You may find out after rolling along for a bit that you made the wrong choice, such as when you encounter a ventilator but do not have a paper ball (the only one light enough to rise on the air flow) in this case you have to retrace your steps to the closest appropriate transformer to make a switch. Often at any given spot you have a choice of readily available materials for the ball, and you have to think very carefully about which material to use in what situation. Successfully controlling and steering each type of ball requires major adjustments on your part. To change the ball's composition, you steer it onto transformers located at various places on the structures. Three transformations are possible: paper, which is light but unstable and lacking force stone, which is powerful but heavy and unwieldy and wood, which is a compromise between the two extremes. Perhaps the single most innovative feature in Ballance is your ability to transform the ball into different materials with very different physical properties. You need to constantly calculate what the limits are on your ability to overcome predicaments that on the surface seem physically impossible. For example, if you knock a pile of crates situated in a given position off a ledge, the manner in which they fall off is exactly a function of the speed, angle, and construction material of the approaching ball. The developers incorporate an absolutely precise and highly realistic physics model. Friction, gravity, inertia, velocity, and acceleration make all the difference between success and failure.

In the process of moving around the labyrinthine structures, a sound knowledge of the laws of physics would be a real asset. A solution comes only after you realize that you are on an elevator and need to knock the walls over the edge to lighten the platform so you can rise to a different level. A fun example of the interesting decision making occurs on level seven, where you end up dropping onto a circular platform with walls with seemingly nowhere to go. Although you do indeed need to be extremely physically careful in guiding the ball through the maze-like structures, you find you need considerable strategy to solve the navigational puzzles you face. What is immediately apparent is that, unlike many offerings of this type, Ballance demands at least as much in the way of intellectual puzzle solving ability as it does in the way of quick reflexes and hand-eye coordination. The developers treat you to twelve increasingly challenging levels, each quite lengthy and intricate, presenting more complex puzzles and mechanisms than its predecessor. Your goal is to get to the end of each level without having the ball fall off the structure and into oblivion. While undertaking this task, you need to overcome all sorts of mechanical obstacles, such as seesaws, wooden suspension bridges, jumps and drops, pendulums, sandbags, tilting ramps, ventilators, twisting steel rails, swings, push-blocks, and trap doors. In this single-player release, you steer a ball over complicated mechanisms and tortuous passages of all sorts through a tranquil cloud world high in the air. Does it succeed?Д«allance is a level-based arcade offering with puzzle elements. Now the German company Cyparade has developed a new offering Ballance, which tries to raise the bar in this subgenre. Since that time, there have been many variants produced on this theme, such as Marble Blast and Hamster Ball on the personal computer, and Super Monkey Ball on the Nintendo GameCube. Success required quick reflexes as well as a sense for when to make strategic, but high risk, moves. Remember the mid-1980s Atari game from the video arcades named Marble Madness? It gave players unbelievable fun, controlling the progress of a marble up, down, and around perilous paths. Each of the 12 levels is filled with time boosters and extra lives to help when gamers inevitably drop the ball. For example, the paper ball is highly maneuverable and can be rolled over fans to float, but it is too light to affect seesaws or move obstacles, whereas the stone ball obliterates obstacles but cannot ascend steep slopes. As the material changes from wood to paper to stone players must adapt to the ball's new mass and rolling abilities. Players compete against a clock, but gravity and inertia also come in to play as each level contains transformers that change the ball's physical properties. The goal is to reach the end of each level without falling off the course. An action puzzle game, somewhat in the vein in Marble Madness, Ballance requires gamers to guide a ball through the nebulous sky along metal tracks, wooden roads, concrete paths, and over and around mechanical obstacles. Atari and Cyparade invite players to get the ball rolling in Ballance.

Balance pc game