I'm still fairly new to the Playdate and I'm still making my way through season 1 games, but Devils on the Moon Pinball is a release that had a lot of excitement around it on reddit. I figured I would pick it up due to the similarities to Kirby's Pinball Land from the GameBoy.

This game is my new addiction and I'm glad I can take it anywhere, which I've totally been doing. It follows the standard formula set by Kirby: three layers of single screen pinball vertically stacked. Each layer has its own gimmicks, scoring mechanisms, and goals to achieve. The top layer has challenges to beat in order to unlock a boss fight. Kirby has three pinball tables while Devils on the Moon only has one, but DotM's single table is much more dense and complex than what Kirby has to offer. There's plenty of secrets hidden among the layers on the table and a high skill ceiling means you'll continue learning more as you keep playing, which I will say this game has a very fun skill ceiling to climb. As expected, the main goal of the game is to get a high score. You slowly learn how each part of the table works and how you can utilize everything to get the biggest score possible, which encourages you to engage with every challenge on the table.

As of now, my high score is over 114 million and I'm still technically learning more about the game. I imagine I will still be playing this for awhile, though I really ought to try out some of the other games I have on Playdate. Absolutely a 5/5 and highly recommended for anyone else with a Playdate. I wanted to list out a few more things I love about this game that I couldn't quite fit into a paragraph:

• The bump mechanic is awesome. You can bump the table up, left, or right to sway the direction of the ball. This is multi-purpose for hitting objectives, saving your ball, or better directing the ball towards an alternate layer. To make up for this, bump is tied to a meter. Bump too much and you go into "tilt", which takes 1 multiplier away from you and doesn't let you use bump for a period of time. Genius mechanic and takes the skill required to the next level.

• There is a fun side game for catching up to 52 types of devils. I guess it's kind of like pokemon... It's integrated into the bottom layer of the table and has some fun art to look at after the fact.

• The crank is actually used in a clever way. I'm not quite good enough to use it well in game but I've practiced a bit.

• A couple parts of the table utilize this "cycling" mechanic where highlighted table elements can be cycled through with the flippers. Very difficult to pull off, and very easy to let it screw you over, but so satisfying and rewarding to pull off!

• There are 5 main bosses and you can "select" which boss by advancing the moon phases in the center layer. Really clever way of stretching a lot out of very little and gives this table a lot of variety.

I can't believe that, yet again, a Playdate game has captured me like this. I have mostly put down my Switch in exchange for playing this thing. Games like this make me really happy with my purchase. Big recommend