BALLYGON

upon first glance, the thought that went through my mind was that this was pretty much a monkey ball game for the modern gamer. so i got the game, dove into the menus, and started the beginner stages. on the surface it seemed like it was, from the controls to even the difficulty selection at the start. instead of a cute monkey, you get a cute... little space thingy lol. but the stages are very unique in themselves. some very humorous and aptly named (i.e. [spoiler]"toaster" & "house"[/spoiler] lol) and the music... good god those tracks! i rarely buy soundtracks these days (i play and compose music daily so that's usually enough). but the electronic musicianship on these tracks is excellent and merits a purchase from me when it's released just to further support the developer. for those that don't follow Anthony Seeha on youtube, his videos of live mixing electronic music using Nintendo DS units from back in the day are legendary. he has been keeping up with his craft for the last decade so it would make sense that the music is a very strong aspect of the product. he himself has stated on his youtube channel that these tracks were made just using Korg apps across the Nintendo DS and 3DS family of units as well as the Korg Gadget, presumably on an Apple tablet (it is also available on the Switch but with limited exporting options). pretty amazing feat, imo. having played through all the beginner and advanced stages, the only two very minor cons i can think of: 1) the brief difficulty spike i experienced at the beginning of the advanced stages, and 2) the camera control. i constantly restarted the first few stages a dozen times (each). he has already reshuffled the stages in the last patch, so it's very possible i just needed to "git gud" lol. as for the camera, the ability to pan vertically MIGHT help a lot here, especially in stages where you face blind cliffs and drop offs. but i'm not sure it's entirely necessary since you already get to see vertically via the minimap. going in blind sometimes is part of the fun. i'm excited to finish the rest of the game and play the tracks he adds later via updates. also looking forward to his future projects!

As a longtime Super Monkey Ball fan/speedrunner, it's always great to see indie developers taking fresh new approaches to the games I grew up on and continue to enjoy today. Ballygon seeks to stand among its prime inspirations as a competent, mechanically intensive marble roller with an infinite amount of depth, and in my opinion, it DEFINITELY succeeds. Ballygon is not afraid to wear its Super Monkey Ball inspiration on its sleeve, but when it comes to reviewing marble rollers, I like to objectively look at them as an individual experience. Ballygon does enough to set itself apart from its cohorts in the genre with an array of unique mechanics and stage obstacles, all the while feeling incredibly familiar to those who know their way around a solid marble roller. The game from a mechanical standpoint is pretty damn nice, I gotta say. I'm usually nervous to dive into new marble rollers because of the very specific criteria for controls I look for in a game like this, but Ballygon thankfully delivers on that front without a hitch. If you're like me and you're predisposed to Super Monkey Ball, you'll definitely notice that the physics are not 1:1. Ballygon has this unique "slippery" aspect to its controls that you as the player have to adapt to and work around. I was kind of taken aback by how slippery the controls felt at first, but the more I kept playing, the more I found myself at home. I don't think it even took me more than 20 minutes of gameplay to get fully adjusted, and the rest of my game went SO smoothly. The other aspects of the game's physics work wonderfully as well. Clipping off of corners/edges to gain height and accelerate faster in the air, Using momentum to perform wild stunts and fly over large portions of the level, etc. You can absolutely do that here, and like the mark of a good marble roller, the game encourages it. Gameplay aside, I've really found myself praising everything this game has to offer. The art direction is a sort of cutesy futuristic vibe that I LOVE, and the main character is adorable. Seriously love the character's design. The MUSIC is spectacular. Anthony Seeha absolutely killed it, all while handling literally every other aspect of the game in the process (Yes, this game is solo-developed. Crazy, right?). For a project only being headed by a single person, Ballygon is remarkably competent in a number of different areas. That being said, I do have my criticisms. My biggest gripe with the game is the Token system. Throughout the game, you can find and collect tokens scattered throughout each stage to exchange for unlockables and goodies. That's a really cool thing to implement! The issue is that this method of accruing tokens is a bit slow and unintuitive as the only means of progression. Tokens are accrued through natural gameplay at a snail's pace, usually on a treacherous piece of terrain or just out of the way of the level entirely. You can receive tokens at the end of each difficulty gauntlet as a reward, but you only get substantial compensation for beating the later difficulties, which I'm sure not a lot of casual players will ever end up getting to. This is a problem on its own, but it's also paired with the fact that half of the purchasables are features that should be in the base game. A questionable decision was made to have the player pay for UI elements and settings with Tokens. Stuff like instant retry buttons, Basic things that should be customizable by default are instead monetized for some reason. I think these features should be a part of the base game, as they are an important means of accessibility. I would much rather offer the player more opportunities to collect tokens naturally and spend them on items such as the different color palettes for the main character (of which there should be more imo). Spreading more tokens throughout levels and balancing out the token rewards at the end of difficulties might be a good way to go about it! Besides that though, Ballygon is absolutely a worthwhile experience for anyone in need of a marble roller fix. I intend to continue dissecting this game, maybe even to speedrun it in the future! Who knows...

Amazing monkey ball clone that has great music and fixes A LOT of the problems with monkey ball and other clones. The jarring camera we're used to can be tamed in the options menu. There are no slow/speed up switches in levels, thank god. There are no multiple exit levels. You can't bonk off the side of exits, you can enter them from any direction. There's no levels with insane jumps that rely heavily on lucky physics. They also added a slight horizontal deadzone so that it's possible to move forward in a perfectly straight line. The level design is pretty decent, with the perfect amount of content. No level feels like a grind to get through (except a slight few in the bonus stages, but they're a good challenge.) No gimmick ever overstays its welcome. They also add a few unique mechanics like pushable blocks and teleporters. The pushable objects slightly stick to you so that they're easier to control, which is a really smart addition. The only thing I found finicky is the consistency of the bounce pads, but it's rarely an issue. Definitely recommend if you love Monkey Ball, or even if you're new to the style of game altogether. It's a great representation of the genre with great feeling controls and good pacing and challenge.

In my humble opinion Ballygon is the best monkey ball like on steam, ahead of banana mania, a monkey ball game itself. Gameplay wise this game plays like classic monkey ball, if anything this game shamelessly rips it off, except it doesn't, none of the stages are copies at all and infact while there's small nods to it here and there, the level design is why this game ultimately succeeds, they hand crafted a large variety of unique stages, and while i do think the games physics are a little bouncy and floaty for my liking, its very controllable and responsive, the difficulty progresses very nicely too and the way you "complete" stages is completely different from traditional monkey ball and its lives system, all in all gameplay wise the game puts its own spin on things and does so very well. Graphics wise i wasn't a fan of the world appearances, they vary too little, i wish it made the textures of the floor different and each world had more of its own flavor to it, but the textures of everything work, the menus while simple looking are functional and the player character looks cute too! Music and sound for monkey ball games is a high bar to hit, and ill admit, this game does it, the OST from anthony seeha completely SLAPS, while its lows are lower than monkey ball, the highs certainly could top it even, sound wise the clock ticking is responsive announce voice is still good (doesn't beat classic: ready? go! but still good) all in all functional and stylistic, what it needs to be. Overall a very true monkey ball like, while its weaker in some areas arguably its much stronger in others, especially the fact it decided to hand craft levels and take bold moves with its gimmicks, which sets it ahead of all the other ones on steam if you ask me :p

A very fun one-man project from a very talented dude. I often used to listen to Anthony Seeha's Korg DS-10 music a decade ago, now he's channelled his creativity into an entire game project modelled, scored, voiced, and programmed by the man himself. Hugely inspirational stuff, I hope this game brings joy to many players, but also to people thinking of creating anything themselves!

I loved this game!! This game is perfect for Super Monkey Ball fans looking for a difficult but fair challenge and also a great starting point for players new to the genre as it offers many helpful assists and tips. I thought the difficulty curve was great, it definitely challenged me but never felt impossible! At least until some of the courses at the end of Grand master mode, WOW they were tough but grand master should be really hard! Definitely would recommend to all, I loved every minute of it!

Good clean fun, with some novel gimmicks and very fluent controls. I'm not the most hardcore Super Monkey Ball fan, but this has definitely been scratching the itch for me. Runs great on my Ayaneo Air 1S too.

As far as Super Monkey Ball clones/inspired games go, this one doesn't do it as well as Rolled Out does. The physics feel a lot floatier, and way more drifty by comparison (though this became less and less of an issue over time). It also gets really disorienting and confusing when you try to control the camera as well as Orbit (the little robot dude you control). A lot of this game's stage design, however, is very true to Monkey Ball, I can easily imagine playing most of these levels presented as a level pack in SMB, or Rolled Out, and having them fit right in with little or no retooling. At least, it's something I'd certainly like to try. The music is also pretty good. I don't really have any strong feelings towards it beyond that, though. It fits well, and is well composed for the game. Some more things this game does that I really like include: -Built in joystick visuals above the map -120hz physics mode (makes extremely fast moving objects affect you in way less wacky ways) -No lives, just score reduction upon falling out I enjoyed myself while playing this. You could certainly spend 10 bucks in many worse ways, that's for sure.

its good!

Fun little game, worth the price especially if it's on sale. music - 10/10