PinBuilder

Literally unplayable. If you google official videos that explain in detail about the changes in the latest build the game barely runs in the TUTORIAL videos online. Great concept, needs to be optimized.

Is it a design tool, a game, a physics playground? I think the answer is a yes, but....... It does all of those things in the most obtuse and terrible ways possible. This lacks the accuracy and features to be even remotely as a design tool. This is not fun as a game, it's cumbersome and difficult to find even slight pockets of enjoyment. Physics? nahhhhhh, this thing runs like a steaming pile of dog crap. Overall I find it absurd that the game is now 2 years into it's early access status and has shown very little improvement. VPX doesn't cost a dime and outdoes this turd of a program in every facet. Save your 29.99 and spend it on a game from a publisher who actually deserves it.

Likes: Graphics of pinball parts. Plays fairly well. Building of tables quite fun. Dislikes: Logic controllers used for functionality of created table (scoring, lighting etc) NOT USER FRIENDLY. Very few instructions on how to properly use logic controllers. Some aspects of the game still wonky Still needs alot of work done to fix alot of bugs and issues. No posts or updates from dev in over a year from what ive seen. Im guessing it is as it is. OVERALL: Building the tables is quite fun. I do enjoy that. However, the functionality of the tables with the logic controllers Is not for the faint of heart unless you like to think outside the box to make it work (which i like to do) or are skilled with coding (which i am not). Bugs and issues (FPS, crashes with logic controller issues etc..) are occasional and i dont think the devs have any plans on fixing anytime soon.

As clear as mud, cant figure out how to access anything. Still trying every now and then months later, and where I aim the mouse is not where the click is hitting, frustrating, reinstalling for the fifth time.

If you want to build your own pinball machines with NO CODING EXPERIENCE NEEDED then this is the app you are looking for. I've tried VPX in the past. I would get some of the basic things going, but soon would hit a snag because it would require me to do some code work. This is where PinBuilder shines. Sure, there are missing elements and features, it is still a work in progress, and yes, there is still a significant learning curve, but there is NO CODING required. The devs are great about frequently adding features and making QOL improvements. This is clearly a passion project for the devs. I had been waiting for an alternative to VPX and this is what I needed to get me to be able to wrap my mind around building my own tables. You can also add in your custom sounds pretty easily by adding them to a folder. There are still things that need to be added, for sure, but this sim is on the upward swing, the devs aren't done at all. The one thing you need to have when approaching this sim is patience and perseverance. I still don't have my mind wrapped around a ton of the available features and workflow, but there are a lot of guides created by the devs on YouTube.

Too many problems. At first I was getting "Fatal Error" every time I changed to Play mode. Wondered if changing from Full Screen to Windowed would work, but doing that messed up the resolution (which it shouldn't). I fixed that by going to config file and changing all resolution references to 1920x1080 (I'm playing on 4K TV, but the game was so slow it was unusable on that resolution) and the game loaded fine. Even no longer encountered the "Fatal Error". Except, couldn't figure out the key binds to play (I lost that part of the tutorial thanks to fatal errors) so I paused the game, which caused the resolution to reset to 720x480, and a lot of it was cut off, and unusable - had to alt F4 and update the config file again, but immediately had the same problem. Literally finding this unplayable.