pinboll lets you add new bumpers, rewards, and other wacky items to a game of pinball so you can sow chaos or get tons of points.
The game seems like fairly ordinary pinball at first. You have a few flippers at the bottom (and one higher on the play field), some slingshots near the flippers that will send your ball flying, and a few drains to ruin your fun. The first round will probably see you collecting a few coins if you’re pretty good, but sooner or later, you’ll lose your ball. Once that happens, you’ll be rewarded with a new item you can add to the field. These can be huge bumpers that send the ball flying, coins, or free balls that activate when the item is hit.
As you play longer, you’ll steadily start to unlock better rewards. You’ll unlock bumpers that alter gravity, saving you from losing your ball down the drain. You’ll split the ball into three if you hit another kind of bumper. You will keep unlocking these different items you can place throughout the play field as you go, which steadily adds more objects that will send your ball flying in unpredictable directions. So, you’ll want to be strategic with your placements so you don’t send all of you balls down the drain. If you’re really clever with where you place things, though, you can keep your ball in play for absurd amounts of time, steadily racking up tons of points as you keep the ball trapped between reward bumpers.
pinboll is a fun addition to pinball that sees you thinking about how to compose a fun playing field. It lets you make play incredibly challenging or find ways to gain downright silly scores depending on what you want to do. It made me further appreciate the design decisions that go into a good table whenever I wasn’t fighting to make a busted table that would let me climb the game’s leaderboards.
pinboll is available now (for whatever you wish to pay for it) on itch.io.
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