Face Pinball vs Visual Pinball
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Face Pinball
Control a pinball game using only your face. Raise eyebrows to flick flippers, close eyes to pass barriers, and open your mouth to swallow the ball and advance. This hands-free experience is designed for parties and friendly competition.
- Hands-free face control
- Control flippers with eyebrows
- Pass barriers by closing eyes
- Swallow ball to advance levels
- Party game entertainment
- Compete for top scores
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PLEASE NOTE: This experience requires hardware ONLY available on later iPhones (iPhone X and above) which include TrueDepth camera hardware, and WILL NOT WORK on any other devices. Sorry for the inconvenience! Use your face to play this pinball-inspired game! Raise and lower your eyebrows to control the pinball flippers, then open your mouth to swallow the ball and reach the next level. – All levels are played using only the player’s face – no hands! – Close your eyes to allow the ball to pass through eye-shaped barriers – Raise your eyebrows or frown to flick the flippers up – Open your mouth wide to swallow the ball and proceed to the next level – Watch your friends' expressions as they play the game – Compete for the top score From Nexus Studios, the company behind HotStepper comes a new face-controlled party game. Making use of Apple's TrueDepth camera, your face will be quickly and accurately mapped to each of the face elements in the game, letting you easily control the pinball board with no hands! The perfect piece of entertainment at a party, watch your friends as they take on a multitude of expressions to complete the game, then see if you can beat each other's top score!
Visual Pinball
Enjoy a realistic pinball simulation with hundreds of community-created tables. Experience immersive haptic feedback and customize your gameplay with intuitive settings and controller support. Advanced options are available for power users.
- Hundreds of community-developed tables
- Haptic feedback for immersive gameplay
- Customizable settings and POV adjustments
- Game controller support
- External DMD and AltColor/AltSound support
- Touch overlay and instructions
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The official Visual Pinball app. Built by volunteers since 2000 and open source since 2010, Visual Pinball is the simulator the virtual pinball community has been playing for over two decades. More than 70 people have contributed to it, and this app runs the same engine as the desktop version, so every table plays with the physics, lighting and sound its creator intended. No ads. No in-app purchases. No tracking. Made by volunteers. Two years of work from the Visual Pinball volunteers, in one update. Thank you for your patience, and for playing! A FRESH NEW LOOK • Redesigned for iOS 26 with Liquid Glass • Favorites and recently played tables at the top of your list • Search, sorting and three tile sizes • Light, Dark or System appearance • New loading screen that shows progress THE FULL DESKTOP EXPERIENCE • The complete Visual Pinball in-game menu for graphics, sound, controls and table options • Remap every button on keyboards and game controllers • Save settings for every table, or just the one you're playing MORE TABLES, LOOKING BETTER • Show the backglass and score display (DMD, alphanumeric or reels) on screen, right where you want them • Support for PUP packs, FlexDMD, B2S backglasses, video playback and VNI colorizations • All the latest physics and rendering improvements from the desktop version • Much lower memory use: textures are compressed on first load, then cached EASIER TABLE MANAGEMENT • Import .zip files, along with .vpx and .vpxz • Share any table as a single .vpxz file • The web file manager can now upload whole folders, extract archives, edit scripts and settings, and show the log live AND MORE • Many stability and memory fixes This version requires iOS 26.6 or later.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Visual Pinball at 4.3 against Face Pinball's 2.8. Visual Pinball also leads on review sentiment (79% vs 65%). Face Pinball's advantage is update cadence (every 10 days vs every 12 months) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 26.6). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Visual Pinball holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 2.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 32 and 74 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 65% of Face Pinball's written reviews are positive against 79% of Visual Pinball's.
Face Pinball ships an update every 10 days, Visual Pinball every 12 months. The most recent releases landed on October 3, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Face Pinball | Visual Pinball |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.8 (32 ratings) | 4.3 (74 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 64.7% of reviews | 78.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 32 | 74 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days — better | Every 12 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 26.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 82 MB | 120 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Nexus Studios | Jason Millard |
Customer experience
Face Pinball
Visual Pinball
Bugs and requests
Face Pinball
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Visual Pinball
Reported bugs
2 issues- Tables don't load for some users
- Certain complex/intensive tables error out or run at low FPS
Requested features
6 requests- List of most played tables
- Ability to reposition DMD
- Option to skip startup checks for some tables
- Ability to edit table scripts on the app
- Direct link to table depository
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- iPad version with more screen space
In-app purchases
Face Pinball
No in-app purchases
Visual Pinball
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Face Pinball free?
Is Visual Pinball free?
Which has better reviews, Face Pinball or Visual Pinball?
Do Face Pinball or Visual Pinball have ads?
Which is updated more often, Face Pinball or Visual Pinball?
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