World Without Balls

World Without Balls is a 2.5D marble platformer with 30 levels. You control a ball's direction of acceleration and jump timing as you navigate to the exit without falling to your doom, losing energy to obstacles, or running out of time.

While audiovisually decent, World Without Balls comes without instructions and contains poorly designed levels. A strange tube design on the top right hand corner of the screen represents your ball's "energy" and the amount of time you have left to complete the level; you're likely to not even notice this thing until the game tells you you're dead with an extraordinarily annoying prompt. What's more, nothing about the objects in the game seem to make coherent sense. You pick up lanterns, black blobs, and gems for points, none of which seem to do anything special. You start each level at what looks like a circus flag and finish by plopping into some Greco-Roman architecture. On top of it all is the program's strange name, which is absolutely unexplained by playing the game.

For a purportedly casual game, the levels are rather hard. The ball has barely any traction and little invisible bumps fling you into the air with regularity, causing you to lose control and probably plummet to your demise. Thankfully, you can play any level even if it appears to be unavailable, though you're probably only setting yourself up for more pain by jumping ahead.