Comparison

HOT37 vs Visual Pinball

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

HOT37

Build and manage your dream hotel in this isometric simulator. Expand your establishment by adding floors and rooms, then redecorate and add amenities to attract more guests. Careful financial management is key to success, as running out of funds means game over.

Highlights
  • Build and expand hotel floors
  • Design and reserve rooms
  • Redecorate and add amenities
  • Manage hotel income and expenses
  • Isometric 3D graphics
Features
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Running a hotel is easy! Add floors and hotel rooms. As rooms are reserved, income increases. Use income to redecorate, add more floors, and add amenities. Of course, all this construction costs money. Run out of money, and the game is over.

About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
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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

HOT374 screens
Visual Pinball3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Visual Pinball at 79% against HOT37's 0%. Visual Pinball also leads on price (Free vs $4.99). HOT37's advantage is iOS requirement (18.6 vs 26.6). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Visual Pinball is free to download; HOT37 costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

HOT37 ships an update every 7 months, Visual Pinball every 12 months. The most recent releases landed on October 9, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
HOT37 versus Visual Pinball: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHOT37Visual Pinball
Price$4.99Free — better
Rating—4.3 (73 ratings) — better
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews78.6% of reviews — better
Number of ratings—73 — better
Update frequencyEvery 7 months — betterEvery 12 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.6 — better26.6
Further details — not scored
Size175 MB120 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperBlake HARRISJason Millard

Customer experience

HOT37

Written reviews1 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%

Visual Pinball

All ratings73 ratings
Positive80.8%
Neutral6.8%
Negative12.3%
Written reviews56 reviews
Positive78.6%
Neutral12.5%
Negative8.9%

Bugs and requests

HOT37

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
Show 1 more
  • iPad version with more screen space

In-app purchases

None

HOT37

No in-app purchases

None

Visual Pinball

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is HOT37 free?
HOT37 costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Visual Pinball free?
Visual Pinball is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do HOT37 or Visual Pinball have ads?
Neither HOT37 nor Visual Pinball shows ads.
Which is updated more often, HOT37 or Visual Pinball?
HOT37 ships an update every 7 months, and Visual Pinball every 12 months. Most recently, HOT37 was updated on October 9, 2026 and Visual Pinball on October 18, 2026.

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