"Oh good, here's my list."
Roger before collecting one of Franny's random awards, American Dad!
The Whirlwheel on No Good Gofers is a player-controlled device that awards a random perk when the player completes a hole of golf. This includes several of the perks described below.
A perk is a helpful advantage or benefit that can be granted to the player during a session. Perks may grant extra points, aid in progress towards the wizard mode or activate mechanisms on the table that can prevent the ball from draining.
Perks must be earned by the player and can typically be obtained from hitting certain targets or lanes a certain number of times.
Types of Perks[]
- Extra points: Generally refers to points scored from a random award. If the points follow a specific pattern (ie. Fear Itself), the pattern will be listed.
- Score boosters: Permanently raises the scores of shooting certain lanes or targets. Commonly seen in Peter "Deep" Grafl's tables, starting with Star Wars Rebels, but rarer in other tables.
- Bonus multiplier: Increases the multiplier for the end-of-ball bonus, either by 1 or 2. The bonus multiplier is usually good for one ball, but some tables can award a multiplier hold or "bonus X hold" perk that saves the multiplier level for the next ball. On Zen original tables, the bonus multiplier typically maxes out at 10x, although there are some exceptions such as CastleStorm, where the multiplier rises by multiples of 3 to a max of 15x; and most of designer Zoltan Vari's tables starting with Ghost Rider, where the bonus multiplier has no limit.
- Ball saver: At the start of each ball, if a ball is drained within the first 30 seconds of play, the ball will be automatically "saved" and shot back into play; a shorter ball saver will usually be granted at the start of multiball modes. Once it is used up, or expires, the ball saver can be reactivated by certain means in certain Zen original tables, but usually can't. Some tables, such as Star Wars: Masters of the Force and Back to the Future may also grant free, short ball saves to prevent certain unfair drains.
- Outlane protection: Special table mechanisms can be activated that can guard the ball from being drained in an outlane, a dangerous area where the ball will roll around the flippers towards the outhole and drain.
- Extra balls: Normally, a player is given three balls to play with in a session, which ends once all of these balls are drained. However, completing certain achievements can light an extra ball, which can be collected by shooting a certain target, lane or hole. Depending on the table, extra balls may be awarded in a variety of ways, including maxing out the bonus multiplier, earning one as a random award, completing roughly half of the main modes or beating the wizard mode. Zen original tables usually have a cap of 5 extra balls per game.
- Random awards: Awards a random perk out of a list of several various perks, including extra points, outlane protection, bonus multiplier, ball saver, etc. Some random awards will have to be relit (ie. Doctor Strange) while others will be constantly available throughout the game (ie. Jurassic Park).