About Balltrix

Balltrix was developed by Pasha Benenson. It was originally created as a learning experiment in Visual Basic 4.0 (thus the low performance and huge file size of version 1).

Version 2 has major interface and feature improvements. The playing field is no longer limited to a predefined size, and the number of balls dropped on and off the field with each move is variable. This version is written in C.

We would like to extend special thanks to Arkady Kaganovsky for the name "Balltrix" and to Boris Gorney for taking this experiment seriously.

Playing the game

The object of the game is to gain as many points as possible. Here's how it's done:

Each turn, the computer throws 3 or more balls (depending on the game settings) of random colors into random spots of the playing field. The balls are available for preview during the previous turn. Your task is to align 3 or more balls (this is a user-configurable setting) of the same color in a line (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) to make them disappear. This should be done by moving one ball from place to place (note, moving a ball determines the end of the player's turn). Click on the target ball, then click on the destination, and the ball will go where it is told to go, provided it has a clear path. The balls move horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. As the game progresses, the number of colors used by computer increases, until finally you lose.:)

The points are assigned each turn depending on how many balls were dropped from the field. You will get 1 point for the minimum required number, and increasing bonuses for more.

License information, disclaimers and other useful things

This software is provided as is and comes with absolutely no guarantees. Whether it breaks your computer, car or coffee maker, or gets you fired for playing at work, consider yourself warned.