I still love Pocket-Run Pool.
Game developer extraordinaire Zach Gage (alongside Denver Coulson) originally released the game in May 2018. That’s… a long time ago. It remains fun, it remains eminently replayable, and it remains a go-to game for me on my iPhone to this day.
It’s a billiards-style game, but with a couple brilliant innovations in gameplay and scoring. Pockets — the holes where you’re aiming to sink the billiard balls — get score multipliers in them. Sink the 2-ball in the ×10 hole, and you score 20 points.
Another UI affordance I love in the game is that Pocket-Run Pool always shows you where your ball should go. I thought that the on-screen lines showing a ball’s expected path (including ricochets) would be temporary during learning modes, but it’s always there — and it doesn’t make the game too easy. It’s helpful and strategic.
The physics in the game are great, which is a win — and on the iPhone, the haptics implementation is second to none: You can feel the balls bouncing and sinking; you can feel the pool stick make impact. It’s great.
The game includes a handful of modes: Insta-Tournament, High Stakes Pool, Standard Run, and Break of the Week — that last being kind of a weekly puzzle.
My favorite mode is High Stakes Pool, where you wager some in-game currency and add on some obstacles: 2 Sinks/Pocket blocks a given pocket on the board once you’ve sunk two balls there; Exploding Pockets causes an on-the-felt quake near the hole you just landed a ball in; Super Ball puts a giant stupid ball in the way of… everything.
How much do I love this game? I’ve amassed more than 6 billion units of its in-game currency with High Stakes wins.
Do I have complaints? I mean, sure. The Game Center integration isn’t great, and I wish I could mix and match more of the High Stakes obstacles from different levels within the game. But if I have a few minutes of waiting or downtime and don’t want to wade into Mastodon or Reddit or — heaven forbid — my inbox, Pocket-Run Pool is always a delight.