Мы в Telegram
Добавить новость
Январь 2010 Февраль 2010 Март 2010 Апрель 2010 Май 2010
Июнь 2010
Июль 2010 Август 2010
Сентябрь 2010
Октябрь 2010
Ноябрь 2010
Декабрь 2010
Январь 2011
Февраль 2011 Март 2011 Апрель 2011 Май 2011 Июнь 2011 Июль 2011 Август 2011
Сентябрь 2011
Октябрь 2011 Ноябрь 2011 Декабрь 2011 Январь 2012 Февраль 2012 Март 2012 Апрель 2012 Май 2012 Июнь 2012 Июль 2012 Август 2012 Сентябрь 2012 Октябрь 2012 Ноябрь 2012 Декабрь 2012 Январь 2013 Февраль 2013 Март 2013 Апрель 2013 Май 2013 Июнь 2013 Июль 2013 Август 2013 Сентябрь 2013 Октябрь 2013 Ноябрь 2013 Декабрь 2013 Январь 2014 Февраль 2014
Март 2014
Апрель 2014 Май 2014 Июнь 2014 Июль 2014 Август 2014 Сентябрь 2014 Октябрь 2014 Ноябрь 2014 Декабрь 2014 Январь 2015 Февраль 2015 Март 2015 Апрель 2015 Май 2015 Июнь 2015 Июль 2015 Август 2015 Сентябрь 2015 Октябрь 2015 Ноябрь 2015 Декабрь 2015 Январь 2016 Февраль 2016 Март 2016 Апрель 2016 Май 2016 Июнь 2016 Июль 2016 Август 2016 Сентябрь 2016 Октябрь 2016 Ноябрь 2016 Декабрь 2016 Январь 2017 Февраль 2017 Март 2017 Апрель 2017 Май 2017
Июнь 2017
Июль 2017
Август 2017 Сентябрь 2017 Октябрь 2017 Ноябрь 2017 Декабрь 2017 Январь 2018 Февраль 2018 Март 2018 Апрель 2018 Май 2018 Июнь 2018 Июль 2018 Август 2018 Сентябрь 2018 Октябрь 2018 Ноябрь 2018 Декабрь 2018 Январь 2019
Февраль 2019
Март 2019 Апрель 2019 Май 2019 Июнь 2019 Июль 2019 Август 2019 Сентябрь 2019 Октябрь 2019 Ноябрь 2019 Декабрь 2019 Январь 2020
Февраль 2020
Март 2020 Апрель 2020 Май 2020 Июнь 2020 Июль 2020 Август 2020 Сентябрь 2020 Октябрь 2020 Ноябрь 2020 Декабрь 2020 Январь 2021 Февраль 2021 Март 2021 Апрель 2021 Май 2021 Июнь 2021 Июль 2021 Август 2021 Сентябрь 2021 Октябрь 2021 Ноябрь 2021 Декабрь 2021 Январь 2022 Февраль 2022 Март 2022 Апрель 2022 Май 2022 Июнь 2022 Июль 2022 Август 2022 Сентябрь 2022 Октябрь 2022 Ноябрь 2022 Декабрь 2022 Январь 2023 Февраль 2023 Март 2023 Апрель 2023 Май 2023 Июнь 2023 Июль 2023 Август 2023 Сентябрь 2023 Октябрь 2023 Ноябрь 2023 Декабрь 2023 Январь 2024 Февраль 2024 Март 2024 Апрель 2024 Май 2024
1 2 3 4 5 6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Game News |

Exclusive: The sickest pinball game of 2019 is getting a sequel

Pinball contains multitudes. I mean, not just multiball—pinball has a rich history of games within games, like the mini pinball table below the playfield in The Munsters or the boxing minigame in Champion Pub. 2019's Demon's Tilt, a pinball game I loved, embraced the benefits of a virtual table by being multiple screens tall, throwing bullet hell attacks at your ball, and having more than one secret sub-table to discover (real-life bowling would be a lot cooler if there was a giant skull at the end of the lane).

The sequel goes full videogame: it adds guns.

But not just guns! Xenotilt, which trades out magic and the occult for sci-fi, gleefully carries on the tradition of games-within-pinball. You can play blackjack with a cyborg waving cat, if you don't hit him with the ball so many times he explodes. Being the dealer is a thankless job.

Xenotilt is so stuffed with… stuff that I've barely gotten a handle on it in a couple hours with a beta build. There's a new system that lets you lock away up to nine balls, each one granting you a bonus or power-up. When you cradle the ball with a flipper you can set off turrets or lasers to shred the little enemies flying around the board, clearing a path for the ball. There are so many explosions and particle effects flying out of the screen at all times that I tend to get distracted and let the ball slip past the flippers. Xenotilt is intentionally overwhelming. 

"I'm trying to do a maximalist thing. It's supposed to be aggressively, you know… screaming," says designer/artist/programmer Adam Ferrando. "The perk system is basically the loudest version of each of those mechanics, but you build up to it—when you start the game it's still exciting, but you're building up to something."

There's nowhere that maximalist impulse is more clear than in Xenotilt's art, which blends 3D boss monsters with sprites of all shapes and sizes and so many particle effects I'm honestly surprised that Xenotilt ran at full speed on the Steam Deck without stuttering issues.

"A lot of retro-inspired games put arbitrary rules on tiles and palettes and stuff, but I don't really do any of that. The pixels are not one-to-one. The pixels are authored at a higher resolution than most sprite art. I'm playing with scale. I'm really just going for what looks good."

Xenotilt pinball

(Image credit: WIZNWAR, FLARB LLC)

Ferrando says he's a fan of "screen-filling bosses," and Xenotilt certainly has those—every game you'll bounce between three levels of the playfield (it's even taller than the already-tall board of Demon's Tilt), each dominated by a sci-fi boss in the center of the field. Bosses in Xenotilt are not quite the same as bosses in your typical videogame. They can throw attacks at you or summon little enemies to get in the way of your ball, but there's no game over for shooting a ramp to score points elsewhere on the board. "They're not trying to drain you out or be unfair—it's not that kind of challenge," he says. "They're trying to obstruct flow a little bit and change up the play space. It's an escalating challenge, occupying that space and making it interesting and exciting." 

Bosses are also there to make the turret mechanic more exciting and rewarding: if you save up ammo for the moment a boss explodes and spawns a pulsing red orb, you can trigger your turrets to pepper it with shots for a second jackpot. "Everything in the second game is built on existing ideas, but putting a new and deeper twist on them," he says. If you've played Demon's Tilt, you'll recognize how Xenotilt remixes that game's magic system and boss behavior. If you haven't, though, the theme may be the biggest draw.

Image 1 of 4

Xenotilt pinball

(Image credit: Flarb)
Image 2 of 4

Xenotilt pinball

(Image credit: Flarb)
Image 3 of 4

Xenotilt pinball

(Image credit: Flarb)
Image 4 of 4

Xenotilt pinball

(Image credit: Flarb)

Demon's Tilt was clearly heavily inspired by one of the legends of virtual pinball, Devil's Crush, and Ferrando laughed when he admitted that following that up with a sci-fi table was a deliberate riff on that game's predecessor, Alien Crush—but with his own aesthetic.

"I said early on I don't want to make H.R. Giger," he says. "I love Giger so much… but the tone of this was less Giger, more grimdark, Warhammery, kind of chunky. Just trying to be different and finding things that surprised me."

Xenotilt will be out this year and feels close to complete, though Ferrando and his publisher Ralph Barbagallo are still considering whether to launch it in early access. It'll be fully playable, with all of the planned launch content—including a new time attack mode inspired by speedrunning.

"It's way further along than the first game was when we went into early access," Barbagallo says. "Getting that community feedback was a critical part of the dev process, so I'd still like to do that." Ferrando chalks that up to how niche Demon's Tilt was—turns out if someone is playing an early access extreme pinball game, they tend to have good feedback.

Here's an appetizer to hold you over until you can play for yourself: a full game* of Xenotilt.

*A short game where I see only a sliver of what Xenotilt has to offer but c'mon I don't have hours to practice here



Читайте также

Подробности о Terminator Survivors и слухи об анонсе Resident Evil 9

PC-версию Helldivers 2 не только требуют привязать к PSN — её ещё и не продают в странах, где PSN нет

Today's Wordle answer for Sunday, May 5




Game24.pro — паблик игровых новостей в календарном формате на основе технологичной новостной информационно-поисковой системы с элементами искусственного интеллекта, гео-отбора и возможностью мгновенной публикации авторского контента в режиме Free Public. Game24.pro — ваши Game News сегодня и сейчас в Вашем городе.

Опубликовать свою новость, реплику, комментарий, анонс и т.д. можно мгновенно — здесь.



Персональные новости

Галина Янко: главные традиции и приметы Пасхи

Сотрудники Росгвардии обеспечили безопасность встречи Благодатного огня в Москве

Композитор Классической музыки Сергей Брановицкий представляет произведения классической музыки.

Пресс-релиз | CRYPTONIUM | Новая экосистема для заработка на криптовалюте | Арбитраж | Трейдинг | Обучение