Ballionaire review – addictive, pinball-inspired strategy game

From pinball to pachinko, human beings have spent billions of hours fascinated by the capricious effects of physics on a metallic ball. It’s a pastime that, in Ballionaire, has perhaps reached its zenith. The premise is childishly simple: drop a ball into a pyramid-shaped run, then watch, helplessly, as it tinkles toward the gutter at the bottom. On its way, the ball will ricochet off any pins and bumpers it meets in its path, triggering their special effects and gradually accumulating dollar-based points along its wending journey.

Some of the bumpers, which are colourfully rendered as anthropomorphic characters, have straightforward qualities. They might add a little cash to the pot, or spawn a second ball. Others are more complicated, reversing gravity, or teleporting the ball to another spot. At first the board is mostly empty, but after each roll you have the chance to strategically add one of three new bumpers to the layout, thereby increasing the amount of points you can score on your next run.

Herein lies the challenge: you have five attempts to build up a cash pot that meets or exceeds the financial target for the level. Fail to meet this target and it’s game over. Meet the challenge and the next target increases exponentially. Soon you’ll need to be making tens of thousands of virtual dollars per ball, entirely through the strategic arrangement of bumpers and the luck of the bounce. What starts off as a rather pedestrian, bagatelle-style board game soon becomes a carnival of pyrotechnical effects as a fountain of coins and balls cascade down the run, causing dazzling chain reactions.

There is a simple joy in watching your score accumulate via outlandish multipliers, and while the physical aspect of the game is entirely passive, there is a world of strategy to be explored in figuring out the most beneficial arrangement of bumpers in the 55 spaces on the board. A deceptively simple, obsession-forming challenge, then, to start the year.