This has been a chaotic week by my standards, and a big part of that chaos has come via Ballionaire, the self-proclaimed autobonker developed by newobject that dropped into my inbox last week.
I’ve been keeping tabs on this one since I first laid eyes on it back in September, and I was eager to get stuck in when I heard that the Early Access release would take place this side of the new year. And now, after several hours with the game, I’ve got an opinion to share.
What is Ballionaire?
Ballionaire is many things, but at its core it’s a game about making the big number go up and up. The game takes place on a series of pachinko boards. Between the pegs there are triggers that do all sorts of things when bonked by a ball.
As alluded to in the introduction, the developer has been calling the game an “autobonker” and I like that description. Once you pull the trigger and start your turn, what happens is very much in the lap of the RNG gods. Your ball emerges from the top of the screen and then drops down between the pegs, bonking this way and that until eventually going out of play – at which point you bank any points scored.
You can keep your balls going for longer by deploying a number of tactical triggers. A portal, for example, will send a ball back to another portal at the top of the board. Mushrooms, meanwhile, bounce your balls back upwards. You need to keep those balls moving, too, because they’ll constantly activate triggers and earn you points as they roll around the board.
In my opinion, Ballionaire taps into the same charming gameplay loop as the contraption maker. I remember playing The Incredible Machine back in the ’90s and a quick search revealed that these types of games are still around today (here’s a list of similar titles over on Giant Bomb). These games are about the joy of experimentation and finding that sweet spot where you control how cause becomes effect.
Let’s go, Pachinko!
As you can see in the attached screenshots, there are several different pachinko boards to play on. These boards each have their own particular feature, such as the boat above, which drags a hook across the board. However, it’s the triggers and the boons that will ultimately define your success. Whether you call it theorycrafting or engine building, your goal is to build synergies between the triggers on the board and unlock the big bonuses that come with them.
There are different ways to do this, and you’ll get schooled in each major system by playing through the Initiate training stages. Therein you are taught to combo your triggers and then keep your balls in play, all by careful arrangement of your pieces on the board.
Between each new attempt you can choose a trigger (and sometimes a boon) and place it on the board. When activated, an ingredient might get stuck to the ball, or the ball may change form or split in half. You can stitch together different arrangements of triggers; for example, you might put cooking ingredients together that can be combined to create food-based triggers (see the pizza in the screenshot below).
There are loads of different ways that you can mix and match your triggers, and the joy of Ballionaire is finding these things out for yourself. Each trigger has a description, and there is a fair amount of reading required. However, the different uses of the triggers might not always been immediately obvious from just the wording, which takes you back to experimenting and seeing how things work together.
You’ll need to take a few risks as you work through each of the nine stages, but when those risks pay off, Ballionaire can be supremely satisfying. Each new round requires you pay tribute to the elders, and the payment goes up each time until you need hundreds of thousands to keep them happy and prolong your run.
Chaos with character
I have to say, I’m a big fan of the overall presentation. The irreverent cartoon style is a great fit, and the recent art overhaul has made such a positive difference. The screen can get quite busy, an unavoidable side-effect I think, but thanks to the crisp graphics and bold art work you can clearly parse what triggers are where.
There is certainly a fair degree of luck involved at times, but the longer you play, the less luck plays a part. You’ll start to stack the odds in your favour, slowly moving your pieces around an ever evolving board. I’ve played for nearly ten hours, and I think I’ve only scratched the surface of what I can do in the game.
To that end, longevity is built in via different difficulty settings. You can take on so-called burdens to make things harder by creating new gameplay wrinkles to overcome. There are also different starting builds that you can pick, giving each run its own feel and keeping things interesting in the long run.
On top of all that, there’s Lab Mode, where you can kick back and just have fun, and Custom Mode, where you can have even greater control over the number crunching. The devs clearly expect modding to be an important part of the game’s journey, and I can see why.
All in all, I’ve really enjoyed my time with Ballionaire, and I think I’m going to keep coming back to these colourful pachinko boards again and again. There is so much potential for replayability here, and with more content on the horizon, I’d happily recommend it even though it’s still only in Early Access.
Ballionaire is out now on PC (Win) and I played the game via access provided by the developer and their PR friends at Raw Fury. Thanks!
