Magnetic Kickbacks

Electromagnets positioned near the outlanes that activate automatically when a ball is about to drain, pulling it away from the gutter and flinging it back onto the playfield. Unlike the player-activated Magna-Save, magnetic kickbacks are game-controlled — the player earns the feature, but the magnet fires on its own when needed. Bally’s Theatre of Magic (1995) pioneered the concept with an automatic magna-save over the outlanes, lit for twenty seconds by hitting the “Hocus Pocus” target. More recently, Stern’s Star Wars: Fall of the Empire pulses a magnet to rescue the ball from the left outlane. The result is a dramatic, physics-defying save that requires no player intervention beyond earning it.