After the success of Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Illusions, publisher 21st Century Entertainment decided to let Spidersoft Limited develop a fourth game--Pinball Mania. Where the previous games excelled in ball simulation, a lot of people felt that Pinball Mania had very lacking ball physics, making controlled shots difficult to accomplish. A Game Boy port was also released which was only released in the UK.