Digital pinball is one of those genres that seems easy but is actually very hard to get right.  For every Devil’s Crush or Crue Ball there are dozens of forgotten tables consisting of little more than a few lanes, bumpers, and drop targets.  Pinball looks easy but a good layout is complicated beyond initial appearances, which is what made Demon’s Tilt such a great surprise when it first showed up in Early Access four years ago.  The multi-tiered board felt like a nice open layout until enemy targets started wandering through, getting in the way of the numerous targets and bonus shots that lit up the board with effects and retaliatory firepower when activated.  Demon’s Tilt was top-tier digital pinball, and now it’s getting a sequel in the form of Xenotilt.

Xenotilt: Hostile Pinball Action is a new three-tiered table with an “alien-overrun derelict spaceship” theme, complete with all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a Demon’s Title sequel.  Enemies wandering the playfield, multiple bosses, massive patterns of firepower pushing the ball around and much more keep the table lively.  The multiball matrix can hold up to nine balls to make sure that mode gets truly chaotic, and various as-yet-undefined perks help keep you alive and knock the score through the roof.  The reveal trailer shows some truly fantastic-looking pinball action, all rendered in top-notch 2D, and with various gameplay modes and bonus-boards there’s a lot more to see coming up.  Xenotilt is already looking like pure pinball spectacle, and if it can match Demon’s Tilt it will have the gameplay to back up the looks.