A ball, a goal at the other end of the board, and a pile of machinery in between that does nothing until you tell it what angle to sit at.

How a level works

You never steer the ball. You prepare the board and then let go. Platforms tilt to change the slope. Reflectors redirect whatever hits them. Springs launch the ball upward. Fans blow it sideways. Portals move it somewhere else entirely. Buttons open gates, extend bridges and raise hidden platforms. Moving platforms travel a fixed route, so releasing at the wrong moment is its own kind of mistake.

Then you watch. Either the path you imagined exists, or it does not, and the ball finds the hole in your reasoning faster than you will.

Three stars, three different problems

The first star is for arriving. Get the ball to the goal by any route at all and the level is complete.

The second is for collecting. Three pickups sit off the direct path, placed so that a ball travelling sensibly toward the goal cannot touch them. Reaching them means a longer and stranger route, and often throwing away the tidy solution you already had.

The third is for efficiency. Every level has a move limit, where a move is any change you make: an angle, a position, an activation. Coming in under it is what separates a solution from a good solution. Any level can be brute forced by fiddling. Three stars requires you to plan the whole route before the first adjustment.

Chains and charges

Small pickups form chains. Collect several in a row without breaking the sequence and the multiplier rises, so a smooth route is worth more than a functional one.

Some levels also hide a set of markers. Take all of them with one ball and it charges: bigger, faster, strong enough to break weak obstacles, and worth more points until it fades. Finish the level while it is still charged for the best result.

As you get further in

Timed machinery. Breakable blocks hiding alternative routes. Portals linking opposite ends of the board. And multi ball levels, where the first ball opens something, the second triggers something else and the third finally runs the path the other two made possible.

Each level takes under a minute to play and considerably longer to solve properly.

Stuck on one

A hint showing where a single element belongs. An extra move when a perfect run is one adjustment short. A strike that clears one blocking block. A slowdown for moving parts when timing is the only thing beating you. A return that sends the ball back to the start after it falls off the board.

No timers, no lives, nothing expiring while you think. Leave a level at one star and come back for the other two whenever you want.