XENOTILT: HOSTILE PINBALL ACTION on Steam

LIGHTNING STRIKES AGAIN!! XENOTILT, the sequel to the cult hit, DEMON'S TILT. Get ready for another PINBALL FANTASY. XENOTILT shreds the envelope with face-melting gameplay & graphics.

XENOTILT, the thrilling sequel to DEMON'S TILT, is now live on PS5 for $19.99!

Get ready for intense gameplay, nightmarish bosses, and a mega soundtrack.

Xbox Series and Switch versions coming soon!

#XENOTILT #Pinball

https://www.gematsu.com/2025/09/arcade-pinball-game-xenotilt-now-available-for-ps5-coming-to-xbox-series-and-switch

Playing more small games that make me happy, starting with Catgod Ranch and then maybe some Xenotilt/Demon's Tilt? Isle of Swaps? Anyone wanna play Mahjong? We shall see~

https://www.twitch.tv/rixtonsnek

#twitch #stream #streaming #vtuber #catgodranch #xenotilt #mahjongsoul

RixtonSnek - Twitch

Previously described as "best snek" • Him/They • Hungarian, living in Germany • 30+ https://ko-fi.com/rixtonsnek

Twitch
#Xenotilt is too much fun for my own good. This game gives me a headache, but boy is it worth it when this happens.

A little bit of resting my voice while we play some pinball~ <3

https://www.twitch.tv/rixtonsnek

#twitch #stream #Xenotilt #vtuber

RixtonSnek - Twitch

Previously described as "best snek" • Him/They • Hungarian, living in Germany • 30+ https://ko-fi.com/rixtonsnek

Twitch
I have really been trying to like Xenotilt but so far like it less then the previous Demon's Tilt. Both are pinball games and look amazing. The issue with the recent one is to much is going on at once on the screen. This may be due to my aging eyes but the Steam discussions have plenty of other users complaining about this. The table is 2D and pixelated style which may be part of the issue. It is really hard to know what the top layer is in each area. That said both games are fun. Check them out. #xenotilt #demonstilt
Yearly Wrap 2024


I enjoyed writing my weekly game summary right up to the point Cohost died. Since then I've struggled to find a venue for the writing, and I now find it to be a massive chore.

However this has allowed me to recall the games I enjoyed over the year more easily than in the previous years.

I'll probably do it again next year in a revised lower-effort format.

GAME OF THE YEAR 2024

CAVES OF QUD

Simply the best roguelike[1] ever made. More complicatedly it is also some of the greatest sci-fi writing and world-building in video games, and some of the best blending of procedural-generated content with hand-authored material.

Congratulations to all involved for a brilliant creation.

The Top 20 Games released in 2024 excluding things I contributed to

These games, game-like stories, or collections of games, were "released" in one form or another in 2024.


Caves of Qud


1000xResist


Wilmot Works it Out


Anthology of the Killer


The Crimson Diamond


Judero


Indika


Felvidek


Midnight Scenes - A Safe Place


Mouthwashing


Psychroma


Sudden Death


Path of Achra


Webfishing


Afterplace


XENOTILT


Utopia Must Fall


Xenosphere


No Case Should Remain Unsolved


Cow Life Sim RPG

Top thing I did contribute to

I contributed to the 
Rabbits All-comers Mapping Project (RAMP) again this year. Map40 - This Was For the Sake of the Righteous of Course is my work. But I strongly recommend playing it for the incredible maps made by other people.


RAMP2024

Games of the Month

Each month I also named a "Game of the Month" that I enjoyed the most that month. Whether it was old, new, incomplete, or otherwise.


Swollen to Bursting Until I am Disappearing on Purpose


In Stars and Time


There Swings A Skull ~GRIM TIDINGS~


Felvidek


1000xResist


Wooden Ocean


Anthology of the Killer


The Crimson Diamond


Ostranauts


Wilmot Works It Out


XENOTILT


Caves of Qud


All roguelike impersonators also pale in comparison ↩︎
RAMPART - RAMP 2024

Los mejores juegos de este año que no has jugado (VII): Xenotilt

Una tenaz propuesta arcade que reivindica con su brillante puesta en escena y su potente jugabilidad un género que aún puede dar mucho de sí.

Eurogamer.es
Weekly Game Log: 2024-12-02


This week I took ownership of a "Steam Deck" device, for mobile computing and video game playing. So a lot of my playing was informed by my testing of that.

Outside of the Steam Deck, I jumped on the 
Atlyss train. It's a fast-paced action RPG in early access. Its gameplay skews slightly towards a co-op online experience (single and multiplayer modes are similar, and you just respawn at a checkpoint with the worldstate remaining.) I find it a bit clumsy, the graphical depictions of the player and enemies tend to be loose suggestions of their actual location. However it is also quite simple and fun, and you rarely get bogged down.

The main selling point of 
Atlyss is its character creation and customisation systems, which are geared toward creating fursonas with extremely pronounced features, and dressing them up. In this regard, the game excels far more than its limited four classes suggest. Though the game supports purely cosmetic apparel appearing in the stead of functional armor, there seems to be a slightly convoluted system behind it, which is a shame.

Usurper is a deck building/chess hybrid, where you optionally place a piece from your deck each turn before your actual chess move, this is later augmented by pieces beyond the standard chess set. The game is quite an original idea, but I found it a bit vague in its instruction. More frustratingly the game suggests picking a difficulty based on Chess ability, but the gameplay here is quite different, leading to an unnecessarily difficult experience.

Similarly 
Solitomb is one of the many Balatro inspired spins on traditional card games. It's similar to regular klondike solitaire, but suits are replaced by symbols representing damage/armor/monsters/etc. I didn't play much of it because I quickly found I was in the wrong state of mind. I did find it quite unintuitive though.

Caves of Qud is still exceptionally excellent. Surprisingly, so is the playability its controller layout. That said, there's a lot of surprisingly complex tasks with extremely intuitive bindings, but "Move around" is not one of them for some reason. Without opting into the tutorial, it does give a bit of the old Dwarf Fortress "Cannot build bed need bed" vibe the first time you plug in a controller. That said, its still one of the best games ever.

XENOTILT is a pinball game that has been in early access for a year or so, and recently reached version 1.0. The game has one very complex table (way beyond the possibilities of real life) with three tiers, and a vaguely Giger-esque sci-fi theme. It has an endless array of challenges and power-ups, and perfectly nails the FM synth music and grainy speaker that a real table would have. The gameplay is surprisingly simple, you control flippers and use the controller stick/arrows to nudge the table. There is a small gimmick where cradling the ball on the flipper and nudging down causes turrets to fire at obstacles. I got hooked on this game way more than I expected too, and have played multiple hours. However, I do find there are situations where the ball is ejected in preventable situations, but the camera hasn't caught up in time. And the "nudge" functionality seems to not be that realistic, only affecting the ball in certain locations.

I also revisited 
Demon's Tilt (XENOTILT's predecessor), for comparison. And while that game is still good, I still just think "neat idea, fine for what it is" about it. It doesn't seem nearly as polished as XENOTILT is.

I resumed a four year old save of 
Intergalactic Fishing and was able to immediately back into the swing of it, peacefully fishing and solving interstellar conspiracy theories. It's a simple top-down fishing game, where you float your B.O.A.T around a lake casting rods and chatting with other anglers. The controls are very simple, left click to cast and reel, right click to set the hook to snare a catch, and 90% of the complexity is in the tetris-like lure designer. Then you teleport to a lake elsewhere in the galaxy if you get bored. The killer final touch of the game is a convoluted plot about environmental disaster and corporate malfeasance, which is played deadly seriously in the game.

I also played some more runs of 
80 Days, a game I have finished multiple times. It's a text-driven narrative adventure that is also a steampunk adaptation of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. It's still excellent, the sheer amount of text written for the endless variations on routes and choices of actions is outstanding. Also, this time I got an achievement for fucking an airship.

Steam Deck notes

I generally recommend the 
Steam Deck as a portable video game device. Particularly if you have a large Steam library, though the SteamOS (an Arch Linux variant) installation underneath is easily accessible if you want something that doesn't interact directly with Steam.

My biggest criticisms would be


There are a few processes (updates/installations/etc) where it was apparently deemed acceptable for the screen to go black and unresponsive for an extended period.


The 
GREAT ON DECK certification seems to only care that everything can be performed using the Steam Deck's controllers, and not whether that layout is actually usable

November Game of the Month

XENOTILT

By default I guess. Most other games didn't grab me at all this month.

Games on Deck

The below games were all from the 
GREAT ON DECK certified section of my library.

XENOTILT - Absolutely fantastic. Controls perfectly and performs well. Graphics seem to have been custom redrawn to fit the resolution perfectly

Demon's Tilt - As above.

Balatro - Functions well. The filters on the graphics seem to require squinting awkwardly.

Another World - Abysmal. I pressed down on the control pad twice and that was enough to quit the game without warning.

80 Days - Works OK-ish, until it doesn't. Uses the touch pad in lieu of mouse more than it should. Trying to drag and drop in the shops seems completely broken.

Caves of Qud - Works as well as the control scheme discussed earlier does.

Intergalactic Fishing - Works kind of OK. Boat is controllable, but the clickable icons are way too small for the level of precision.

All Games Played


Tetrachroma: Good


Deadlock: Good


Atlyss: GREAT


Usurper: OK


Solitomb: OK


Caves of Qud: GREAT


XENOTILT: GREAT (Notable)


Demon's Tilt: Good


Intergalactic Fishing: GREAT


80 Days: GREAT