Combo Pool
Update : You can now use the mouse to point and shoot!
Here is Combo Pool, a game made using Pico 8, and winning entry to p8jam2. It's a game where you throw colored marbles against each other. If two marbles of the same color make contact, they merge and upgrade to the next color. Your lifebar diminish with the number of balls on the field. If you lifebar is empty, you enter in a sudden death mode, and your last ball must save you by removing some balls.
Accessible mode: in pause menu (press enter) you can toggle a mode where numbers are displayed on the balls, so you can better identify them
Controls :
- keyboard: arrows left-right to adjust direction, and key "c" to launch a ball
- mouse: point toward where you want and left-click to shoot
Pro-tips :
- Dark and grey balls do more damage to your life bar, so avoid keeping too many at the same time
- Score system depend on number of rebound before merging and on balls colors
- A useful technique is to quickly throw two dark ball and make them merge at the first collision
- Try to avoid exploding pink balls as long as you can, you can expect to make more points in the final explosion
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Play Combo Pool with the mouse!Dec 17, 2023
Comments
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This is really fun!
Thanks!
This is literally my new fav game of all time rn
Thank you, I'm glad you like the game!
I am just recharging my old phone because i like to play this game. Sadly it is not working on the new android phone because of a missing data privacy setting.
Ah that is not great
I'm not sure I can get the android port working easily again to make a new version sadly...
Any effort would be greatly appreciated. I like the game too but can't play any more on my current phone.
I'm not sure if this is a bug but when you shoot the last ball when the life bar runs out there's a death screen, and if that shoot happens to be the very last shot that combines the pink balls for a win you get a bug?
Doesn't show my stats and the negative death just keeps negative-ing
Otherwise great game! Had a lot of fun and even though I beat hard mode countless times I kept coming back to play lol
Absolute blast of a game. Great work on this!
This is so much fun! I think I will have this installed on my phone for a long time. I just wish there was something between endless and non-endless mode, where you have a health bar, but you can keep playing after you win. Would you consider an update to add a "keep playing" button after winning in easy/medium/hard mode?
Cool game! Lot of fun in easy.
very good concept and executed very well especially for being made in pico8 and reminds me of 2048 a little bit which is one my favorite puzzle games
Nice game!
Very good game!
beautiful little game. simple, quite polished. love it.
The game really made me addicted, even because the game is very simple, you can spend time playing it when you are bored, good game 👍
This is a great game! The pixel style and sound effects make it really cool. 10/10
cool game, saw it on pico 8 site before
very addictive
I downloaded the APK but I get the error "You can't install this app on your device." Not sure if there's a way to get a more detailed error message. I have a Google Pixel 6 Pro on Android 14.
the apk is probably for arm7 only
Wow! Really enjoyed this one!! Came here for information and inspiration. Stayed for the fun!
Great game! Took me an hour, how bout you guys? :D
Cheers!
what is the point of endless mode?
it's cool if you just want to relax and throw little balls without thinking, you can't loose and instead of winning you can continue without interruption. But I guess it might be confusing as a name and most people like a bit of challenge
Changing it to something like “Free play” would make it less confusing i think.
Good game, with lots of colors. Is this available on any other platforms.
thanks, what other platform would you want? there is a raspberry pi version I could easily produce
Do you plan to bring this game to the PlayDate?
pretty please?
Unfortunately I don't have a PlayDate and beside Pico 8 (the engine I used to make the game) doesn't exist on PlayDate so I would have to remake it from scratch. And also I like how the game play with different colors for each balls, so a greyscale PlayDate version doesn't seem like a good idea, sorry
all us Playdate folks would be so thrilled to have it, but I understand if that's not in the cards.
i'm glad this exists in any form!
apparently someone has already made a port!
Combi Pool
oh, that's pretty cool, I didn't know that, well there you have it! I tested it a bit, but like I said the black-and-white patterns on the balls are not very legible to me so it's hard to play, but otherwise it looks and sounds great!
yes, yours is still the definitive experience. maybe there are some improvements that can be made to the Playdate version to make the "colors" a bit more discernible
i'll ask the person who made the port
this is so fun! I played it on and off during my 10 hour flight home to Australia from Tokyo. I got my score to 3.4 million in endless before the tab reloaded itself while I was doing something else
I'm glad you liked it! And it's nice to see people using the "accessible" mode where numbers are displayed on the balls, can I ask if there is a specific reason for using it? Anyways, thanks for your message, it warms my heart, I hope you flight went well!
I used the accessible mode because it simply made it easier to quickly check which balls were which :)
156500
1) I love this game and still migrate it from device to device on my Android.
2) Love to see you updating it.
Best of luck!
thank you! I'm glad you like the game, and it means all the effort I spent on the android version where not a waste of time! Now with the new browser version, you can play it on android/ios using touch screen, but the native android version is probably still a bit better
yeah I still remember the amazement of you answering my android request with an apk :) did you apply the updates to the android one, should I redownload it? :)
haha, it took me while to make because there is no simple way right now to port pico 8 games to android so I had to port it to another engine (love2D)
And no, the android apk has not been updated, the source code for it is probably buried in an old hard drive and setting it up for everything to build again would take forever. Fortunately it already had touch control to aim so there is just the new accessibility mode, which is a sad to not have, but people can still play with it using the browser version
super fun
this is great!
Such a lovely game, got frustrated only once on hard mode, but it never made me rage. The game is so satisfying, especially when you merge the red balls or finally merge pink and win. 10/10!
Thank you! I'm glad you liked the game!
i love it
excellent game, beat Hard and felt very satisfied.
This is fun, but I’d like to suggest two things:
1: game length
At the moment, each game goes on for about 15 minutes. Since your progress won’t be saved when you quit, it’s a huge time sink. If you could choose the game length by choosing which colored ball ends the game when merged, it would be easier to pick up and play a short game.
2: Reverse orange and yellow
I keep messing up my strategy after a while because I can never remember if orange is before yellow, red is after orange, or whatever. The reason why is because the rest of the colors are in order except for one pair.
And make orange darker while at it. The number of times I’ve tried to merge yellow and orange is concerning
Given the PICO-8’s color palette restrictions, I think you can’t just “make orange darker”. If they replaced orange with green, maybe it’ll be easier to play.
Nice game, managed to beat it on like my third try. But the first try I didn't know you could aim your shot, just shoot straight up, so that doesn't really count😝
Very nice game
I don't really play mobile games, but I've made an exception for this one.
Yeah try crash dive 2 ! Game on phone are very hard to find something good i like this game too
Very fun, thanks!
Like 2048, but billiards. Cool concept. I think for accessibility, it'd be good to give the balls unique symbols on top of them. This would help colorblind people.
93830
hit ball, fun game
nearly died on several occasions! on easy mode! difficult game, very fun
very cool and entertainmenting
Hi, I tried your game on my Android device (Anbernic RG363P) and it produced a black screen but never got any further.
Good game!
Balls.