PC game: Ballance

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PC game: Ballance

Postby adidas on Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:46 pm

Ballance is one of the more addictive PC games I've played lately.

Instead of trying to explain in my own words what the goal is, here is what the site says:

Ballance is a level-based puzzle game. The player has to move a ball through a hovering maze of paths and rails. When moving, the player will face many mechanical obstacles like seesaws, suspension bridges, pendulums etc. to overcome. It is the aim of the game to reach to the end of each level without dropping the ball.
Ballance takes its special appeal from the physically realistic simulation of its elements. A good feeling of the ball's inertia and an understanding of simple mechanical processes will enable the player to succeed.


The ball physics are pretty good in this game. You have to change which material your ball is made of depending on what type of obstacle you face. You have to switch to the paper ball to be blown into the air by a fan, but it cannot knock objects out of your path like the stone ball. But the stone ball can't navigate ramps and rails like the wooden ball can. The different ball types roll at different speeds, they accelerate differently, they feel different. Nice job.

Aside from the obvious goal of completing the level, you are supposed to try to get a high score. There are extra lives that you collect, which if they are left over at the end of the level give you a score. There are also pellets to collect that give bonus points. There is an online highscore feature and there is a place to upload videos.. I don't bother much with the points aspect of the game, because I am more interested in the puzzles.

That being said, the puzzles are not very hard and the game is quite short. This is where the problem lies; after playing through the first fifteen levels I want more! And the rest should be more challenging!

The controls would probably give you carpal tunnel if it was more difficult. The only option you have is keyboard navigation with the arrow keys.

Graphic-wise, this game is nothing to gloat about. It looks decent, but what do you want from a wooden ball rolling down a rail in the sky? Given that this type of game doesn't need great graphics, I don't think it is too much of an issue. And I like that I can play a game at max resolution on my GeForce3.

And the worst aspect of the game: sound. The sound effects are ok... if you closed your eyes you would be able to differentiate between the wooden ball, paper, and stone. And they sound different when strking different surfaces. However, the music (which there is not much of) gets old really quick. There are long moments of silence, and short bursts of pseudo-new age instrumentals. I just turn the music off.

If there were more games out there like this on PC to compare to, I might actually score this game pretty low. However, it is so nice to play a game that doesn't involve holding a gun or casting a spell.

http://www.ballance.org

some shots:

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Postby were on Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:14 am

your one of the very few people i know who actually likes these types of games..

my hat goes off to you.. :D
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Postby Silverhaze on Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:15 am

Hmm. Looks like a cross between Monkey Ball and the beginning of that movie Robots.

I'll have to give this a try. I got tired of Monkey Ball after you started to need super human reactions to balance on hair thin strands of level while going round a corner. Plus the fucking camera in that game is a nightmare, how much easier would it be if you could control the camera in monkeyball?

I did try a PC rip off of monkeyball a while back but it was awful. It was as if the ball were made of rubber and touching the edge in a narrow area would see you ricocheting all over the place faster than you could do anything about.

I'll try this tonight. Nice little review Adidas!

For all those that have UT2004 you can get a ball mod for that. Dont know how it plays though, I'll have to try it out as Ive never tried any total conversions for this game.

http://www.metaball.org/media.html
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Postby Silverhaze on Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:45 am

I tried Ballance last night. Seems really nice and it makes a change to be controlling the ball and not the level too.

I only got to play one level though so I assume the rest of the levels Adidas was going on about are in that other download they have on the site right? What I played was little more than a tutorial and didnt even show the paper ball other than other ones littering the track.
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Postby adidas on Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:00 am

You probably got the demo :)

I have the whole thing (it's not very big)...
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Postby Silverhaze on Wed Sep 28, 2005 11:49 am

Just saw your PM. Thanks for that!

What would be the best method?
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