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Pinblast NEON is a 2D pinball platformer in Unity that merges the fast-paced precision of platformers with the point-collecting satisfaction of pinball.
Pinblast NEON is a 2D pinball platformer in Unity that merges the fast-paced precision of platformers with the point-collecting satisfaction of pinball. The player maneuvers a pinball around four unique stages with the goal of making it to the finish with the highest score possible. Players can utilize flippers, cannons, grappling hooks, and an air dash to reach the end as quickly as possible, or play a slower paced collectathon by getting score pickups and bouncing off every bumper.
What I Did:
Pinblast NEON was created as a semester-long project for MI498 Collaborate Game Design in spring 2026. I participated in this class as an extra programmer from outside the college (as I had graduated in 2024). I worked with a eight person team with guidance from professors and an MSU alumni advisor team from various indie studios.
Our primary goal with this game was to make something extremely low scope that we could make look as professional as possible. Therefore, the first thing I worked on was creating the early prototype of the game idea by converting a 2D version of the game into 3D. Afterwards, I worked on the game physics, and the functionality of the ten level elements we had implemented, such as flippers, bumpers, cannons, grappling hooks, etc. I did a lot of technical design work - making prototypes for ideas to see if they were fun or not, as well as tweaking numbers to make the physics as fun as possible.
About halfway into the project, we had the game feeling about as good as we wanted it. This is when I started entering the polish phase with the rest of my team. I obviously fixed countless physics bugs, as well as making some adjustments to levels and player controls to address inconsistent behavior or assist designers in their work.
What I Learned:
We scoped this project to be doable in half the needed time so that we could polish it a ton, which was a great decision. However, level design was a painful pipeline for the entirety of the project, and I probably should have made some more design tools earlier in the project. It took a bit longer than it should have to have fully integrated levels in our game.
Similar to Chromakill, we did a lot of work adding redundant game systems to make sure players understand how to play our game. This was mostly done with neon signs and level design, but we also got a lot of useful feedback from our advisors on making these mechanics clear while still keeping the game fast paced.
This is also definitely the most polished game I've worked on, and I learned how to use Unity's Feel package to create some minor effects very easily. Although many of the juice and polish was done by other members of the team, I was able to learn a fair deal of how it worked while doing bug cleanup. I think the main thing I learned this project was the core concept of adding multiple effects to literally every action in the game. There's always something more you can add to a button press to make it even more exciting.
At the end of spring, we had a project that the team was very confident in, and that I believe is the most finished game I've ever worked on. in April 2026 we submitted the game to Indiecade and also presented our game at the MSU Spring 2026 Games Showcase. If I had to present a single one of my games to someone, it would be Pinblast NEON.
For more info, or to play the game: Download the game on the Itch.io page!
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