Devolver Digital Announces HYPERDROP, a Pachinko Roguelite for PC

The trend of mashing up roguelites with gambling mechanics has produced another entry: Devolver Digital and debut Australian studio Dark Dark Goose revealed HYPERDROP: A Pachinko Roguelite for PC. The full version launches in 2027, but a free demo is already up on Steam right now, released alongside the announcement. The developers themselves call it just an appetizer ahead of the full game.

The formula will be familiar from Balatro with its poker and CloverPit with its slot machine: take a mechanic built on luck and layer progression and build-crafting on top of it. HYPERDROP does the same thing with pachinko, the Japanese arcade machine where a ball drops down through a board studded with pins. For anyone who's never played pachinko, the closest reference point is Peggle, and visually, press coverage compares the game to Geometry Wars, with the same neon, acid-colored look.

A run starts with an empty board that you have to turn into a score-generating machine. The pins get upgraded through perks: some split the ball into several, others send balls back up top, and others pull them into gravity wells or trigger explosions that ripple across the whole board. Balls get their own separate upgrades too — they can be doubled in size, made sticky, given more bounce, or charged with unstable energy. There are also standalone unique balls, each with its own properties.

The idea is for a good build to feed on itself. The player picks a launch point, then watches as physics and chains of effects drive the score up — you can bend gravity, rewind time, and chain pin effects together, all to keep a run going as long as possible. As a run progresses, stages get harder, unique modifiers and bosses show up, and the developers also promise alternate board layouts and a dynamic electronic soundtrack that builds in intensity along with the score.

If you're thinking about trying the demo, the timing works out: Steam is currently running a themed festival for pin-and-ball games, with genre discounts running through August 20.

Downloading the demo, or waiting for the full release in 2027?