X)
I could be wrong as it all happens so quickly.

Random Notes

All modes pause during Multiballs. Therefore it is not possible to have more than one thing going at a time.

The Extra Ball and Replay animations are good. EB shows the White House exploding while Replay shows the building in L A where the party was happening in the movie. Most animation is OK but I'm not sure about the word Multiball appearing on the Alien ship.

The double jackpot plays a very bad Elvis impersonation from the movie. Below the bottom flippers are a pair of Alien eyes which light up when you flip. White lights for a flip and green lights if you hold the flipper. this is a nice touch.

The ball can be launched by pressing both flippers which is not very nice. I hope this can be disabled.

Sometimes on an outlane drain you get the animation of a fat lady with pigtails hitting a high note. This is a reference to the movie and a saying It's not over until the fat lady sings. Not a bad touch.

Most games these days display the anti drug message just say no to drugs . ID4 displays the message Just say no to Alien Invasion.

The last person to get super jackpot gets their name on the high score table as the ID4 Super Jackpot. It feeds the ego but thats about all.

Is it my imagination or does the 20th Century Fox logo in attract mode look like Pox not Fox. No legal action please.

The 4 player game is a team game like Baywatch or Batman Forever. Bad Idea

There is no grace period for scoring jackpots, all modes end immediately the timer reaches zero and ball save ends as soon as the light goes off.

A shot to the right orbit before getting the first jackpot adds 5 million to the jackpot values. It's a hard shot during multiball and not worth the effort.

Wizard Mode and League Mode

Holding in the left flipper button when you press start enables League Mode. I don't know what the difference is to regular play but I can't see anything yet. Holding in the right flipper enables Wizard Mode. The only difference I can see here is that it takes 3 hits to open each lock the first time and I think 6 hits the second time. There must be other changes but I wasn't playing too well at the time so I haven't found any. During one game I had 2.9M at the start of ball 3 but hadn't had multiball. Despite that the machine didn't light lock 3 which was not very nice at all. This could be a feature but I'm not sure.

Quotes

Just a few from memory:

Hurry-up-- Kick the tires and light the fires big daddy.
Start of Multiball-- All right Mr President here we go.
Double jackpot-- Thank you very much. (Done in an Elvis voice)
Destroy Alien ship-- In the words of our generation..UP YOURS!!
Red Alert-- I have GOT to get me one of these.
100M in a mode-- You da man big daddy.
July 2-- They're gonna kill us all.
July 4-- Today, we celebrate our Independence Day.
Match-- Look at you. Ship all banged up.
Game over-- Now thats what I call a close encounter.
Start of Extra Ball--Enjoy this Extra Ball it may be your last.

Tips

Not much to think of really. Red Alert is the only really high scoring mode, although the game is fairly big on points. If you can master the left ramp and the machine allows you to pass the ball to the right flipper, keep shooting the left ramp for 20 mil per shot. This ramp is as narrow as the one on Indy so be careful.

Death Saves are definitely possible especially on a right outlane drain. In fact this is the first machine that I ever successfully pulled off a Death Save on.

Milk the hurry up value for all it's worth. This tip was observed by Koi Morris at the Flip Out '96 tournament. His discription is as follows.
1. Shoot the left orbit when combo shot is not lit on that orbit.
2. This feeds the ball to the bumpers and increases the bumper advance value by 50k. You may want to shake the machine a bit to keep the ball in the bumper area.
3. When the ball eventually leaves the bumpers, hold the right flipper up and the ball should roll along the raised flipper and go to the left flipper.
4. Raise the left flipper and the ball should roll off the left flipper and go to the right flipper for a trap or a catch.
5. Shoot the orbit again over and over as much as possible. Koi suggests collecting the hurry up at 500M+. Light the hurry up and collect it as often as possible within the time limit. I've also been able to let the ball bounce from the left flipper to the right or do a drop catch and shoot either the right orbit or the alien ramp from the left flipper. Balls coming off the alien ramp can also be passed to the left flipper this way as the ball is traveling at the same speed as if it had come out of the bumpers. So far I haven't built the value up to 500M but I'm working on it. The only problems with trick is that at first it takes a while to build the value up and it is annoying if you start hurry up after all that work and drain without collecting all the points.

Bragging

My best so far is 6.7 Billion. My best Red Alert total is 750M.
Highest hurry-up collected is somewhere near 250M

Shameless Plug

A Plain text version of this sheet can be found at the Temple of Pinball

If you have any corrections or additions please e-mail them to me via chrisb@enternet.com.au and I may include them in a later version. Any contributors will be credited and receive their name in lights.

Thanks to:
Chris Bonney - chrisb@enternet.com.au

Koi Morris - KMorrissww@aol.com