Neverball
Version: Web: http://neverball.org
If you’ve played a classic tabletop Labyrinth game, you'll quickly get the hang of Neverball. The game requires you to move a big metal ball by tilting the game world and have it navigate a map full of obstacles within a time limit. Moving platforms and other objects get in your way, making levels progressively harder.
Initially, we suspected that the game was originally for the smartphone, taking advantage of gyro sensors, but it turns out that Neverball was first released back in 2003, which means that the game relies on your mouse.
There are 116 main levels in Neverball in three course packs, running from easy to hard, as well as 25 extra extremely hard levels. To be honest, we found we could only complete the ‘easy’ levels, and then only on a desktop PC, as playing the Android port on a smartphone left us with a pain in our wrists and somewhat mixed feelings – the desktop version is gorgeous, however. As you proceed from level to level, your hand-eye skill develops and you start controlling every tiny move of the ball.
To complete each level you have to collect a set number of coins and reach a yellow-lit exit. Many of the levels are so cool that you have to admire the talent of the level builders: a mix of transparent cubes, loops, mazes, complex curved surfaces and floating platforms, all placed over an abyss and suffering from frequent earthquakes and irresistible pull of gravity.
As well as being addictive, the latest version of Neverball also includes better translation packs, Oculus Rift support, and some fancy graphical improvements, such as the transition to the OpenGL ES rendering API and support for high-DPI displays.
“The levels are so cool that you have to admire the level builders.”