Stars 2020 - New Rules
The original rules for Stars were pretty simple. A set of drop targets would advance the bonus, light extra ball, and then special. A spinner between the drops was worth 200 and it ramped up 400 more for each center drop. If, instead, you chose to leave the center drops up and only get the outside ones, the center would be worth 7k. The other goal was the Star lights. There are 5 stand-ups that can be lit (the player is spotted one random star when the ball starts). Each star increases the value of the right spinner by 200.
Bowen did a great tutorial of the original Stars here:
You'll see that after you get the stars lit, the game flattens out and just becomes all about hitting that right spinner. I wanted to deepen the goals and add some more risk/reward.
New Goal: Completing Levels of Stars - to deepen the action with the Stars stand-ups, I introduced a concept of levels. All stars start unlit and the right spinner is worth nothing. Hitting each star awards 500+bonus, and lights them to a dim state until all 5 are hit. Once all stars are dim, a roving red light appears next to each star, working its way around the board. That roving red light stays on until it's hit or until the end of the ball. Hitting it when lit locks in that level and lets the player start on the next level (level 2 is full brightness, and level 3 is blinking). Locking in the third level finishes the stars goal and makes all the red special lights blink in time with the stars. At this point, the spinner is worth 3k per spin (200 for each star at each level). At the end of the ball, any star levels that are locked (by completing the roving light) are retained. Any level not locked is lost and has to be re-qualified the next ball.
New Goal: Pop Bumper - hitting the pop bumper 25x lights the rollover for bonus collect. Hitting it 50x lights the inlane/outlane bonus lights. Hitting it 100x completes the pop bumper goal and the inlane/outlane lights flash to indicate that it's done. Pop bumper progress is retained through all balls in the game.
New Goal: Drop Target Completion - the drop targets still progress through 2x, 3x, WOW (extra ball or bonus), and Special (credit or bonus). Once the player has completed the drop targets four times and has the special lit solid, completing them again will flash the 400 lights on the left spinner as a hurry up. Hitting the spinner 25x while the 400 lights are flashing completes the drop target goal. This goal must be completed over the course of one ball and progress is reset at the end of the ball. If the goal is reached, it will be retained for the rest of the game.
Wizard Mode - when all three of the major goals have been reached, the player will enter a Wizard Mode. This mode has a 30-second ball save and while it's running, all switches are worth 10,000 points. At the end of Wizard Mode, the ball save is turned off and the switches return to normal values. All goals are reset.
