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Bally introduced the zipper flipper with BAZAAR in August of 1966. Just 14 months later Dixieland was Ballys 7th game with zipper flippers! Needless to say Bally found quite a bit of success with this feature.
But DIXIELAND does not stop there!
The letters that make up the name incorporate a hold over feature and the playfield is filled with lots of fun scoring and play features! A kicker hole on the playfield awards points based on the LIT value of the clarinet.
Hitting one of two yellow mushroom bumpers awards 100 points and advances the clarinet value. Making the kicker hole when the clarinet is lit at 500 points will spot a letter in "DIXIELAND" on the backglass. Letters are spotted sequentially and spotting certain letters awards a free ball. A bagettele field top right on the playfield allows for advancing your score considerably. One enters it by going up Basin Street, which must be refering to New Orleans based on the theme of the game When the Street is LIT the values increase dramatically!
Its some good and gentle nudging and body english which scores the center rollover! There are 3 gates on the playfield which can open depending on certain conditions and strategically change play on the fly.
The right playfield gate is encountered as you exit the bagatelle field
The Key Gate opens by hitting the rebound or hitting the blue mushroom bumper
This opens and closes by the 2 rollover buttons just above the flippers. When its open it sends you down the side of the playfield into the right outlane! But the right outlane has a gate also! When open this gate returns the ball to the shooter lane.
But now for some BALLY strategy! The functioning of the right outlane gate is disabled when the clarinet reaches 300. So the sooner you can get the clarinet up to 500 and score the kicker hole the clarinet will reset to 10 points and the gate features will be activate again Also when the flippers close the gate closes and the feature to open it will not activate! So this acts as a kind of trade off.
the right outlane Gate is controlled by a rollover button located very near the outlane
If the key gate is open the ball will return onto the playfield but if its travelling at a good speed it can get dumped into the right out lane!
Interesting to note is the right playfield outlane This begins way up top by the kicker hole! If you happen to miss the kicker hole and land in the outlane and the key gate is not open its a long ride to oblivion!
I was originally drawn to the DIXIELAND because of the graphics and the appeal of a zipper flipper game. This game has turned out to be a favorite because theres just aot of action and different things going on during the play. An interesting note is that this game was found in New York where replay games were forbidden. This one has what they call the add-a-ball kit in it, which consists of an extra relay and jumper plug.
Its a bit disappointing as an add-a-ball because you can only achieve 'shoot again' rewards. So only 1 ball can be won during the play of each ball and the knocker does not sound when you get 'shoot again'
I will definetely get a replay wheel for the credit unit and then change the game over to a replay model, I can just hear the double knocks already as you spot a winning letter and get another replay on points! Back to the Top
