Ballance (computer game)

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Ballance
Studio Cyparade
Publisher Atari SA
composer Mona Mur
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 2004
platform Windows
genre skill
Game mode Single player
control keyboard
medium CD-ROM
language German , English , French
Age rating
USK released from 0
PEGI recommended for ages 3+
information The first level is available for download as a demo

Ballance is a puzzle and skill game for Windows that was developed by Cyparade and distributed by Atari . The game principle is based on that of the slot machine classic Marble Madness .

description

In the game you steer a ball through a kind of floating labyrinth high above the clouds, whereby it is important not to let it fall down and to reach the end of the respective level (game stage). The game is controlled with the keyboard. The arrow keys are used to move and, if the shift key is pressed at the same time, to rotate the view in 90 ° steps. When the space bar is pressed, a kind of bird's-eye view is active, in which a larger section of the game track is visible. You start every game with a point account of 1000 and three "lives" - every time you drop the ball you lose one and are reset to the last checkpoint , of which there are several per level. Two points per second are deducted from the points account, which can be topped up by 220 points through so-called point extras, which are collected by touching the ball. You can also collect extra lives. As you go through the levels, you have to solve puzzles and set mechanisms in motion in order to progress. There are three types of balls in the game - wood, paper and stone - whose different physical properties must be exploited. The type of ball can be changed using so-called transformers, which are placed at different locations in the cloud labyrinth. Sometimes a route has to be covered several times in succession with different types of balls, as, for example, only paper balls are light enough to be carried up by a fan.

In the final scoring of the level, the level bonus (100 points multiplied by the level number) and the remaining lives multiplied by 200 are added to the points. At the beginning only the first level is playable, the remaining ones have to be played through one after the other in order to be playable afterwards in any order.

Additional level

On September 14, 2004 , the additional, freely downloadable level 13, called 速度 ( Sudu ) or speed level , was set on the developer’s website , in which the developers, according to a report on ballance.org, “ could implement all the dirty little ideas that we weren't allowed to do before for one simple reason: you will most likely confront the player with the experience of failure on the first try ”. Although you don't have to unlock this level first, it is considerably more difficult than the previous ones.

Web links