Editing Pinball (section)

===Special scores===
* [[High score]] lists: If a player attains one of the highest scores ever (or the highest score on a given day), they are invited to add their initials to a displayed list of high-scorers on that particular machine. "Bragging rights" associated with being on the high-score list are a powerful incentive for experienced players to master a new machine.
Pinball designers also entice players with the chance to win a free game or credit. Ways to get a free game might include the following:
* ''Replay'': A free game is awarded if the player exceeds a specified score. Some machines allow the operator to set this score to increase with each consecutive game in which the replay score is achieved, in order to prevent a skilled player from gaining virtually unlimited play on one credit by simply achieving the same replay score in every game.
* ''Special'': A mechanism to get a free game during play is usually called a "special". Typically, some hard-to-reach feature of the game will light the outlanes (the areas to the extreme left and right of the flippers) for special. Since the outlanes always lose the ball, having "special" there makes it worth shooting for them (and is usually the only time, if this is the case).
* ''Match'': At the end of the game, if a set digit of the player's score matches a random digit, a free game is awarded.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=The Next Generation 1996 Lexicon A to Z: Match|magazine=[[Next Generation (magazine)|Next Generation]]|issue=15 |publisher=[[Imagine Media]]|date=March 1996|page=36}}</ref> In earlier machines, the set digit was usually the [[ones place]]; after a phenomenon often referred to as ''score inflation'' had happened (causing almost all scores to end in 0), the set digit was usually the tens place. The chances of a match appear to be 1 in 10, but the operator can alter this probability – the default is usually 7% in all modern Williams and Bally games for example. Other non-numeric methods are sometimes used to award a match.
* ''High Score'': Bally/Midway, Williams and Stern Pinball machines award 1–3 free games if a player gets on the high score list. Typically, one or two credits are awarded for a 1st–4th place listing, and three for the Grand Champion.

When a free game is won, Williams and Bally/Midway machines typically makes a single loud bang, most often with a [[solenoid]] that strikes a piece of metal, or the side of the cabinet, with a rod, known as a ''knocker'', or less commonly with [[loudspeaker]]s. "Knocking" is the act of winning a free game when the knocker makes the loud and distinctive noise.