Mainly restricted to newer games, though first appearing in the 1980's, a
reflexing feature on a
pinball game is any feature that is triggered by a value, where the triggering value can change depending on how well or
poorly the game is played.
The most common reflexing feature is the replay score, though other features specific to the game may also vary over time, such as the number of times a ramp needs to be hit to trigger an event.
An example? Ok. Imagine you've got a pinball game, freshly set up and running. The machine is set to award a replay upon a player reaching a score of 600,000,000. Now, if the game continues to get played often, and nobody reaches that score, the machine might start adjusting the score downwards, to entice people to play, by making the replay score easier to hit, say, at 500,000,000.
Now, if a group of great players come in and start hitting huge scores and consistently gaining replays, the game will start to increase the score, to make it more and more difficult. Usually, a game will increase the replay score right after it is reached. It might go up to 600,000,000 after the first win, then after a number of successes, it might reacy 900,000,000 for a replay. This is done, of course, to decrease the chance of the players continuing to win free games and keeping paying customers from depositing their money.
Back to The Pinball Dictionary