Ballionaire review – addictive, pinball-inspired strategy game | Games

FFrom pinball to pachinko, people have spent billions of hours fascinated by the capricious effects of physics on a metal ball. This is a pastime in Ballionairemay have reached its apogee. The idea is childishly simple: throw a ball into a pyramidal track and then watch helplessly as it clatters down to the chute below. Along the way, the ball ricochets off any pins and bumpers that come its way, triggering special effects and gradually accumulating dollar points along the way.

Some bumpers, colorfully depicted as anthropomorphic characters, have a straightforward character. They can add some money to the pot or create a second ball. Others are more complex: they change gravity or teleport the ball to another location. At first the board is virtually empty, but after each roll you have the opportunity to strategically add one of three new bumpers to the layout, thereby increasing the number of points you can score in the next run.

That’s the challenge: you have five attempts to build a bankroll that meets or exceeds the financial goal for the level. Fail to achieve this goal and it’s game over. Solve a problem and the next goal will increase exponentially. Soon you’ll be earning tens of thousands of virtual dollars per ball, purely through strategic bumper placement and luck on the bounce. What starts out as a rather dull bagatelle-style board game soon turns into a carnival of pyrotechnic effects as a fountain of coins and marbles tumble down the path, causing dazzling chain reactions.

Watching your points accumulate through outlandish multipliers is pure pleasure, and while the physics aspect of the game is entirely passive, there’s a whole world of strategy to explore to find the most advantageous bumper placements across the game’s 55 spaces. board. So it’s a deceptively simple and compulsive task to start the year.