User Guide

Overview

Blindfold Pinball is a fully accessible pinball game, for both sighted and visually impaired people, designed for rapid audio play.

You control this game using iPhone gestures.
First, in the main menu, select the Practice game.
You don’t need headphones to play this game, but if you do, or use speakers with wide stereo separation, the game is more fun.

You get 3 balls to play. If you score many points, you will get extra balls.
To fire the ball, swipe one finger down like pulling a plunger on a pinball machine.

You will hear the ball rolling, which some people say sounds like an engine, and the bumpers, which sound like a pinball machine.
When the ball is on the left side of the playing field, you’ll hear more things in your left ear, and vica-versa for the right side of the playing field.
When the ball sound is in the center of your head, the ball is heading directly for the exit hole.
Moving the phone left or right does not affect the ball; you can only move the ball by hitting it with your flippers.

The pinball machine is laid out as follows.
On the right edge is a channel where you fire you ball into the game.
The ball travels up the firing channel to the top of the screen, and then bounces left into the playing field.

There are bumpers are on all sides which don’t give any points, and bumpers in the center of the playing field that are worth from 10 to 100 points.
There are two speed-up bumpers in the vertical middle on the left and right sides that speed up the ball.
There is one power bumper in the horizontal center, down about a quarter of the screen from the top that increases the speed of the speed-up bumpers.
There are funnel-shaped channels at the left and right edges of the playing field that direct the ball to the left and right flippers.
As the ball bounces on the sides of this channel, you will hear clicks instead of the bumper sounds.
At the bottom of the screen, in the horizontal middle, are your left and right flippers, and between them, the exit hole.
When your ball falls into the exit hole, you lose the ball, and your score is announced.

Another way to consider the playing field is reading across. If all this sounds confusing, use Discovery mode described later.

In the top half of the pinball machine, there are about 10 different bumpers.
Reading from left to right is
the left bumper,
the bumpers with points in a big open space,
the right bumper,
and the ball firing channel.

In the bottom half of the pinball machine, does not contain any bumpers with points.
Reading from left to right is
the left edge of the left flipper channel,
the left flipper channel where the ball travels down to a flipper,
the right edge of the left flipper channel,

the left bumper, a big open space where the ball travels, the right bumper,

the left edge of the right flipper channel,
the right flipper channel where the ball travels down to a flipper,
the right edge of the right flipper channel,

and the ball firing channel.

When the ball is channeled towards the flippers or falls towards the flippers, you can use the flippers to shoot the ball back to the top of the playing field.
As the ball gets near the flippers, you will hear a countdown from 3 to 1; a man’s voice counts down on the left side, a woman’s voice counts down on the right side.
When your ball touches the flipper, you will hear many dings or clicks.

If the ball gets stuck somewhere, you can nudge the ball by shaking the pinball machine.
Shaking the pinball machine will also announce your score.

Sometimes you will hear the countdown from 3 to 1, then 1 back to 3. That means the ball was moving so quickly, it bounced back up again.

Learn Mode

In learn mode, the game pauses after each new action, and explains what your ball just did.
You get 1 balls in learn mode, and your total score is not announced.
You can play learn mode as much as you want.

Discovery Mode

In Discovery mode, you explore the playing field to learn where everything is positioned, by moving your finger around on the screen.
When your finger touches something, such as a 10 point bumper, a woman tells what you are touching.

Start your discovery from the top of the screen, and work your way to the bottom.
When your finger is not touching something such as a bumper or a flipper, you won’t hear anything.

To leave discovery mode, swipe up with 3 fingers.

Dual Flipper Mode

In dual flipper mode, when you tap anywhere on the screen, both flippers are activated.
When you hear either the man’s voice or the woman’s voice counting down to 1, tap the screen to activate both flippers to send the ball back to the top.
Each game gives you 3 balls, and you get one additional ball for each 5,000 points.

Separate Flipper Mode

In separate flipper mode, the flippers operate independently.
Tap on the left side of the phone to activate the left flipper, and the right side to activate the right flipper.
Each game gives you 3 balls, and you get one additional ball for each 5,000 points.

Strategy

The trick to scoring high in pinball is simple: don’t let the ball fall into the exit hole.
Whenever the ball gets near one of your flippers, start flipping like crazy.
The further out towards the end of the flipper the ball is, the more power your flip will have, and the further the ball will go.

When the ball is in one of the flipper channels, you can push the flipper, so the ball will come to rest at the flipper.
Once the ball stops moving and bouncing around, you can release the flipper briefly and flip again, and that will send the ball towards the top bumper.

When you play any of the separate flipper games, you can earn more balls by scoring high,.
Score over 5,000 points with a ball, get one more ball.
Score over 10,000 points with a ball, you get 2 more balls.
Score over 15,000 points with a ball, you get 3 more balls.
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Games

After you have played the Dual Flipper game, try each of th Separate Flipper games, where ball goes faster and faster.
To post your winning score to facebook or twitter, tap twice with 2 fingers after the game is over.

There are several other pinball machines that you can play on. Please read the Pinball Machines guide.

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Game Varieties

You can play this game several ways. To play by yourself, select a 1 player game. You can play against the computer by selecting a game between You AND Computer.
You can play with someone by sharing your iPhone by selecting a 2 player game.

When playing against the computer, you will play against a different competitor each time.
There are nine competitors, and you can find out more about each of the competitors in the SETTINGS screen under CHOOSE THE COMPETITOR option.
When you tap on that option, in the COMPETITORS screen, you can set which competitor you want to play against, or you can create a new competitor by tapping the ADD NEW button.
To change a competitor’s name, or other attributes of that competitor, tap on the INFO button.

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Playing For Free – How to earn and use coins

To start a game, you will use one coin.
This game comes with 10 coins, so you can play 10 full games of pinball.
For more info, consult the Common Features Guide.

Settings

The SETTINGS screen has several sections. For more info, consult the Common Features Guide.

Machines

Pinball Machines

Blindfold Pinball comes with several pinball machines with different layouts and sounds.

Once you upgrade, you can set the sounds of the machine, and the layouts separately.
If you don’t upgrade, you are using the Super Bumper machine with the Standard Bumper Layout.
To change the machine sounds or layouts, use the buttons on the main menu.

Machine Layouts

The Standard Machine layout has bumpers on all sides which don’t give any points, and bumpers in the center of the playing field that are worth from 10 to 100 points.
There are two speed-up bumpers in the vertical middle on the left and right sides that speed up the ball.
There is one power bumper in the horizontal center, down about a quarter of the screen from the top that increases the speed of the speed-up bumpers.

The Power Machine has 2 extra very small bumpers that give you 150 points.
The Power Machine comes automatically when you purchase any of the additional machines, such as Pinball Machine Pack 1.

The Crazy Machine has 2 extra very small bumpers that give you 250 points, but also has one medium size bumper that steals 250 points from your score.
This bumper always sounds like breaking glass.
Your score will never go below zero.
The Crazy Machine comes automatically when you purchase any of the additional machines.

Super Bumper

This is the game that Blindfold Pinball starts with.

Animals

Pinball machine with dogs, cows, horses, elephants, donkeys and more.
This pinball machine reqiures an in-app ugprade.

Outer Space

Pinball machine with strange outerspace sounds like blasters, phasers, whiring, force fields and more.
This pinball machine reqiures an in-app ugprade.

Cartoon Sounds

Pinball machine with cartoon honks, razzes, jumping beans, whistles and more.
This pinball machine reqiures an in-app ugprade.

Funny Voices

Pinball machine with cartoon voices saying doo-doo, “don’t eat me”, “yeah right”, laughing, kung fu sounds and more.
This pinball machine reqiures an in-app ugprade.

Everyday Sounds

Pinball machine with door slamming, soda opening, splashing and more.
This pinball machine reqiures an in-app ugprade.

Scary Sounds

Pinball machine with zombies, ghosts, screams and owls.
This pinball machine reqiures an in-app ugprade.

Body Sounds

Pinball machine with farts, burps and other disguisting sounds.
This pinball machine reqiures an in-app ugprade.

Bells

Pinball machine with church bells, chimes, alarms and other bells.
This pinball machine reqiures an in-app ugprade.