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PinOut Tips, Tricks & Cheats: How to Extend Your Runs

Casual game maker Mediocre has released a new pinball title for Android and iOS, and it’s an endless game called PinOut. The game invites you to enter a race against time in a continuous journey with a backdrop of retro wave beats and pulsating lights. This is basically a classic pinball experience reimagined for the mobile gamer, and the casual one in particular. Considering how endless games are a go-to game type of casual game developers, it’s no surprise that this game is indeed endless, though if you want to extend your run after you lose, you will have to pay a nominal in-app fee so you can start from the checkpoint where you left off.

As an added bonus for this overview, it is important that you make the most out of the time you’ve got. And if you need help dealing with these time constraints and dealing with the prospect of not having checkpoints, here are some PinOut tips and tricks that are designed to help you succeed in this game without having to pay a cent for the checkpoints feature.

1. Grab Those Beads

While playing the game, you will notice some beads, which you can then collect, allowing you to gain an extra second for each one collected. As the game starts out easy before progressively becoming more difficult, the game will be generous at first and lay out a lot of beads for you to collect. Gather as many of them as possible so you can save up for a potentially impressive run. Remember that without checkpoints, it’s pretty much one-and-done after you’ve lost the level, so it’s important you get all the time you need by collecting more beads.

2. What If You Do Pay For Checkpoints?

As we said in the overview, it’s only a nominal fee – Mediocre won’t charge you an arm and a leg if you want to play with checkpoints. So what’s in it for you, except the chance to continue your run from wherever your game had ended? For one, you won’t be getting any bonuses apart from the time beads collected en route to the checkpoint; don’t expect any goodies waiting for you, time beads notwithstanding. There’s also a possibility you may fall through a checkpoint and get busted down to levels you already completed; in other words, it isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

3. What Happens When You Land On Colored Orbs?

There are some advantages to landing on a colored orb, which can happen quite often when you’re playing the game. Mainly, you can acquire power-ups, which we will be discussing a little later on in this guide, or you may have a chance to play mini-games. Just tap to move when playing the mini-games, and you’ll get bonus seconds added to your timer, allowing you to last longer. Mini-games are optional, but are much recommended, as there’s a chance you may end up adding a whole lot of seconds; just make sure to stay alive a while when playing the mini-games.

4. Act Quickly After Losing The Mini-Game

You won’t have the luxury of time on your hands once you’ve lost in a mini-game. Once that happens, you will be placed right back into the main game, without even a couple seconds to allow you to regain your bearings. That means you need to have your flippers up to ready yourself for your return to the main game; otherwise, you may have to drop down several levels.

5. A Guide To The Power-Ups

As promised, we’ve got some information on the power-ups you can acquire; you will usually be asked to choose between two, though there are times when the power-up you’ll earn is completely random. If you want to last longer and complete more levels, read on, because power-ups can be very useful.

First of is Slow Motion, which does just as it says – it slows down time, and can be especially helpful to beginners who haven’t gotten used to the game’s physics, or who aren’t any good at aiming things accurately. Time Freeze, on the other hand, pauses the action for ten flips; this is most useful for more advanced players who can aim accurately. You may, however, end up in a dangerous part of the in-game world, and may need to make a lot more flips than expected so you can escape.

Those aren’t the only two power-ups available in the game, though. Push eschews the flipper and allows you to push the ball in any direction, swiping on the ball so you can get a more accurate aim. This may sound like a good thing, but since you may be more accustomed to using the flippers, you’ll need to know when and how to make a good transition from flipper to push to flipper. Motion Link will only move the timer when the ball is moving, and is best used when you may get a better aim upon the ball landing in the flipper’s crook.

Lastly, Warp is designed to skip a section of the level, while Time Doubler doubles the timer bonuses provided by each bead. If you get a chance to use Time Doubler, don’t pass it up, as this could work very well if you’re in an advanced stage of the game.

6. How To Deal With The Advanced Levels

Once you reach level 6 or higher, the stakes will be higher and you won’t have too many beads to collect to add to your timer. That means precision will become far more important, as you rely less and less on bonuses to last longer in the game. Be careful not to get caught in the bumpers and be careful not to miss those flippers, as every mistake could end up as your last. This game is all about speed and precision, so learn how to put a premium on both once you make it to the advanced levels.

Ness

Sunday 4th of October 2020

I only have 17 sec on the clock after level 7 why is that?

Uli

Thursday 17th of February 2022

@Ness, you did not play good enough. The game starts with 60 sec in level one and you should manage to leave esch level with significantly more sec than entered. It is no rocket science to start infinity level with 350+ sec.

Modi

Saturday 25th of May 2019

What is the minimum time needed to pass the infinity level?

Gary Thompson

Sunday 14th of July 2019

I am stuck on level 8 I can't beat that clock and you can't get any extra time

Matteb

Sunday 15th of October 2017

The scores are Not fake. I just fell into some pink abyss while In infinity and jumped from 10000 to 24000

Rox

Tuesday 11th of April 2017

^^not true Daba, I have 311.6 to start the infinity levels. I have gone back to play the beginning levels to boost my stock time. For example I now have 217.9 seconds start time on level 2. Get that number as high as you can when starting infinity by replaying and maybe someone will be able to get to the end of it? My high score is still only 11,333, no where near those 50,000 scores mentioned above.

Daba

Thursday 9th of March 2017

You can only top at 299.9 for time which might get you through the infinity level at the end of your extremely selective on the route you choose through each level. I can only get to level 5.