Bally : Broadway

Game Parameters
Game Type magic squares
Game Number 576
Manufacture Date 1955
Number of Holes 25
Number of Odds Steps 8
Max Payout 576
Max Extra Balls 3
Features
Resources
Backglass
 - chris dade image
 - bg 1
 - bg 2

Cabinet
 - cab 1
 - cab 2
 - cab 3

Flyers
 - fly 1

Internals
 - int 1
 - int 2
 - int 3
 - int 4

Game Manual
 - manual (pdf) : 8.09MB
 - unoptimized manual (pdf) : 47.63MB

Press Image
 - mp 1

Playfield
 - chris dade image
 - pf 1
 - pf 2
 - pf 3
 - pf 4

Reflex Diagrams
 - w-661b

Schematic
 - schematic : 6.34MB

S/I Card Reproduction
 - sirepro

S/I Card Scan
 - siscan


Broadway

Broadway introduced a new form of rearranging numbers which turned out to be very popular - Magic Squares.

The game has a single 5x5 bingo card. The four numbers in each corner of the card made up a seperate magic square. By pushing buttons on the foot rail, the four numbers could be rotated 1/4 turn each time the button was pressed. See the flyer for pictures. By default, the numbers could be rotated until the 4th ball was shot, but an additional feature could light delaying the time the numbers "locked" until the fifth ball was shot.

The maximum payout odds we reduced across the entire range of the odds steps, but a double/triple multiplier was added. The multiplier worked on colored lines - red or yellow, and both colors could be doubled/tripled at the same time.

One gotcha was that the only numers that could be spotted during coin/credit pay was the 2 or 18, and the lines with these numbers in it were the only ones not colored (except the diagonals).

Broadway also introduced the "Ballyhole" feature. Makeing a ball in hole #16 when the feature is lit awards the player the first extra ball for free.

The game suffers from one problem which prevents high scoring ... the game will only start awarding credits after the numbers were locked. Generally the game starts awarding credits after the 4th ball is shot. What you really want is to shoot the fourth ball, rotate the numbers around and get paid for any in-line combinations you can make, then leave the numbers at the most advantageous position for scoring on the 5th ball. Later games like Cypress Gardens removed this obstacle, and much higher scores were possible.

magic squares games

Some of the numbers on the bingo card are are mounted on wheels (behind the backglass), and pushing buttons on the foot rail allows you to rotate the wheels to rearrange the numbers into paying combinations.

A 1 9
19 4
A 9 4
1 19
The wheels have 4 numbers mounted on each. Here is the standard layout for magic square A. The first table shows the "home" position of the numbers, and the second table shows the numbers rotated one position:

The 4-number squares were initially used in the corners of the card, so people also called the feature "turning corners".


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