Particlescape vs Visual Pinball
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Particlescape
This app lets you create stunning visual patterns using interactive particle and gravity simulations. Generate thousands of particles with each touch, with higher resolution in dense areas. Optimized for performance, it supports up to half a million particles on screen.
- Interactive particle and gravity simulation
- Generate particles with touch
- Apply gravity with double-tap-hold
- High-resolution rendering in dense areas
- Supports up to 500,000 particles
- 3D Touch pressure sensitivity
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Create beautiful patterns at your fingertips! Particlescape is an interactive particle and gravity simulator designed to be as beautiful as possible and to create an organic link between fingertips and screen. The rules are simple: - Touch to generate particles. - Double-tap-hold to use gravity. - Shake device to change options. Sensitive to up to 10 simultaneous touches on iPad (5 on iPhone), the visual possibilities are limitless. Features: - Generate up to 8000 particles per second per touch. Feel like you're magically summoning particles from the ether. - Particles in high-density regions are rendered at higher resolution (smaller point size), to bring out finer detail. - Extensive optimizations throughout to support a maximum of half a million particles on screen!* - Press harder for more particles or more gravity on 3D Touch-enabled devices, such as iPhone 6s and 6s Plus! *500,000 particles supported on iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, iPad Air 2. Older devices may support less.
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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Experience the open source pinball simulator now on your iPhone! Features: - Play hundreds of community and hobbyist-developed tables. - Feel the action with haptic feedback for bumpers, targets, and flippers. - Customize your experience with a simple, intuitive interface for settings, table options, and POV adjustments. - Game controller support. - External DMD support for ZeDMD, ZeDMD-WiFi, and Pixelcade devices. - Serum AltColor support. - AltSound support. - Touch overlay shows touch areas. - Step-by-step touch instructions when playing a table. - Advanced options for power users, including script and log file exports. - Support for iOS 18 Game Mode.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Visual Pinball at none against Particlescape's 3. Particlescape's advantage is device support (5 vs 1) and iOS requirement (8.0 vs 18.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. Particlescape sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Visual Pinball asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Particlescape against 4.6 for Visual Pinball. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 76 and 45 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 86% of Particlescape's written reviews are positive against 81% of Visual Pinball's.
| Parameter | Particlescape | Visual Pinball |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (76 ratings) — better | 4.6 (45 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 85.5% of reviews — better | 81.1% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 76 — better | 45 |
| Update frequency | Every 24 months | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, Vision Pro — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1 MB | 87 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Edwin Sirko | Jason Millard |
Customer experience
Particlescape
Visual Pinball
User reviews
Particlescape
From 76 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- ✨ Mesmerizing and beautiful visuals
- 🧘 Calming and relaxing experience
- 👍 Simple and easy to use
- 🤩 Highly entertaining and fun
- 💡 Great for distraction and stress relief
Room to improve
- 🤔 Limited customization options
- 💸 Paid upgrades don't always work
- ❓ Controls can be difficult to use
- ⚫ Black background can be overwhelming
- 👎 Ads can be intrusive
Visual Pinball
From 45 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Awesome way to play virtual pinball on the go
- 👍 Super easy to set up with minimal file prep time
- 👍 Insane that I can play favorite pins on just my phone
- 👍 Fantastic portable implementation of VPX
- 👍 Fun and exciting to archive the history of pinball
Room to improve
- 🔧 More ability to adjust table settings needed
- 🔧 Struggling to manage camera angle
- 🔧 No fullscreen on iPad, plunger and outlanes cropped
- 🔧 Some tables don't work or have issues
Bugs and requests
Particlescape
Reported bugs
6 issues- Controls not working
- Upgrade does nothing
- App doesn't do anything anymore
- Menus don't work on iPad Air 2
- Paid upgrade provides no new features
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- Settings disabled even after purchase
Requested features
21 requests- Add meditation music
- Ability to change colors
- More options for drag and radius
- More physics properties
- Ability to remove or dim black background
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- Overlay particles on the world
- Add background options
- Pin touch points and work elsewhere
- Place and pin multiple gravity wells
- Negative gravity option
- Video screencast
- Add dubstep in background
- Add chill out sounds
- Clear screen option
- Particle shape option
- Fix disabled settings
- Reset button in options
- Ability to record movements with songs
- Softer shake to bring up menu
- Ability to change color of new particles only
- More control over gravitational strength and spawn speed
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
Particlescape
- Upgrade to Enable More Touches Without Ads$1.99
- Upgrade to Enable Advanced Options$1.99
- Premium options$3.99
Visual Pinball
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Particlescape free?
Is Visual Pinball free?
Which has better reviews, Particlescape or Visual Pinball?
Do Particlescape or Visual Pinball have ads?
Other comparisons
