Ball Machine

("You turned to the camera and thanked Tenna for a great toy! Thanks, Tenna!")

BALL MACHINE User's Guide, Chapter 3

The Ball Machine (JP: ボールマシン) is a minigame in Deltarune. It can be accessed by getting a B-rank or higher in any given round of TV Time during Chapter 3, and entering the B-rank room in the Green Room. The party can use POINTs on the machine, a minimum of 100 going up in increments of 5, to get a random prize.

Gameplay

The minimum amount of 100 POINTs is required to play with the Ball Machine, but the party can give more POINTs to increase the chance of winning, in increments of 5 POINTs at a time.

If an item prize is won, but Kris does not have any more room in their inventory, 100 POINTs is given as a consolation prize instead. If this item was a gold prize, it is not removed from the gold prize pool, but the gold prize chance is still reset.

Inserting 1225 POINTs transports Kris to the gacharoom_unknown secret room. Once the player leaves the secret room, the Ball Machine permanently disappears, preventing any further prizes from being obtained. If the Shadow Mantle was obtained before the TripTicket on the Sword Route, the TripTicket can be found where the Ball Machine used to be after exiting gacharoom_unknown.

The chance of getting a gold prize is determined by the current bet $b e t$ , the previous total number of POINTs bet since the last gold prize was won $o l d b e t$ , and the number of remaining gold prizes $r e m a i n i n g$ , by the following formula:

$c h a n c e = 5 + (b e t - 100) (0.1 + \frac{r e m a i n i n g}{50}) (1 + \frac{o l d b e t}{50})$

$c h a n c e$ is the probability of getting a gold prize, in percent.

Once a type of prize is chosen (normal or gold), one of the prizes available in that category will be selected at random, with each item in that item group having an equal chance of being picked. TV Dinner has two instances in the normal prize pool. DogDollar, Golden Tenna Statue, and the 5 gold prizes can only be earned once each.

When a normal prize is obtained, that prize becomes unobtainable again until the room is exited. If all prizes have been obtained, the machine will always output 101 POINTs.

The machine has a very small chance to output 101 POINTs in other cases, even if the prize would otherwise be gold.^{[note 1]}

Strategy

By using the above formula, repeated here,

$c h a n c e = 5 + (b e t - 100) (0.1 + \frac{r e m a i n i n g}{50}) (1 + \frac{o l d b e t}{50})$

the following formula can be derived, where $p o i n t s$ is the amount of POINTs needed to achieve 100% probability of winning a gold prize:

$p o i n t s = \frac{100 (0.1 + \frac{r e m a i n i n g}{50}) (1 + \frac{o l d b e t}{50}) + 95}{(0.1 + \frac{r e m a i n i n g}{50}) (1 + \frac{o l d b e t}{50})} + o l d b e t$

Since the number of POINTs that can be inserted into the machine increases in intervals of 5, the following formula can then be derived:

$p o i n t s = ⌈ \frac{\frac{100 (0.1 + \frac{r e m a i n i n g}{50}) (1 + \frac{⌈ \frac{o l d b e t}{5} ⌉ 5}{50}) + 95}{(0.1 + \frac{r e m a i n i n g}{50}) (1 + \frac{⌈ \frac{o l d b e t}{5} ⌉ 5}{50})}}{5} ⌉ 5 + ⌈ \frac{o l d b e t}{5} ⌉ 5$

By looking at the following chart, the player can find the lowest number of $p o i n t s$ and the highest $o l d b e t$ so that their chances of winning are higher even at the $o l d b e t$ .

Remaining gold prizes	First bet	Second bet
5	120 POINTs	240 POINTs
4	115 POINTs	260 POINTs
3	130 POINTs	265 POINTs
2	150 POINTs	270 POINTs
1	170 POINTs	280 POINTs

Using this strategy, the minimum number of POINTs the player needs to have a 100% chance of getting all 5 gold prizes is 2,000.

Prizes

Normal prizes

Prize	Type	Quantity available in machine	Notes
50 POINTs	Currency	Unlimited	-
100 POINTs	Currency	Unlimited	-
200 POINTs	Currency	Unlimited	-
DeluxeDinner	Consumable	Unlimited	-
DogDollar	Consumable	1	Displays an Annoying Dog.
Fortune	Other	Unlimited	One of twelve potential Fortunes (see below).
GingerGuard	Armor	Unlimited	-
Glowshard	Consumable	Unlimited	-
Golden Tenna Statue	Other	1	The dialogue upon obtaining it suggests this piece of furniture will be placed in Kris's room in Castle Town in the future. It cannot be seen during Chapters 3 or 4.
Lancer	Other	Unlimited	-
TV Dinner	Consumable	Unlimited	Included twice in prize pool.
TVSlop	Consumable	Unlimited	-

Gold prizes

Only 1 of each gold prize is available.

Prize	Type
BlueRibbon	Armor
ExecBuffet	Consumable
ReviveMint	Consumable
TennaTie	Armor
TensionMax	Consumable

Fortunes

A "Fortune" does not award any actual item, and just displays one of the following 12 messages at random (evenly). Some of them are vague hints towards Chapter 3's secrets.

Fortune	Note
Looks like a dog slobbered on it.	Possibly a reference to the Annoying Dog.
You'll croak before you can find the X! Signed, the Mad Croaker.	A hint that the X referenced on the TripTicket is the one in Ribbick's CroakOnX ACT.
Mumble... mumble... Two puzzles are connected...	A hint that the Nowhere puzzle is connected to the Lancer digging puzzle.
It's good you're spending points on this. They are good for anything else.	-
The aqua spirits trapped in the coolers are beautiful, and best of all, recyclable.	A hint that the Watercoolers are trapped Mizzles.
Don't let your guard down. That chair is going to kick your ass!	-
Sometimes you should take the spotlight if it heads your way. Don't be a coward!	A hint to be caught by the final spotlight in order to reach Nowhere.
These are the ranks, from lowest to highest... C,B,A, S, and of course T, for TV. T is just for bragging rights, so don't sweat it. Anything lower than "C" is just asking for it...!	Alludes to the existence of Z-rank, which is lower than C-rank, and unlocks a unique room.
There are no weapons in the GAME. Kids and Adults can enjoy a like!	Possibly a reference to the Sword Route, in which a weapon can be obtained.
Kris felt a feeling of deja vu. ... however, the handwriting was illegible! Kris felt a feeling of deja vu.	Possibly a reference to the man, particularly to the mysterious Valentine letter.
A musical island postcard from the FLYING ACES. It's encouraging you to visit... but the music gets old fast.	The Flying Aces are found in Mancountry, where the looping background music (`man_nes`) is only 9 seconds long.
... huh? There was some sort of triangle inside... Kris returned it to the machine.	Potentially a reference to `gacharoom_unknown`, which has a blue ball machine which similarly dispenses a triangle.

Trivia

1225, the amount of POINTs required to enter gacharoom_unknown, is the same number that is used to unlock one of the doors in the parental lock rooms leading to the Cold Place. It also reappears at several other points throughout the game.
- 1225 is a number tied heavily to Dess, and its appearance here is likely a reference to her importance (and the importance of the Holiday family in general) to the Dreemurr family, especially since the Holiday family seems to have frequented the Dreemurr residence.

Version history

Game edition	Version tag	Changes
Deltarune Chapter 3	v1.04	Added the ability to obtain the TripTicket after visiting `gacharoom_unknown` if the Shadow Mantle has been obtained. Previously, it was impossible to obtain the TripTicket if it was not already obtained after completing the Sword Route.
Deltarune Chapter 3	v1.04	Lancer no longer remains in the inventory after leaving the Ball Machine room.

Notes

↑ The game rolls a random number from 1 to 13 (1 to 5 for gold), and awards that prize if it is currently available. If it fails, it rerolls up to 100 times; if all of the attempts fail, the resulting prize is 101 POINTs. As such, if there is only one normal prize left, the chance of getting 101 POINTs is about 0.033%, and the chance is negligible in all other cases.

[1] The game rolls a random number from 1 to 13 (1 to 5 for gold), and awards that prize if it is currently available. If it fails, it rerolls up to 100 times; if all of the attempts fail, the resulting prize is 101 POINTs. As such, if there is only one normal prize left, the chance of getting 101 POINTs is about 0.033%, and the chance is negligible in all other cases.

[note 1]