~ LOWEST NUMBER FIRST · BLACK LAST ~
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Drag anywhere on the table. The cue swings round behind the white ball and pulls back, like a catapult — so drag away from where you want to go. The further you pull, the harder you hit it. Let go and it goes.
A long pot has to be right to about half a degree, so nobody can find one by guessing. You find it by watching the dotted line. It shows where the white ball goes, and the gold line shows where the ball it hits will go. When the gold line reaches a hole, that hole lights up — that is the moment the shot is on.
Your finger is never going to land on half a degree. That is what ◀ and ▶ are for: they turn the cue a tiny bit without changing how hard you are hitting it, and SHOOT fires. Hold one down and it keeps turning. On a computer the arrow keys do the same, up and down change the power, and the space bar shoots.
A red dotted line means the white ball itself is going down a hole. That is a foul every time, so it is worth looking for before you let go.
Two things worth watching while you line a shot up. The cue glows hotter the harder you are about to hit it — it goes pink at full power. And the balls watch the white one, so whichever one you are aiming at will go wide-eyed at you just before you hit it.
Hit the lowest number on the table first, every single time. Once you have hit the right one, anything that goes down counts — even if it was not what you were aiming at.
Every shot costs you one shot, and a clean pot gives it straight back. So a good run costs you nothing and a bad one drains away. Miss, hit the wrong ball, or put the white down, and that shot is gone.
The black is last. Sink it to clear the rack and you get points for the rack plus more shots — and the further in you are, the more a rack is worth. Knock the black down early and it just comes back out; it is a wasted shot, not a disaster.
Each rack has one more ball than the last. From rack 3 a frog sits on the cloth and balls bounce off it. From rack 5 one hole is taped shut. From rack 7 there are two frogs. It never stops getting harder, which is the point.
Hand-made puzzles with a set number of shots. The order does not matter here — just get them all down. They are in shots.js and you can write your own.
Two people, one device, one rack of nine. Same rule — lowest first, black last. Pot one and you go again; miss and it is the other player. Whoever sinks the black wins it. There is no score board for this one, because a match between two people leaves a winner, not a number.