Stern’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, released in 2004 and designed by the legendary Pat Lawlor with Lou Koziarz, turns the famous oddities franchise into a globe-trotting adventure across a richly featured playfield. With three flippers, six pop bumpers, twin magnets, ramp diverters, a vari-target, and multiballs ranging from two to four balls, it’s a deep, exploration-themed machine that sends you around the world collecting the strange and unbelievable.
The scoring is built around the continents and the central shrunken head. You start Continent modes at the scoop, and shooting the head three times lights a lock on the right ramp — bank two balls and shoot the head again for multiball, with all the ramps lit for jackpots and the upper inner loop paying a super after two. The right ramp is the workhorse, lighting modes and collecting locks, so the efficient play is to combine relighting and locking in a single shot. During multiballs, a clever trick is to deliberately drain a ball or two during the ball saver, since the auto-plunge banks a jackpot for you on the left loop.
The skill shot is genuinely crucial here — it can account for six million points in a three-ball game, and a slick opener is a short plunge to the left flipper, backhanding the scoop to start a Continent mode, then draining to take the million-point skill shot. Deep, varied, and dripping with Lawlor’s gift for theme integration, Ripley’s is an underrated mid-2000s gem that rewards a curious, exploring player. For collectors who love a globe-spanning adventure with real strategic depth, it’s a believe-it-or-not treat.