Last updated on December 15th, 2025 at 01:38 am
INKS.+ – Casual Game Review
INKS.+ is a Casual game from State of Play Games Ltd, first launched in 25th June 2021.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 126+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes INKS.+ Stand Out
App Store Best of 2016
Apple Design Award Winner 2016
From the makers of BAFTA-winning Lumino City comes INKS.
INKS updates pinball for a new generation. It combines the joy of pinball with skilful tactical challenges, and allows you to create wondrous works of art as the ball smashes around the canvas.
Blocks of color burst like beautiful fireworks across the surface, building up in vivid layers and recording a visual history of your game as you perfect your score.
FEATURES:
- Beautiful and elegant design
- Over 100 unique tables to play
- Perfectly balanced gameplay
- Each canvas tells the story of your game
- Share your favourite levels and high scores
“Amazing looking… vibrant, full of life. Are we excited about this.” Pocket Gamer
Inspired by artists like Miro, Matisse, Jackson Pollock and Bridget Riley, each table becomes a unique work of art, sculpted by the player as they fire an ink covered ball around the canvas.
With State of Play’s creative flare and skill at crafting beautifully elegant gameplay, INKS offers something new: art and gameplay as one, for everyone.
This Casual game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, INKS.+ is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 13th July 2021
Recent improvements include:
Fixed issue with flippers occasionally sticking.
Fixed ball getting lost in Campfire level.
Fixed Precision power-up in Vespa level.
Download & Availability
INKS.+ is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
This game is awesome! Its a great time killer.
We dont get how some people get frustrated or dont understand all the small details. It is a really fun game, all sorts of amazing colors to hit with the pin ball. We dont come to this game very often but it is great to play if your bored. We know it can get frustrating, but you have to still try. And the game set up is pretty awesome as well. Although we dont know the old version, this one is detailed very well too.
We really enjoy this game. Its the first game where we actually dont mind not getting a perfect play through because IMO it makes the art of a finished pinball board look even more beautiful.
Probably one of the more fun Arcade games.
We need more plus games instead of short indie games.
Updating our review based on the dev response below. We really like this game so we hope its fixed. Ill update after we play.
We like this game, but it could use some work. First, why do you only give people 3 chances before the black balls? Cant it be like, 5? Second,once you finish all the courses, maybe update the game and give it some more, harder ones. Thats all! Other than that we love this game! Its great.
For some reason, theres unlimited power ups. Power ups that make it practically impossible to lose. You can use these at any point with no apparent expense to you. If youre gonna go this way, you need to reward players who play without using power ups. Also, the peecise aiming power up goes at a snails pace. This makes it so that your best choice of play is to play with the power up that closes up the middle so that you just never lose a ball. It feels like the developer just wanted to make something pretty, over making an actual gameplay experience.
Ok, we like this game. It has a Zen to it that makes it a nice relaxing game. But then the flipper controls come in. The spots that activate the flippers are too small, so, even if we start right on them, throughout gameplay if our thumbs migrate at all then just when we need to flip to avoid losing the ball we tap the screen and nothing happens because Im out of the tap area. We have experimented to see where it registers taps, and for the life of us we cannot understand why the are that can register taps doesnt extend to the bottom of the screen and significantly closer to the middle of the screen. Theres so much screen area that could be used, its not doing anything else, we simply dont understand the choice not to use it. The result is that the game can be immensely frustrating because of the frequency with which tapping slightly out of the sensitive area results in no flipper action when you need it.
Someone tell em what the point of this game is please.
We like the game, but holding the iPad and tapping the screen is cumbersome. Id like to see this game connected to the apple controller.
We find it unnervingly frustrating to try and complete the level for a star. The reality is there comes a point where theres far more luck involved than skill to do this, which just basically makes you a hyper-focused slave to the game if you plan on beating itscore another one for addictive brain rot!! (High five, anyone?) Controls feel clunky, as well. We also find it odd that theres nowhere to reference what things are if you missed something in the tutorial. The overall visual aesthetics are top notch, but theres more to a game than being pretty. Great for casual play, but probably not even that because the draw to beat the levels is more enticing, which only plays upon the frustration of bad game play. If impossible frustration is your thing, though, (and we know for some it is) youll enjoy it. Not for us.
The flippers flip so inconsistently at first we thought it was just us but looks like happening to multiple people. Why release with this game breaking bug.
If youre looking for a fun pinball game, look elsewhere. This game has none of the flash or satisfaction of a pinball game. All you do is try to break ink spots and make a mish-mash of colors. No score. No attractive artwork, No satisfying sound effects. No ramps, targets, or hidden areas. Just a lot of blah.
This is literally just a port of the old game. They didnt even bother to update the graphics which look horrible on a modern screen. Do not recommend.
Not a lot of creativity in what you can do, just glide through the levels and paint the boring levels that the developers made. Feels like a cheap game and don't know why this was recommended as anything special.
We started playing it today. The soothing music and the ink with the pinball twist. We do believe we found our way to decompress from every day life.
Easy enough to understand for anyone to play, excellent level design. Only complaint is there seems to be a few elements that dont load into levels properly, but Im sure that will be fixed in a future update.
Awsome game relaxing and amazed how there are no adds ty for making the game.
Its so enjoyable, especially the colors and the sounds are so relaxing. Having a good time.
One thing Id love in this app would be a relax mode where colors faded out and replaced over time and there were no targets/puzzles. Just twiddling your thumbs and looking at colors.
Love this game but please, please, please fix campfire level 21.
We love the game and the visual effects are beautiful. The puzzler aspects of this pinball are really fun to figure out. Only reason Im taking away a star is that there seems to be a bug with the right flipper. We consistently have trouble getting the right flipper to work and Ive checked to make sure that we are touching the screen. Sometimes it doesnt register when we touch it at all and other times it just lags really bad. The left flipper always works perfectly.
When we saw the there was another Inks game out, we were super excited. We've been waiting for a sequel or at least some new levels for a long time, so when we saw Inks+, we thought we were finally getting a new game with new levels and maybe even some new mechanics. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. We honestly can't figure out why this version is any different than the original. The levels are all exactly the same, in the same order, with the same controls and mechanics. In fact, the only difference we can find is that for some reason the power ups are unlimited use, which means you can basically gold star every single level just by using the aiming assist and maybe the ball saver. We don't get why this was re-released. All that being said, this is still a fun game, and it gave us an excuse to play through it again. If you have Apple Arcade and haven't played it, give it a shot. If you don't, then just go play the original. Either way, it's still a good time.
This seems previous version of Inks, but without the achievements and bug fixes. ICloud was added and that is all. With that being said, this is truly a fantastic game that you dont want to miss out on.
Amazing game. Played through a whole section of the game but the bumpers trigger our trypophobia. Couldnt keep playing, but we do love how the colors interact and paint the board.
Just downloaded and found we couldnt stop playing. Very enjoyable.
We really like this game so far. Quite chalenging.
Same issue others have mentionedflippers are not consistently useable in the same spots. Really annoying because it means playing a level multiple times and hoping on one of them the flippers will operate correctly. Also theres a bug in one of the Campfire levels (4th from last) that keeps you from ever being able to complete it. Theres a whole thread of people complaining about it on YouTube lol Please fix! Love the game but not these annoyances.
Fun game, but the bumpers randomly dont respond.
We love the idea and usually find this relaxing to playexcept for when the paddles dont respond or lag and then we lose a ball. Happens fairly often unfortunately which is a major bummer in a pinball game.
IPhone 11: The paddles dont reliably respond to taps and it causes a lot of balls to fall down the hole. Its very frustrating.
This is a pretty game, neat idea. But… The controls are at the bottom of our iPad, and we keep swiping out of the game, and pausing because the pla e to hit is a bit high for our thumbs. Very disappointed after 15 minutes and 8 levels, we're done.
The Apple Arcade version of INKS has slightly worse graphics (lower resolution/lower bit rate/more pixelated) than the version that exists in the App Store already. And the inks bleed slightly over time after they have been hit, we think. We personally dont care for the ink bleeding. We can otherwise find no difference. It is a wonderful casual game, especially visually, but there have been no new levels or features for years. We had hoped that there would be new features in the Apple Arcade version, but that is not the case. We would especially like to see more creatively inclined or zen-like features. Sometimes, we like to just continuously hit the ball on the title screen, without entering any game levels at all.
The concept is nifty, def enjoyed ourselves while playing. However, after a few minutes we shut down the app because the paddles are not responsive. We are running on an iPhone XS Max, latest OS. We tend to jump on again, then the paddles have the same issue and we remember why we stopped playing. Hope the issue is resolved quickly. With so many games in arcade, if this one does hit the mark ppl will just move on and forget the app is even there.
Its a cool game in theory, but ours kept pausing in the middle of playing, even though we never pressed the area it said to press to pause the game. We think if the kinks were ironed out it would be a nice game.
We loved the original inks game, however Campfire level 21 wont let the ball just fall into the shoot, it thinks its going between the paddles and not falling into the correct shoot to complete the puzzle. We love getting 100% on the different levels but this is making us nuts. Please fix. – a fellow lover of the game.
The active bumpers directly above the flippers are the worst. They constantly hit the ball JUST enough so that it sends the ball straight through the middle. We understand this isn't classic pinball, but those classic bumpers would never actively push the ball into the gutter like they do in this. Other than that, we love this game.
Its pinball, cool. Sadly the game glitches frequently and the flaps dont engage at random times.
A pinball game that isnt 100% responsive to touch inputs is pretty much useless.
The flippers frequently dont respond to touches. This really makes the game annoying and frustrating.
Ive never had less fun playing pinball. The paint aesthetic looks nice but is ultimately dull and repetitive. Some stages play themselves. Delete.
While we appreciate the colors and the puzzle nature of the game, it lacks any sort of commentary and fails to provide any direction whatsoever. The controls fail more frequently than they ever should making this game quite frustrating.
paddles not responsive at times.
Variable levels of responsiveness from the paddles. Tapping on the screen does not always make the paddle move, and sometimes acts delayed. Disappointing, considering how good the original version of this game was.
Either get rid of the + apps that absolutely BLOAT up this service or categorize the apps better. This service should be about funding new indie games and giving them a space to innovate, not for cash-grabbing from older games.
Too frustration. This would be more fun if the flipper wasnt controlled by an area so tiny on your screen that we cant even get them to move 75% of the time. It isnt even positioned at a reasonable height for being able to hold your phone and use your thumbs to hit the flippers. You should be able to control them by touching the left or right side of the screen on the bottom half. Take a lesson from many other games like this that function great. Im over it.
Not fun to play because of the physics issues, we dont recommend this game.
We dont know its kinda boring we dont really understand how this could be fun. No points or anything.
Loads a blank black screen and nothing else.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.1
- Size: 503.92 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: State of Play Games Ltd
Last updated: 13th July 2021 | Genre: Casual | Developer: State of Play Games Ltd