In 2007, a game called Peggle was released. In 2008, the world suffered a global economic crisis. To this day I refuse to believe these two facts were unrelated. Peggle was as allconsumingly moreish as it was simple—it was essentially just a pachinko machine, where you fired a ball into a screen full of ‘pegs’. The only agency you had was the direction you fired the ball in. After that, all you could do is sit back and watch, making it almost entirely luck-based.
Once you finally accepted that, the spell would hopefully break, and you could finally uninstall the bloody thing. But now developer newobject has come up with Ballionaire, a twist on pachinko that adds roguelike deckbuilding elements. Essentially Peggle has gone to college, smartened up and gotten itself a master’s degree in compelling strategy gameplay. Oh no. Oh God no.
The goal is to make enough money to pay a tribute that has to be cleared every seven balls. The starter tribute is $500, which is worrying, because the board is initially a complete tightwad. Hitting these pegs pays out a pathetic one dollar apiece, the kind of financial reward that would embarrass even a games journalist. Luckily, after every ball you get a choice of three obstacles (also, a little confusingly, called balls) that you can add to the table. A trampoline will pay out $200 if you hit it, and bounce the ball upwards. A smiling tree will also pay out $200, but only if you hit it from the bottom up. Ah, but as an apology for that irritating caveat, the tree also gains a small multiplier bonus after every single ball played, meaning it can become a substantial payout in the late game.