Thanks for playing and sharing your thoughts! I'm sorry the game didn't seem to be your cup of tea. I have a few suggestions based on your feedback which might make you enjoy the game a lot more if you have a chance to revisit it.

Something I saw a bit of when watching my friends play-test the game was that they would repeatedly shoot the white ball off the table so they could place it down behind the eight ball. It sounds like you may have gone down a similar path when you played the game. Unfortunately, this strategy is not too effective because of the time it takes to retrieve the ball, but more crucially I also think it makes the game a lot less fun.

You might be surprised how effectively you actually can reposition the white ball without relying on placing it down as crutch. The trick is to really make use of your bullet time so that you can aim your shots. No matter how unpleasant the location of your eight ball seems to be, as long as you can get the white ball to the left of it, you actually should be in the clear. Here's a simple example of that:

Here's another example which I think demonstrates this really well. It might seem like there is no hope of rescuing the eight ball here, but leaning into the bullet time makes this into a nice save which feels really clutch, but isn't too hard to execute. 

As long as you still have bullet time left in the tank, pretty much anything is possible. A large part of the mastery curve in the game comes from being able to pull the clutch shots off quicker, so that you don't run out of your ten seconds of bullet time as the levels get harder.

I'd really encourage you to give the game another shot with this in mind, just because I think you might have a lot of fun with it if you can get past the initial hump of figuring out how to best utilize the controls. But either way, I appreciate you playing and sharing!

Thanks so much! <3

This is literally my dream comment because you hit on exactly the things that are my favorite parts of the game.  It's so on point that one of my friends jokingly accused me of writing this one, haha.

Thanks so much for playing and sharing your thoughts! I'm glad you enjoyed :)

Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the strategic depth :)

Haha, if you're curious, the way I came up with the idea was super serendipitous but somehow natural at the same time. I only got started with trying to make games recently, so when the jam started the only thing I knew how to do in unity was move a sphere with a rigidbody around using the arrow keys. That pushed me towards trying to do a physics-based bullet hell, where you're a sphere trying to avoid being knocked off a platform by a bunch of flying objects, since that felt like something I could reasonably pull off.

I was in the shower thinking about level designs for this game when I came up with the idea of a pool-table shaped map, where you would need to avoid being pocketed by a bunch of balls rolling around. I really liked this concept, and it got me thinking—what if the entire game was pool-themed?

That question took me down the path that eventually led to this game. I honestly had no idea if the game would even make any sense at all, so I was incredibly relieved when I played my first 'tech demo' and it was FUN.

Thanks so much for your comments! That vibe of making you "feel like you're making the best shot of your life every time" was exactly what I was going for with the music and the gameplay, so I'm really glad to hear it worked for you :)

Thanks so much!

Thanks! The music was definitely a bit too dramatic for some but I'm glad you liked it :)

I'm impressed—I think you've done the best out of anyone I've seen or heard! Level 9 is the final level for now, so you've almost beat it all.

I'd be willing to bet your experience with the eight ball seeming to be hit too hard is because of the heavy (solid-colored) variants of the balls that start spawning later in the game. 

I tried to design the levels to introduce those ball variants in an intuitive way.  For example, Level 5 (Flood) is the first place where they appear. I structured the level so that the level repeats itself, once with the lighter striped balls, and again with the heavier solid-color balls.  I also designed the spawners so that the player would be virtually guaranteed to have either the eight ball or cue ball experience a collision with both variants.

I like the way heavy balls are introduced, but this is probably something that really needs text if I want players to be able to figure out, just because it's totally non-obvious that striped vs. solid would be anything other than a cosmetic difference (and you might not even notice the cosmetic difference). It's not like anyone is expecting to see "elite enemies" in a pool game...

I wanted to make sure losing the cue ball was a least a little bit punishing, but it would be really easy to dial the respawn threshold back, so I think I'll do that based on your thoughts.

I'm really glad you liked it, and thanks for the feedback!

Thanks!

The difficulty in the game ramps up really quickly, so you should blame me for at least part of your struggle. I'll definitely be looking at adjustments after the jam since you're definitely not alone in finding it at least a bit too hard.

I'm so glad you enjoyed! I think one of the reasons the game concept worked is that, at a base level, the game is just a pool physics simulation, and physics simulations are just naturally fun to toy around with.  I also really like the experience of slo-mo mid-motion pool, so I'm a bit curious to play with other variations on the game using the same core mechanic.

I knew the music could be an issue of taste for people, but I'm glad it didn't kill the vibe even if it wasn't your thing :). But I'd definitely like to replace it with something original and more directly tailored for the game at some point.

Thanks so much!

I'm really glad you enjoyed :)

Thanks a lot!

It was a lot of fun watching you play on stream! Watching people play has been my favorite thing about making a game, so thanks for giving me that opportunity :)

Glad you enjoyed!!

Thanks a lot! I wasn't sure if the combination of billiards and bullet hell would make any sense when I set out to do it, but I'm so happy with how it turned out.

I'm so glad you enjoyed! I've gotten a few suggestions about making it for mobile so it's definitely something I'd like to try out when I have more experience—definitely feels well suited for it!

Glad you enjoyed! It's definitely a really hard game, but you improve quickly too :)

I love the graphics too—they looked terrible in my early versions of the game until Rumen and Paul swooped in and saved me—I think they look great now :)

Thank you so much! It means a lot :)

So glad you liked the music. I was worried people might find it to be a bit too dramatic, but I just thought it fit so well with the gameplay.

I definitely want to try making the game for mobile at some point, once I have more experience under my belt, especially since a lot of people have suggested it.