IRON FATHOM

Take the light down. Bring the crew back. How IRON FATHOM plays: its rules, its modes and its playfield.

Play IRON FATHOM

The machine

IRON FATHOM is an original pinball machine in the style of a 1980s solid-state game, for one to four players, built by Holmes Computer Consultants. A game is five balls, and its author estimates a ball lasts about 55 seconds. Its author rates it 2 out of 5 for difficulty, and it is rated for everyone.

IRON FATHOM is part of Pro, which unlocks the full roster on every device you sign in on.

What Pro costs and what it adds

On the playfield

The playfield has two flippers, three pop bumpers, two slingshots, three standup targets, one spinner, one kicker, nine rollovers and one captive ball. Everything on it — the art, the lettering and every sound — is generated in code when the machine loads, so there is nothing to download.

The instruction card

The card on IRON FATHOM's cabinet sums up the rules in three lines:

  • Complete R-I-G and shoot the hatch to begin a dive.
  • Build depth with shots, then bank it at the hatch.
  • Complete four dives and bank 25 depth. Shoot the hatch for Surface.

The modes

IRON FATHOM has six modes, listed in the order its rules declare them.

  • COLD WATER (40 seconds) — shots: cable ramp, airlift ramp and orbit right.
  • SILT (30 seconds) — shots: cable ramp and airlift ramp.
  • THE WRECK (45 seconds) — shots: swarm1, swarm2, swarm3 and scoop hatch.
  • BLACKOUT (30 seconds) — shots: cable ramp, airlift ramp, orbit right and scoop hatch.
  • HAUL UP.
  • SURFACE (90 seconds) — shots: cable ramp, airlift ramp, orbit right, spinner cable and scoop hatch — each shot scores 2,000,000; finishing it scores 10,000,000.

Qualifying and completing modes

  • Each of the four dives gets one attempt per game. A timed-out or unfinished dive cannot be retried that game.
  • The hatch starts a qualified dive when no mode is active. During another mode, it ejects the ball and keeps the next dive qualified.

Multiball and extra balls

Multiball puts up to three balls in play at once.

Playing it

IRON FATHOM plays in a browser on a computer or a phone, and in a Meta Quest 3 headset. Every game runs the same simulation, stepped a thousand times a second, on every device.

The controls on a keyboard, a phone and a headset