situated either side of the win stacks. On insertion of a coin, all balls are released
simultaneously and fall to the bottom of the playfield, ready for play. As the player turns
the crank handle, the balls are raised to the top of the playfield. The method of achieving
this is by the 'perpetual ball tube ' system. I described this method of ball delivery back in
issue three (Steer-a-ball) so I won't repeat it here. However, it should be noted that many
attribute this system to William Bryan, which is entirely wrong. The earliest machine I
have which uses this method of ball delivery is Bradley's Crusader, which I described
briefly last month. This only predates Payramid by a couple of years, but older machines
utilising the same system include the Saxony Circle Skill machines, and I recently came
across a much older Saxony machine, probably early post WW! , using the same method.
So I think it's safe to assume William Bryan copied this method of ball delivery from
others, not vice versa! Nonetheless, it was an excellent choice for the Payramid (and
indeed other Bryans machines), giving a smooth, practically idiot-proof method of raising
balls.
As each ball falls from the top of the playfield, the player attempts to catch them
between the fingers. One of the aspects that made Bryan's machines popular with
operators was the ' operator variability ' William Bryan built into many of his machines.
Payramid is no exception, and the gap between the fingers is fully adjustable between
'really easy' to 'bloody impossible!' This feature is, to my knowledge, unique among all
catchers (with the exception of Bryans' later Retreva) and would have afforded operators
the ability to set-up their machines according to individual site conditions.
Descending balls will fall into one of three stacks. All balls caught between the
fingers fall into the first win stack, directly below the fingers. Any missed balls fall into
one of the lose stacks either side. If the player misses the first four balls, he's lost.
There's nothing he can do to recover the game, although from watching players at
Brighton, I can confirm that most play-on (although this may be because they don 't
understand the game)! However, if he catches the first four balls he has everything to
play for. Now, here ' s the clever bit. The fifth ball caught will fall into the first win stack,
but will not remain captive. It falls back into the machine's mechanism through a hole at
the top of the stack, and becomes the 'missing link' in the machine's payout system. As
the player turns the crank handle to feed the next ball, the winning ball forms a
connection between the crank handle and the payout mechanism, and the machine will
payout two coins. This ball will then be fed back to the playfield and drops into the
secondary win stack, directly below the first stack. All successively caught balls will do
the same, each paying two coins, until the secondary stack is full (it takes all eight balls
to do this). At this point the eighth ball drops back into the machine and couples the
jackpot release mechanism with the crank handle, and the contents of the jackpot are paid
out (in addition to the eight coins the player has already won).
However, the game is not yet over! This last winning ball is then recycled, and
becomes the ninth ball. In the entirely unlikely event that the ball is- ught, the machine
will pay out a further two coins, although the jackpot, of course, can only be won once.
Theoretically, the ball will be continually recycled until the player fails to catch it,
although at some point the machine ' s reserve will run out, thus making the continuation
of the game somewhat pointless!
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