Ballardo

Ballardo is a billiards game where you build a scoring strategy around shots, stickers, relics and cue rules. Each shot earns Points from ball-to-ball hits, cushion bounces and pocketed balls. Every pocket has a plaque that adds to or subtracts from your Mult; when the table stops, Points × Mult is added to the scoreboard. Reach the target score before you run out of shots, but dropping a ball into the wrong pocket can make the whole shot score zero.

Build your table strategy

Stickers attach directly to the balls on the table and can add points or Mult, award a coin for every pocket, or give balls effects such as poison, ricochets or extra weight. Each ball has its own loadout, so choosing which ball to hit matters as much as the force of the shot.

Costume stickers turn balls into characters with special effects. There are 16 costumes:

• Bomb: explodes when it hits.
• Frost: freezes what it touches and shatters a ball after freezing it three times.
• Magnet: pulls neighbouring balls in.
• Slime: drags neighbouring balls along.
• Jester: hops to a random spot every turn.

Relics sit beside the table and light up when they activate. The 42 relics include effects ranging from steady coin income to combos that pay off three pockets deep. For example, the Combo Bell grants +2 Mult when a second ball drops in the same shot, the Eight Oracle turns the black ball into +3 Mult, and the Negative Fan raises your points while allowing them to fall below zero.

Choose a cue

Before every run, choose one of six cues, each with its own rules. You unlock cues by winning pools:

• Classic: rewards alternating solids and stripes.
• Controlled: doubles one called pocket and earns no pocket points from the others.
• Aggressive: starts a shot down but breaks the rack with a shockwave.
• Gilded: lets you wager coins for Mult.
• Echo: wins shots back with combos.
• Precision: awards pocket points only for bank shots.

Spend coins between pools

After every pool, you can spend coins in the shop on stickers and packs, reroll offers, and choose one of three items from each pack. You can also skip a pool to take one of 13 rewards, including an extra shot, a head start, a relic pack or a Rainbow Ball. Skipping means giving up that pool’s payout and shop.

Each shop also has a brass Lucky Spin wheel with eight prizes, including relics, stickers and effects for the next pool. Prizes can be beneficial or harmful. Each spin costs one more coin than the previous one. Prizes you have already won go dark; landing on a dark prize pays nothing.

Climb the leagues

A run has eight leagues, each with a Small, Big and Premium Pool, for 24 pools in total. Target scores rise quickly as you progress. Every Premium Pool adds one of 15 rules, such as dead pockets, a jackpot pocket that moves each shot, a cap on cue power or ball-to-ball hits that score nothing. The hall changes as you climb, from a lamp-lit neighbourhood room to a neon back room. Clear League 8 to win the run.

Unlock your collection

Winning pools fills a token meter. You can feed a token into the brass token machine to receive a new sticker or relic for your Collection. There are 46 unlocks to earn between runs, and the Collection also tracks your cues and 15 achievements.

Ballardo features real billiard physics, an interactive tutorial that teaches as you play and can be replayed from Settings, three save slots, Steam Cloud, a lounge-jazz soundtrack and real billiard sound effects.