Solo Pool

Solo Pool intro screen #1 Solo Pool intro screen #2
Solo Pool intro screens 1&2.
Solo Pool intro screen #3 Solo Pool intro screen #4
Solo Pool intro screens 3&4.
Solo Pool intro screen #5

Solo Pool intro screen 5.
Solo Pool game screen #1 Solo Pool game screen #2
Solo Pool game screens 1&2.
Solo Pool game screen #3 Solo Pool game screen #4
Solo Pool game screens 3&4.
Solo Pool game screen #5

Solo Pool game screen 5.

Solo Pool is a surprisingly good Pool game for 1 or 2 players written entirely in Extended BASIC. The game features 1 or 2 players, 4 different difficulty levels (which greatly affects the amount of power that you can put behind a shot), a "Select" option (where you can refuse a random cue ball placement and request another) and easy to learn joystick controls. The word Solo in this case is not about the number of players, but rather you are shooting a single ball at a time that is randomly place. Each of the 6 pockets are worth a different number of points based on the difficulty to sink a shot, so you can pick easier shots (for less points) or harder shots (for more points). But you only get one shot to try and sink a ball; then it's onto the next player (or next random placement if a single player game is being played). I have seen point ranges up to 8 (the above screenshot has points ranging from 3 to 7); I am not sure if it can go higher.

The control is quite intuitive; you have a little crosshair that you move around with the joystick or mouse relative to the cue ball; it's position when click the button to shoot controls both the angle and the power of the shot (the further away from the cue ball, the more power). Since the difficulty level dictates the relative power of your shots, a difficulty level of 1 will let you hit the ball hard enough to bounce across the entire table several times. On level 4, depending on how much free space you have to move the crosshair behind your shot (you can't move the crosshair off of the active table), you may not even be able to get a shot across the entire table. This is a very well done Extended BASIC game.

Title: Solo Pool

Author: John Fraysse

Publisher: Tom Mix Software

Released: December 1982

Requires: Color Computer 1,2,3, 16K RAM, Extended BASIC, joystick(s), cassette or disk.

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