FlipScapes

I grew up with pinball machines - the real ones but also Epic Pinball and Space Cadet, absolute legends in their time. And now I'm having a blast with FlipScapes. FlipScapes is a brilliant new pinball game that absolutely makes the most of its digital nature with highly interactive levels, dynamic objectives, characters and special abilities. It's top notch. For more niche curation, follow me at: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/27440015-CSH-Picone/

I'll write an early review since this game seems to be criminally ignored by the algorithm, and what I've seen thus far gives me a lot of confidence in the quality of the rest of the game. For context, I've spent many hundreds of hours playing pinball, and I search for and follow virtually every pinball-themed release on Steam. Usually I'm mildly to very disappointed in pinball-themed games that stray very far from the refined organism that has emerged from the nearly hundred-year evolutionary path of pinball engineering: a flexible but well defined category of devices (real or virtual) operating within well-justified and thus mostly standardized design conventions; an inter-generationally familiar and venerable pastime which can be every bit as rewarding and demanding at high levels as billiards, bowling, and other ball sports. Now, there are competently made pinballish PC games like Rollers of the Realm, Demon's/Xeno Tilt, etc, that, while I acknowledge their many virtues, have left me relatively cold compared to playing almost any ordinary physical or faithfully simulated pinball table. I'd just rather play [i]pinball[/i]. This game is a welcome exception. Don't let the ca…

The goal of the game is to progress through stages by completing their objectives. There is also a points system, which you can increase with difficulty multipliers. However, the difficulty setting doesn’t change anything other than the number of balls you have available to beat a stage. The main gameplay is based on pinball mechanics with a dash of pachinko and brick-breaking. After you launch the ball in the desired direction, you need to keep it in the playing field by using the left and right flippers. This sounds simple enough, if not for one big twist: the hole between the flippers is much wider than in usual pinball games. The game offers two ways to deal with this. The first is the ability to nudge the ball left or right to prevent it from falling in. This ability needs to recharge after each use, which takes around a second or two, but that’s often enough to prevent such cheap “deaths.” The second option is a bar between the flippers that can be temporarily extended by collecting icons with the ball. However, you only have direct control over the bar if you choose not to use the nudge. If you go with the nudge mode, the bar moves left and right on its own. The nudge abi…

Adorably cute game with an interesting mix of flipper and Peggle mechanics. I hope the game gets way more attention and the devs continue being motivated!

Really cute and solid pinball game! I love how the boards change over time when you play them, each feel like an adventure.

it keeps on booting me back to the intro screen after showing the main menu for 1 second. please let me know when its fixed and i'll retry the game because it looks great <3