In the grand tradition of Snow Dragon's Solitaire (PC) FAQ, here comes.....
_________________________
SKEE-BALL
FAQ, Strategy Guide
By Snow Dragon İ 2004
All rights reserved
_________________________
= | =================
= | TABLE OF CONTENTS
= | =================
-------------------------------------------------
1. Commencement of Festivities
LIVE from Golden Triangle Mall in Denton, TX
-------------------------------------------------
2. I live under a large rock, on an uncharted
island, and/or in the American Midwest. What
is Skee-Ball?
-------------------------------------------------
3. So this is what a Skee-Ball table looks like?
WARNING: EXPLICIT USE OF POINTLESS ASCII
-------------------------------------------------
4. Let's play already!
-------------------------------------------------
5. I won a bunch of tickets! What should I get
with them?
-------------------------------------------------
6. Post-game show
With guest stars Credits and Copyrights
-------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________________________________________
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
= | ============================================
1 | Commencement of Festivities
| LIVE from Golden Triangle Mall in Denton, TX
= | ============================================
Hola, mis amigos! I'm standing here amid the loud noises of arcade machines
such as Soul Calibur 2, DDR Extreme, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and yet I'm here
for a different purpose, and that's to show you the ins and outs of this game
we call "Skee-Ball!" Everyone who's been to a mall arcade or a Chuck E. Cheese
restaurant has seen a Skee-Ball machine at some point in their life, but for
those who haven't, I'm unlocking one of the mysteries of the universe for you!
I'm here with my lovely assistants, Rolla Quarters and Dixie Cup, who will be
assisting me with the game today - mostly by paying for it! So without further
adieu, let's get on with the FAQ!
Oh, and before I forget, if you have any questions, complaints, or suggestions
for this FAQ, or you want a written transcript of what you've seen today, drop
me a line at [eubanks1084@hotmail.com]. Can't guarantee I'll answer you what
with my busy schedule as a college student, but I will most certainly read it!
_______________________________________________________________________________
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
= | =============================================
2 | I live under a large rock, on an uncharted
| island, and/or in the American Midwest. What
| is Skee-Ball?
= | =============================================
Skee-Ball was created in the mid-1990's as a marketing ploy by one-hit-wonder
rapper Skee-Lo, the idea being that you would roll a series of balls up into a
bunch of holes. There were no tickets in the original concept of Skee-Ball; it
was a simply a matter of how many balls one could get in the holes. If you
missed a hole, your ball would roll to the bottom and not count for the total
of balls that made it in.
However, if you were able to successfully get all nine balls in the hole,
sirens would blare and lights would flash off and on, and the arcade cashier
would reward you with a free copy of Skee-Lo's hit album "I Wish." People lined
up around the block just to hear about the rapper who sang about "lookin' back
on when [he] was a little nappy kiddie boy."
Of course, this is a blatant lie designed for no other purpose than to make you
laugh. Skee-Ball has actually been around since 1909 in fine children's dining
establishments and midways across the country, and is part of the very limited
line of Redemption games that spews out tickets depending on your performance.
Score high and you'll get a lot of tickets; score low and there's not much
you'll be able to afford at the ticket counter.
This FAQ is designed for the person who wants to waste their time in style,
whether by reading this or heading out to the mall, getting some fresh air, and
bathing yourself in the psychedelic glow of a Skee-Ball machine. Since I've
wasted enough of your time already, I think I'll just get on with it!
_______________________________________________________________________________
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
= | =============================================
3 | So this is what a Skee-Ball table looks like?
| WARNING: EXPLICIT USE OF POINTLESS ASCII
= | =============================================
Yes, despite the rather round structure of the average Skee-Ball table, I have
managed to construct diagrams that somewhat attempt to capture that roundness
with hard diagonals and square, linear symbols. (...) Bear with me, folks - you
try doing this, this is hard!
Figure 3a. The arrangement of the point value holes.
| ___ ____ ___ |
| |100| | | |100| |
| ŻŻŻ | 50 | ŻŻŻ |
| /ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ|ŻŻŻŻ|ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ\ |
| | | 40 | | |
| | |ŻŻŻŻ| | |
| | | 30 | | |
| | |ŻŻŻŻ| | |
| \________| 20 |_________/ |
| |ŻŻŻŻ| |
\ | 10 | /
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ ŻŻŻŻ ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
This isn't the best representation, but at least it shows you where to aim the
ball. If you get it anywhere on that outside border wherein the 100-point holes
lie, the ball will roll all the way to the bottom and you'll only score a
meager 10 points. That's not the way to win Skee-Ball. You want the big points!
But if you find it difficult to get it in those elusive 100-point slots, the
best you can do is aim for the middle.
Unfortunately, the people at Skee-Ball have wised up to the antics of smarter
folks like me. Used to, what you could do - if you had a sibling of appropriate
smallness - was run that little sibling up one ball at a time and have him or
her drop it in the 100-point slot, resulting in massive ticket return. Nowadays
Skee-Ball machines have annoying mesh nets on them, and unless your little
sister is Thumbelina, that strategy's not working. So it looks like we have to
employ (gasp!) actual skill now.
In the sections to follow, we'll talk about things like arm technique that will
help you get the points to turn those tickets for something more than a bag of
Skittles.
But for now, another diagram!
Figure 3b. The coin slot which doubles as a ticket dispenser.
_____
/ŻŻŻŻŻ ---\
/ (|)\
I bet you're looking at this like, "Oh my God. Snowy's gone off the deep end."
Probably.
This is where you insert the coin to begin the game. You'd be surprised how
many people don't know this.
Of course, you insert your coin, and then nine balls roll down the corridor now
that you've opened the gate they're stuck behind. You take the balls, do what
you will with them as long as it entails rolling them up to the point holes,
and at the end, you'll get however many tickets (usually, the system works out
to one ticket every 50 points). Tickets roll out of the little horizontal slot
indicated above by three dashes.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Why don't we actually go a few rounds?
_______________________________________________________________________________
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
= | ===================
4 | Let's play already!
= | ===================
So you've stuck a quarter in the slot and you're ready to have a go at this
thing they call Skee-Ball. All right! The machine has sung out its familiar
ditty and the balls await you, each one ready to fall into a hole, hopefully
one of high point value.
Whoa, what are you doing, Slick? You can't just throw skee-balls all over the
place willy-nilly like that! What you need to learn is.....
A R M T E C H N I Q U E !
[spirit fingers]
If you take conservative estimates of your throwing power and just kind of lob
it down the alley, you won't ever be able to score the big points. Conversely,
if you throw the ball with approximately the same speed and velocity as a
girls' fast-pitch softball player, you may very well put a large hole in the
back of the machine and have to pay for a new one, and believe me, they ain't
cheap.
If you want major tickets and consequently a good prize at the end of the day,
I know this is going to sound really hokey, but you have to find a good balance
between the two extremes. If you're just starting out, don't go for all the
high-dollar stuff in the corners. That results in a lot of disappointments and
a finishing score in the low hundreds. As a Self-Proclaimed Skee-Ball Expert, I
will tell you that if you've never played much, focus on the middle of the
alley.
There we have all our lower point values, starting at 10 and gradually making
their way up to 50 the higher up and farther back we get. This is good practice
for keeping the ball straight and judging how much power you need to use.
Remember to stay away from that method that girls use in fast-pitch softball -
we don't want to clean the machine's clock here. Instead, take a gentle but
firm approach to rolling the ball. You also need a steady hand to keep the ball
straight, so no caffeine prior to playing the game. I know this will kill some
of you hardcore junkies out there, but if I can wean myself of pre-Skee-Ball Dr
Peppers, so can you.
So we have all the hyperactivity-inducing chemicals flushed out of our system
(and speaking of flushed, use the bathroom before you play - you don't want to
have to go in the middle of a round where some dumb kid ruins the score you had
going - aren't kids dumb?), and we're ready to give it a go. Let's talk about a
little bit about the position you stand in to roll the ball.
First of all, don't be an idiot. Even functioning illiterates realize that if
you stand directly in front of the Skee-Ball machine, you're likely to roll a
lot of 10-pointers. It's not a matter of positioning your entire BODY in front
of the machine, but rather your THROWING ARM! The previous message was brought
to you by Captain Obvious.
With practice, you'll soon start landing in the 40- and 50-point holes with
better accuracy and higher frequency. Once you do that, it's time to actually
shift your body and your arm so that your arm lies directly in front of one of
the 100-point holes. I'm right-handed, so it's more comfortable for me to try
it with the slot on the right. If you're left-handed, just reverse the strategy
to throw it with your left hand ..... you left-handed weirdo.
This is where our lovely assistant Rolla Quarters comes in handy. Skee-Ball is
not a game that can be mastered on a single credit or even two dollars worth of
plays. Here at the festivities in the Golden Triangle Mall, I brought with me
$10 worth of quarters for deeper, more introspective research and in case I
wanted to play other games if I didn't spend all my money. I ended up paying
for dinner at Taco Bell entirely in silver change, but that is not the point.
The point is that there is a certain Zen to Skee-Ball which should kick in
after you've spent about half of that roll of quarters. I can't really explain
it because really all there is to Skee-Ball is proper use and movement of the
arm muscles and a desire to stand in front of the same machine all day. But you
know what I mean, right? All of a sudden, it just clicks, and the tickets come
a-flyin'. Your strategy must be formulated according to the size and natural
throwing power of your arm, and once you find that, you're in business, baby.
After all nine balls have been used up, the machine will utter a sort of very
deprecating "loser tune" if you didn't score very high. If you did well, you'll
get a plethora of sirens in your face and a ticker-tape parade around the city
in your honor. Plus about 9 or 10 tickets.
Of course, the main goal of Skee-Ball is to win tickets - after all, what kind
of name would Redemption be if you couldn't do anything with the tickets the
machine spat out except scribble on them or try to get into movies with them?
(NOTE: Don't use a Redemption ticket to get into a movie. Doesn't work. Not
even if your friend is the ticket-taker.) In any arcade with a Skee-Ball
machine or other such Redemption outfit, there will be a number of prizes
behind the fingerprint-smudged glass counter at the front of the arcade. These
range from the small, edible, and disposable to the large, unbreakable, and
worth-having, and they're the subject of our next section.
_______________________________________________________________________________
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
= | ===========================================
5 | I won a bunch of tickets! What should I get
| with them?
= | ===========================================
Now you've learned how to play Skee-Ball, you've spent hours and several
dollars adjusting your throws, getting a good feel for the game, you've
mastered that special technique of yours four or five times over, and now it
comes down to the point where you've won a few thousand tickets due to your
awesomeness.
In many ways, choosing what to "purchase" with the tickets you've earned is
more important than playing the game itself. What you choose to take away from
the arcade is a symbol of how much time you have invested in Skee-Ball (note
that that is not necessarily the same as showing the world what a giant loser
you are - there are plenty of other ways to do that). Let's digress for a
moment with yet another pointless diagram:
____________________________________________
| |
| Section D |
|____________________________________________|
____________________________________________
| Section C |
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
|ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ| /ŻŻŻ\
| | | o o | <-- cashier
| Section B | \___/
| | __| |__
|___________| |_ Ż _|
| | | |
|ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ|
| Section A |
| |
As you can see, this is the greatest ASCII art ever created by the hand of man.
The cashier will in all likelihood not be completely bald with small beady eyes
a totally emotionless face, and broad proud shoulders, but rather a jaded
person with long hair and bad posture and a scowling expression wondering what
the crap they're doing working in a video arcade. I speak from personal
experience, so this may not reflect your local arcade cashier directly. I'm
just saying it most likely does.
Now, a breakdown of the individual sections of the counter wherein you redeem
your tickets:
Section A - Small Edible Candies That Are High In Fat As Well As Tiny Plastic
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Trinkets That Break If Used With Excessive Vigor
If you're just into Skee-Ball for a few quick throwaway rounds and don't plan
on saving your tickets for anything big, this is the way to go. Often in the
glass case in front of the cashier, this is where they hold their candy stuff,
like Rolos - I seem to specifically remember Rolos. You know, the little
trapezoidal chocolate candies? And Laffy Taffy. Heck, that stuff is like one
piece for two tickets. You can totally suck at Skee-Ball and still walk away
with a banana-flavored Laffy Taffy in your mouth, and you can laugh at the
stupid joke inside the wrapper.
The glass case also houses a number of cheap plastic toys that won't last 24
hours once taken out of the arcade. Little kids typically tend to go for this
kind of stuff, as well as the easily amused. Here you'll find disposable junk
like those clicker-clackers that you swing around really fast, and jacks. I
think jacks only exist in arcade glass cases anymore.
Section B - Stuffed Animals That Are Small And Skinny, Like Monkeys And Tall
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Lanky Birds
Usually not on the order of big fat stuffed animals that girls fall in love
with, such as teddy bears and elephants, but you get the gist of what I'm
saying. Typically these aren't the kinds of stuffed animals that sit in a
corner of a room or have prime real estate on a small girl's bed, but rather
they call for installing hooks and tying strings on them, then letting them
hang haphazardly from the ceiling, never to be tightly clutched in one's sleep.
They're often not worth the number of tickets they're advertised for.
Section C - Toys That Cost $40 In A Department Store But Now Can Be Yours For
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ The Cost of 5000 Tickets!
You know, stuff like BB guns and Easy-Bake Ovens! These are toys that children
beg for from their parents to no avail, but yet through hard work and
scrupulous ticket investing, they can belong to any small child at all. These
are often appliances or objects that you would not trust a child with, and so
of course they're being sold in exchange for valueless slips of paper in an
arcade. What a marvelous idea! To date, I have never ever seen anything in
Section C go off the shelf.
Section D - Giant Stuffed Animals
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
For some reason, these items seem to be more highly valued than ovens that can
bake brownies at 60 watts and firearms that shoot harmless pellets at live
targets. Typically, these things take about 8000 tickets or so to buy (no lie),
and assuming you get 10 tickets a game - a fair estimate for the better among
Skee-Ball connoisseurs - that's 800 plays, and 800 plays at a quarter a pop
comes out to.....
[After a quick bit of button-punching, the Windows Calculator application comes
up with]
.....$200! Holy monkey! Wal*Mart sells these things for $5 on Valentine's Day!
A substantial savings of $195. So I don't suppose it's worth it to try your
hand at scoring a four-foot-tall teddy bear for your one true love the Skee-
Ball way. You're better off waiting for Valentine's Day to roll around,
although if you start playing Skee-Ball now you can probably have the bear just
in time for V-Day next year.
* * *
In conclusion, the best way to spend your tickets is on the little things, like
a free Nestlé Crunch bar or a rubber bouncy ball. You know, things that are as
disposable as the experience of playing Skee-Ball itself. No matter if you come
away with a jump rope or if you just unloaded your tickets on some kid to let
him get whatever he wants, you're better off spending them on something that
costs 50 cents anyway.
But hey, now you know how to play Skee-Ball! That looks good on a résumé!
_______________________________________________________________________________
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
= | ========================================
6 | Post-game show
| With guest stars Credits and Copyrights
= | ========================================
Sources used in the creation of this FAQ:
> http://entertainment.msn.com/artist/?artist=125128
Info on rap artist Skee-Lo
> http://www.skeeball.com
Info on the game of Skee-Ball itself
> http://www.flipdingo.com/archives/000432.html
Provides a close-up view of the point-valued holes
And now, all the people who made this Skee-Ball FAQ (how many times have you
scratched your head mulling over that phrase now?) possible, in no particular
order of their importance or impact:
** Brian Sulpher, my greatest peer, the guy that I go to for all my advice and
who I constantly bother to make sure my work is at its peak. You go, dude!
** The Golden Triangle Mall in Denton, TX for allowing me extended use of their
Skee-Ball machine and for not shutting their arcade down like I thought they
were going to during Christmas.
** Subway, who makes great sandwiches to eat while writing FAQs for hours on
end.
** My parents, who taught me how to read, write, and inject humor into
everything I do.
** Skee-Lo, because "I Wish" is an awesome song.
** Anyone else who has influenced my writing to this point that wasn't
mentioned here. You know I love you.
This version of this FAQ (1.0) is İ February 29, 2004 by Snow Dragon, all
rights reserved. I'm really sick of doing credits sections, so just don't
plagiarize this, give credit where credit is due, blah blah blah. If you put
this up on your site, don't change any of the wording (especially in this FAQ,
because it's so side-splittingly hilarious), just the structure of the FAQ or
the font or add screenshots if you want, yeah. If you want to use this on your
site, e-mail me with a small statement asking for permission at my Hotmail
address, [eubanks1084@hotmail.com]. Yeah. Don't steal, it's wrong, m'kay.
This FAQ and all subsequent updates can always be found at GameFAQs.
Thanks for bearing with me in this completely self-indulgent FAQ, and have a
nice day! =)
_______________________________________________________________________________
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
