NEON NOVA

Collapse the star. Survive the light. How NEON NOVA plays: its rules, its modes and its playfield.

Play NEON NOVA

The machine

NEON NOVA is an original pinball machine in the style of a 1990s dot-matrix game, for one to four players, built by Holmes Computer Consultants. A game is three balls, and its author estimates a ball lasts about 95 seconds. Its author rates it 4 out of 5 for difficulty, and it is rated for everyone.

NEON NOVA is free to play in full — every mode and the whole rule set — with no account, no download and no time limit.

On the playfield

The playfield has three flippers, three pop bumpers, two slingshots, three drop targets in one bank, one spinner, two kickers, one magnet, nine rollovers and one captive ball. Everything on it — the art, the lettering and every sound — is generated in code when the machine loads, so there is nothing to download.

The instruction card

The card on NEON NOVA's cabinet sums up the rules in three lines:

  • Charge the Star Core and shoot the scoop to start Star Systems.
  • Lock balls in the Wormhole to start Nova Multiball.
  • Complete six systems and start Nova Multiball. Shoot Event Horizon for Supernova.

The modes

NEON NOVA has nine modes, listed in the order its rules declare them.

  • SOLAR FLARE (35 seconds) — shots: wormhole ramp and solar wind ramp — each shot scores 500,000; finishing it scores 2,000,000.
  • ASTEROID RUN (35 seconds) — Complete the I-O-N target bank twice.
  • ION STORM (35 seconds) — Make 500 Ion Spinner hits.
  • GRAVITY WELL (35 seconds) — Shoot the Event Horizon scoop three times.
  • PULSAR FRENZY (60 seconds) — Make 40 total hits across the three Pulsar bumpers.
  • EVENT HORIZON (35 seconds) — shots: spinner ion, wormhole ramp, scoop event horizon, solar wind ramp, orbit right, ion bank complete and dark matter — each shot scores 750,000; finishing it scores 5,000,000.
  • NOVA MULTIBALL.
  • SUPERNOVA.
  • BIG BANG (30 seconds).

Qualifying and completing modes

  • Each of the six Star Systems gets one attempt per game. A timed-out or unfinished system cannot be retried that game.
  • Complete all six systems and play Nova Multiball to qualify Supernova.

Multiball and extra balls

Multiball puts up to four balls in play at once. Extra balls can be earned during a game.

Playing it

NEON NOVA plays in a browser on a computer or a phone, and in a Meta Quest 3 headset. Every game runs the same simulation, stepped a thousand times a second, on every device.

The controls on a keyboard, a phone and a headset