Strawberry Jam Collab/Pinball Purgatory

Pinball Purgatory
Creator	Maya
Collab	Strawberry Jam Collab
Strawberries	5 1
Difficulty	Grandmaster
Soundtrack	Cabinet Madeline: Pumber Edition

Pinball Purgatory is a cracked-difficulty Grandmaster map created by M47a (Maya). It is widely considered the most difficult map in the collab (not including heartsides). The map features Madeline playing on a pinball machine titled 'Pumber'. The actual gameplay of the map is within the pinball machine, which uses extremely precise bumper hits to direct Madeline in the right path.

Location

Pinball Purgatory is located in the bottom right corner of the Grandmaster Lobby.

Mechanics

Pinball Purgatory primarily uses bumpers for all of its gameplay. The bumpers used have custom sprites. There are also three types of modded bumpers. The first one gives the player two dashes on hitting it, the second one doesn't refill the player's dash and the last one restricts the player from hitting it again by turning into fire core mode bumper. The other gimicks in the map are moon blocks, touch switches and touch gates, momentum springs, normal and double dash refills and in one room Theo crystal.

Levels

Each room of Pinball Purgatory has a specific level name, as a pinball machine would for each level. Any berry room in the map has a 'B' before the room number.

In total, the level contains 9 main rooms, 4 berry rooms and 2 intro rooms. Here is a list of every main rooms and berry rooms with a small description for each of them

Lv 01 : Ready ?

This room is around green gm dificulty, using basic bumper techs along with a few ultras.

Lv 02 : Helix

This room is a big step up from first room, it uses a lot of ultras and has a bunch of 2f timings. It is also the first non-tutoriel room that uses moonboosts and bumper phase.

Lv 03 : Pursuit

This room introduces mooving bumpers. It doesn't use too much techs except 2 moon boosts but its dificulty resides in keeping up with the mooving bumper that you gotta use during the whole room.

Lv 04 : Phase

This room's main mechanic is bumper phase : there is in total 4 of them (6 if you go fot berry). Apart from the bumper phase this room has almost no tech used but it has a lot of really tight dashes (especially during the last third of the room)

Lv 05 : Delta

This room is a small step down in dificulty compared to the previous ones, it doesn't use much techs and doesn't have any very tight dash. The main gimick of this room is that you go down during most of it but apart from that it doesn't really have anything special.

Lv B2 : Instability

This room is the first berry room in the map, you can get to it by falling in the pit near the beginning of Lv 06 : Symbiosis. This is also arguably the easiest berry room in the map. It consists in collecting touch switches that move when you get to them while not getting thrown into a spinner by a bumper beacuse even if you stay in the same area for the whole room there isn't any solid ground and you're almost always bouncing on bumpers. Once you collect all touch switches blocks will appeir and give you a safe path to the berry.

Lv 06 : Symbiosis

This room has a similar concept to Lv 03 : Pursuit but there are two moving bumpers. The bumpers are also much faster and make you chain ultras and bumper phase quiclky.

Lv B3 : Rebound

This room is the second berry room in the map. It is accessed by going into the teleporter just over the watchtower in Lv 07 : Haste It almost doesn't have any bumper but it makes use of a tech with momentum springs that makes you get a lot of height if you dash two times into it in quick succesion.

Lv 07 : Haste

This room is when the map starts to get into cracked grandmaster teritory. It uses a lot of very tight speed techs that often start with a moonboost along with very tight 2f timing dashes.

Lv B4 : Extra Ball

This room is the third berry room in the map. To enter that room, you gotta go in the teleporter to the right of the spawn point in Lv 08 : Recoil. This room is the only one in the map to use a Theo crystal. This is often considered to be the hardest berry in the map or even the hardest room in the map but that depends a lot on skillset. This room mainly uses the bumper Theo retention tech, this tech consists in releasing grab during bumper freeze frames to be able to dash with Theo Crystal.

Lv 08 : Recoil

This room is the second hardest main room in the map. It doesn't use any moon boost or other tech but it is increadibly precise. Most inputs in this room are 3f timings or harder and the second last obstacle in the room is a very tight bumper phase that is probably the hardest input in the whole map.

Lv 09 : Pumber

This room is the last room in the map without berries, it is also by far the hardest. The room is around green grandmaster+1 dificulty and it combines everything seen in the map : tight timings, hard speed techs, bumper phases, mooving bumpers, etc. To end the room, there is a very dieable vertical section that leads to an auto part where bumpers bounce you all over the place. After that a switch gate serves as an elevator to get you to a small room with the crystal heart.

Lv B5 : Malfunction

This room is the fourth berry room and final room in the map. You can access it by breaking the fake ceiling in the crystal heart room. In this room there are no freeze frames, no dash cooldown and stronger bumpers. The room consists in 8 dashes into bumpers that are all either 2f or frame perfect timings.

Hard List

Pinball Purgatory when done in Full Clear is part of Celeste's Hard List, A list of every maps that are grandmaster+1 or higher. The only other Strawberry Jam maps that are part of this list are The Solar Express Full Clear and Passionfruit Pantheon : The Grandmaster Heartside.

Inspiration and Other Appearances

Pinball Purgatory has inspiered a lot of other maps like Solar Purgatory by ZKB and Momentum Purgatory by Aura which is part of Galery Collab. Pinball Purgatory also obiously make an appearance in Passionfruit Pantheon : The Grandmaster Heartside as Flag 7