I got a Waterworld over the weekend. Having issues with the Dive hole optos so I am unfortunately unable to play the game properly (I have to avoid the hole for the most part). However, some other gameplay aspects seem solid. The orbits are really nice and the multiballs still feel somewhat modern, rewarding good shooting and controlled play. The Harpoon shot seems like an odd design choice since there's no way to feed the ball directly to it intentionally, but it's really surprising how often the ball will land there during regular play.

The Deez is a cool toy, especially when you lock the balls. I'm not a huge fan of its normal state because the ball tends to fly through the middle feed and often come back straight down the middle of the playfield. That, or the ball doesn't wrap all the way around and falls back down the playfield.

The machine does feel pretty clunky. The pivoting wireform on the right isn't flush with the right plunger ramp feed, so when you plunge the ball hits the edge of the wireform instead of feeding smoothly into it. There are a lot of aspects like that to this game, like there was really smooth flow intended, but ended up being clunky instead. I bet with some tweaking you can get the game flowing better. I spent most of the first couple of days of ownership swapping out to LEDs and cleaning the game, but later I am going to make small adjustments to try to get things flowing smoother.

Can't say I'm a big fan of the music. It just sounds cheap and repetitive. If they put more time into refining the soundtrack, I think the game could have felt epic.

The rules so far seem solid though based on what I have seen. There are good hurry-ups, filling in the map is cool, and there are higher level multiballs and modes that seem tough to get to (I hit Dry Land the other day, for instance--felt satisfying).

It's no Bally/Williams game, but for $1000? You can't beat a DMD game with decent rules for that price. Even if you don't love it, you will probably still enjoy it.

spidey - Definitely try to compile some rules. I'm going to probably do the same once I get the Dive hole working. Based on what I'm seeing, there's more here than people typically give it credit for.

Had a friend over last weekend that helped to get the scoop working. Seemed the optos were iffy, had a few replacements on hand thanks to another friend. Scoop is working again and it definitely changes the game.

Only problem is.. now the Deez doesn't want to register ball locks. D'oh.

Awesome, thanks for the tips!

Try understanding harder.. not everyone gets off to the EMs or early Solid States.

In all seriousness, I enjoy the EMs and have owned a decent round of Solid States (Eight Ball, Future Spa, Meteor, Genie), but the truth is I tire of them pretty quickly in my own personal collection and the DMDs get the majority of playtime. If I had the space for 15 games, then yeah, it would be different and I'd certainly have a block of old games in there, but tossing one of those kinds of games into my (currently three games max) collection, it would be a waste of space. So, at York when I had the option to buy a cheap solid state that didn't really do much for me, or buy the Waterworld DMD for not much more.. I took a chance with that figuring there would be more there rules-wise. Also, since Pinburgh I have been wanting to get a '90s era Gottlieb, so that was a factor as well. The multiballs are solid and there is more than hitting a few standup targets and a spinner, so for what I paid I made the right choice. It's also good hands-on experience since I've never owned a System3.

I finally got around to troubleshooting this over the weekend and it turned out the lower opto was always activated. I cleaned it and that fixed the problem (makes sense I suppose, this game was dirty as hell when I got it).

If you are still interested in making a rules sheet, I could help out. I could make and manage a new thread if you want, to get a head start on it. Then maybe when it's all said and done, we can submit it to IPDB and PAPA, the sheet there is insanely out of date and is more of a review than an actual rules sheet. On a side note, I picked up a manual for the game, and as expected, there are tons of rules details that we could use as a base, then build up to the more complex rules from there.

Hydro - I think you are correct that when you play enough features, it will eventually pop up as an award. I had this happen over the weekend. I also noticed that some features can't be played again and "Completed" will show up in their place.

Four Corners - I got this yesterday but completely by accident. Now I know what to do to get it consistently--fill in four corners on the grid, and you are awarded this insert. It also seems to award a Super Jackpot at the same time.

Dryland - As you said, the Super Jackpot is lit at all times once you get here. I found that out a few days ago as well and it definitely makes going for it worthwhile. I found that the Big Score window award will light a map segment on the left orbit temporarily, so you could knock out Dryland pretty quickly if you can focus on getting the Big Score award repeatedly.

In regards to the window awards, I noticed you are awarded a Super Jackpot if you get three across and three down on the grid at the same time. I'm not sure if this works in the middle of the grid (with both columns intersecting in the middle), but I do know it does this if they both connect to a corner. Good stuff, it gives you incentive to try to strategically fill out the grid instead of taking any award you see.

I did adjust my settings to where the Deez multiball is not given on a Feature award. At first I was disappointed that you can't adjust the difficulty of qualifying the next window award (by default any single switch qualifies the dive hole on the first go around), but now that I understand what the awards do, I don't mind how it's set. In the beginning of the game I am spending time changing the window awards to what I want, then cashing in on things that will be useful later (5 dirt repeatedly? Big Score to light the map segments? etc). It's a lot harder to get the window awards after you get across (you have to hit the right orbit, super risky on my game, sometimes goes SDTM).

Just an idea for anyone that has the game, I took out the three posts blocking the harpoon shot. The ball goes into it so much more often now and it's making the game flow better/more enjoyable.

Turns out Dryland is actually timed. Although, I did find it stacks into multiball modes at least.

I did something magical and was awarded a billion points out of nowhere on a window award. I believe I had three across both horizontally and vertically, meeting at the top right corner, then also had a couple of others filled in. "BILLION" briefly flashed across the DMD. I have no idea what I did.

Damn this game is cryptic with its delivery--it's often not obvious when something's timed or why you were awarded something. Definitely going to need to trigger everything repeatedly with the glass off.

The reason I think I was awarded a billion was that it played the Super Jackpot callout four or five times in a row, cutting off the end of each callout to make room for the next. I looked up at the DMD and had nearly two billion. Pretty sure I only had about a single billion before doing that.

The "Billion" that flashed across the screen was indeed for me surpassing a billion (verified it today). However, the multiple Super Jackpots rewarded? Probably a glitch in the software.

I checked out the movie earlier this week. Honestly, it wasn't phenomenal, but I did enjoy my time with it. The production values are pretty great for the time and the sets are still interesting to look at. The action (when it's there) was enjoyable too. I especially loved Dennis Hopper's character. I was laughing my ass off near the end of the movie with some of the stuff he was saying (i.e., "I have to commend you, I thought you were just stupid.. [he pauses and you think he's going to say something smart] ..but NO, you're freakin' RETARDED!!"). That said, most of the characters were unlikable for a majority of the film. Not exactly a good thing when you have to stare at them for two hours.

So, what's better, the pin or the movie? I'd say the movie. I'm still having a good time with my machine, but there's a lot to be desired on the audio/visual production end of things. Waterworld's rules are actually pretty interesting now that I understand them and the game is actually a lot of fun to play, but the audio is lacking and there are very few DMD animations, most of which are super basic. With that, it doesn't integrate the theme nearly as well as something else like The Shadow (nor does it have the production values). I can say for certain however that Waterworld the movie was, to me, much more enjoyable than The Shadow, the movie.

Since it was talked about earlier in the thread, I'm posting this here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/waterworld-gameplay-guide-modesbasic-rulestipstricks

Finally got around to doing a pseudo-rulesheet. Sold my machine due to needing the space, but it should be good enough for most people.