84/100
Fun Score
8
Ratings
51
On Location
Ranked #103 of all time · ranking score 77.6 · See the list
How to Play
Kineticist tutorial
Become Queen of the High Seas with the Black Rose Pinball Tutorial
James breaks down the rules and strategy for Bally's Black Rose. It’s a great theme, has great music and callouts, and has a bunch of great rules and shots which lead to big payoffs should you manage to overcome this game’s tricky design.
Read our full tutorialPrefer a written guide?Pinball Primer (opens in a new tab)
Keys to the Game
- The easiest strategy is to just loop the Whirlpool Ramp all day for 1,000,000 points a shot. There’s better value elsewhere, but don’t give up a rhythm here if you’re comfortable just looping the ramp.
- The best way to demolish this game is to do the following:
- Loop the Whirlpool ramp repeatedly, changing your inlanes to collect letters in L-O-C-K
- When lock is lit, shoot the Pirate’s Cove to start multiball
- During multiball, trap up one ball and loop the whirlpool ramp or the side ramp with the other ball (whichever is easiest) for 1,000,000 per ramp plus a letter in SINK SHIP
- When multiball is over, if the Cannon is open to sink a ship (lit by spelling SINK SHIP), shoot under the side ramp and make a Cannon shot up to the Broadside for 20,000,000 plus 10,000,000 per ship already sunk
- Go back to the Whirlpool Ramp/lighting locks when you have no ships left to sink
- The Cannon can be opened for regular shots which award SINK SHIP letters (among other awards) by clearing all the target banks, looping the side ramp repeatedly, getting a skill shot to the yellow targets, or by hitting all three banks in one shot. While the cannon can be valuable, SINK SHIP letters are easiest to get during multiball.
- The best Cannon award is the first one (“Double Broadside”) which has you shoot the Broadside repeatedly for an absurd number of points. Make this mode count if you get it going
- The Broadside awards, up the middle, are all worth mediocre value, but collecting all of them lights a 15,000,000 point jackpot at the left ramp.
