Pinball Breaker Forever (by XperimentalZ Games) Needs Beta Testers!

We're thrilled to finally announce our upcoming title, Pinball Breaker Forever!

The game merges pinball and brick breaking mechanics to produce a supercharged twitchy randomly generated endless gaming experience!

The beta is now over, thanks to everyone who helped out!

In short:

- Controls will be pinball-like
- Blocks will drop down the screen in formations and slowly move down
- If a block reaches the bottom of the screen, you'll lose a life (A bit like Space Invaders)
- Side tracks will roll down the sides, featuring all sort of pinball-style alternative mini games (targets, whack-a-mole, portals, ect.)
- Blocks will have all sort of shape and behaviors (to add variety)
- Power-ups like explosions, time freeze, fire ball, multi balls etc will be unlockable and upgradable through an in-game shop
- The vibe for the graphics and music will be the 80's

Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel

 

Thanks to those who already registered for the alpha/beta!

Here's a few images which give a idea of the game and display some of the blocks configurations along with some possible side tracks mini-games/variations:

 

Soon! We have a series of bug to fix then we'll submit the game to Apple for external beta testing. The first phase will begin next week.

This weekend I'll try to prepare some footage to give an idea of the pace, which is supercharged compared to a standard brick breaking game.

 

Pinball controls work so well on a mobile device but it's a crowded niche. I love the brick breaker concept and history but the controls and slow pace always felt awkward to me on mobile. The urge to mix the best of both was kinda where things started from over about 17 months ago. Doing some research, I saw that this was not the first time those 2 ideas were merged but I saw nothing that filled my crave at the time. Then we decided to make it an endless game to add another twist, a bit like Breakfinity (brick breaker + endless) which is quite cool but much lighter features wise. Adding the side tracks mini-games in order to push the pinball side was the final idea at which point we thought we had a sweet angle.

Yeah this was a balance thingy that we played with at some point. Trying to break a brick in the middle of the screen was often punitive. That said, at this time the game is not based on a number of balls but a number of lives. You can lose as many balls as you want but when you lose one, your multiplier drop and the blocks board drops by an abrupt amount.

The footage won't be able to demonstrate them all. Right now they are divided in 'configurations', 'traps' and 'mini-games'.

Configurations:
- All sorts of angled deformations of the walls, which can affect the bounces

Traps:
- Portals, teleporting the ball from one side to the other
- Black holes that trap and launch randomly the ball after a delay

Mini-Games:
- Whack-a-mole for multiplier bonuses
- Hit 3 targets on both sides for a life bonus
- Hit targets in the right order for a score bonus
- Series of bumpers on both sides for score bonus

And we're still planning to add more

 

Added you to the list, with a good bunch of other applicants, which is cool .

The hard limit of applicants through Testflight is like 2000, we'll never reach that. This means that everyone who wish to be in will have a chance to help out at one point or another. It's just unclear yet if we're going to split players in waves or allow everyone in right off the bat and hope that the thread will be active enough to generate new applications for later in the beta (the testing period should be around 6-8 weeks).

A common issue is to have the group wearing out through beta as they move on to other games and end up with too few people for the final testing phase. We'll see what happens!

 

Added!

lol I sure hope so!


It looks like the game is in a stable shape right now so we're about to submit it to Apple for external testing.
The process usually takes 3-7 days. The following submissions will be much quicker to go through.

 

The pinball controls allowed us to approach the brick breaking genre from a different angle by building up on a higher pace and precision. Most maps are built around a weak point that will help you wipe it out if you aim at the right place. With this approach, it turned out that it was cool to display power-ups (instead of being hidden like in a standard brick breaking form). This means that when a blocks formation appear, you can read it, figure out how to use the power-ups to your advantage and try to aim precisely.

That's what I tried to convey in this first gif, because it captures the essence of the game quite well.