PinOut Tips, Cheats and Strategies

PinOut from Mediocre is the endless game pinball wizards have dreamed about, but it will take a lot of careful flips and impeccable aim to reach high score notoriety. Levels with unique obstacles sprawl out into the distance and a countdown timer marks your inevitable demise. Free-to-play gamers can make significant progress but unless they shell out for a one-time IAP that allows continuing from checkpoints, they’ll have to make it as far as possible all in one go. But with or without checkpoints unlocked, Gamezebo’s PinOut tips, tricks, and strategies will help anyone play a mean pinball.

As you move along the track, you’ll see beads which give you an additional second for every one you roll over. These bonus time beads are bountiful in the early levels so make sure you collect them all to lay the base for the best run possible. If you are playing without checkpoints, you’ll be playing level one a lot so make the most of all that practice and snatch up every one of those extra seconds.

A checkpoint gives you no bonus aside from the time beads you gather on your way in to it, so don’t rely on anything extra when you get there. Also be aware that you can fall through a checkpoint all the way back down to previous levels.

There are arrows located along the tracks and they will help you position yourself and determine where to aim. Watching where on the board you want to go, rather than at the ball itself, will likely improve your trajectory as well.

Landing on colored orbs will provide either powerups or minigames. To play the minigames, simply tap (or as they say, “flip”) to move, and you’ll earn additional seconds for your timer. Minigames last as long as you can stay alive so you have the potential to earn a lot of extra time. However, be warned that when you die in the minigame, you are dropped out and immediately into the action; make sure you are in position with flippers up or ready to receive or you might find yourself dropping a very long way down.

When you reach a powerup, you’ll be given a choice between two, though sometimes an option will be “random.” Some powerups are crucial to successfully completing a level so you’ll need to know which is which.

• Slow motion: Slows time. This is most helpful if you’re not great at aiming or need to practice your moves.
• Time Freeze: Timer is paused for ten flips. This is great if you already have great aim, but watch out if you get stuck in a precarious area that will require multiple flips to escape.
• Motion link: timer only ticks when the ball is in motion. This is helpful for areas where your strategy benefits from landing the ball in the crook of the flipper so you can aim.
• Push: Push the ball in any direction. Rather than using a flipper, you swipe on the ball directly. We found this to cause some dissonance in the gameplay experience, in that you have to use a different type of gesture to make it work.
• Warp: Skip part of the level. This can work against you if you end up missing powerups or time beads.
• Time Doubler: Time bonuses are worth twice as much. This is absolutely crucial for advanced levels.

As you advance in the levels (i.e. level 6 and above), you’ll need to hit every section flawlessly or you will absolutely run out of time before the next checkpoint. Collecting time beads within the level will certainly help, but if you bounce around within bumpers or miss a flipper even once, you won’t make it through in time. In these advanced stages you’ll either need to accrue as much time as possible in earlier levels or restart as soon as you mess up, if you have checkpoints unlocked.

Lian Amaris

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Lian Amaris has been studying and writing about games, transmedia storytelling and immersive environments since 2003. She has two Master's degrees from NYU, was a new media professor for 3 years then transitioned to mobile tech in 2011. From 2012-15 she worked on bringing over 35 F2P mobile games to market.