Pool Ninja is a game all about speed and precision, and we aren’t just talking about the shots that are needed to complete each level. The game uses the same engine as Anytime Pool (another game by Distinctive Developments) and we found it astonishing how rapid its loading times are. A lot of optimisation must have gone into the engine to keep the graphical quality and maintain such speed; making the game truly worthy of its ninja title.

The game itself isn’t a fully-fledged pool game but instead contains a series of pool puzzles. Red balls are set out across the table in various patterns and it’s your job to pot them all. Yellow balls also appear in many levels as obstacles; they can be used to pot red balls but you fail the level if you pot one by accident. You also fail the level if you pot your white ball, so you have to be extra careful. To help you take the precise shots there are guides that show which way each ball is heading, so it’s a simple aim and shoot for most of the levels. Of course the balls tend to go flying all over the place if you set the power too high, but that’s usually easy to handle.

There are 60 levels in total which are split up into three difficulties: easy, medium and hard. There is a good, steady progression from level to level and the layouts are always different and interesting. As we said before; some are straight forward, but others take some thinking to get past. We didn’t curve the ball very often to complete the challenges, but the option is there if you so need it. Have a look at the video below for a snippet of the gameplay:

Every level you play is timed and you are awarded either a bronze, silver or gold star depending on this. Rather than having set times for you to achieve, the stars are based on your rank in the Plus+ leaderboards. We have to admit it’s a clever way to work out the right awards and is a very flexible system. Plus+ also includes various achievements for you to earn which range from finishing a challenge in a super quick time to completing all the levels in a given difficulty.

We found Pool Ninja rather hard to put down and spent hours playing through the game. The majority of the graphics look stunning and while it would be nice to have a pocket animation when a ball falls in, we can understand why it was left out (to keep the game’s speed). The game is a huge amount of fun and if you enjoy a puzzler game then we can certainly recommend it.

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