Ball2Box

About the game

Ball2Box is a physics puzzle with one gesture. A ball waits at the bottom of the screen, a red box waits somewhere above it, and between them there are walls that bounce, obstacles and sometimes portals. You press on the ball, drag, and let go: the ball flies off in the direction of your swipe, and the harder you swipe the harder it goes. The goal is to drop it into the box, and every level has two stars floating in the air that you can collect on the way for a full three-star clear.

The first levels teach the single gesture with a little pointing hand, and then the rooms start to add things: walls at an angle, objects in the way and the portals that move the ball from one place to another, so a lot of the game becomes finding the one shot that threads it all together. Levels are quick, a failed throw just resets the ball, and the stars you earn work as coins.

The coins buy balls in a small shop. Each ball has its own weight and bounce, which the shop shows as two bars, so changing the ball changes how a level plays; there are plain, golden, green and yellow balls, a football and a volleyball, and a long list of flag-coloured balls. The author says the game has no ads and no tracking, and that is how this version is: a plain, bright 3D puzzle with a music loop, made by one developer.

Playing it here

Click Play and wait for the page to load (about 21 MB, downloaded only when you press the button). The game was made for phones, so it is tall: on a computer it fits the height of the frame and the sides stay empty. Use the mouse to swipe. The buttons at the bottom switch sound and music on and off, open the credits and go full screen. Your progress, stars and balls are kept in your browser.

Controls

Tips

Mind the length. The force follows the length of the swipe, so if a throw overshoots, make the swipe shorter. A very short swipe (under about 100 pixels) does nothing, and the ball stays put.

Use the walls. The walls bounce. Many levels are meant to be solved with one or two bounces, not with a straight shot.

Look at the stars first. Plan the path past both stars, then the box. Taking them as you go is easier than coming back for them.

Try another ball. Balls differ in weight and bounce, and the shop shows both as bars.

FAQ

Is it saved? Yes. Your level, stars and unlocked balls are stored in your browser.

Does it have ads or tracking? No. This version also has no links to other sites.

Does it work on a phone? It was made for phones and can work with touch in a modern browser, but this page is tuned for a computer with a mouse.

Is it really free to share? Yes. It is free software under the GNU AGPL v3.0 or later, and the exact source of this version is linked from this page.

Credits and licence

Ball2Box was made by Simon Dalvai. The game is under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later; the author's own graphics and models are under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). It runs on Godot Engine 3.5.3 (MIT).

• Music: "The heist", Royalty-Free Music by audiohub.com, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
• Sounds: "Snares and Crash" by LMMS, CC0.
• Icons and patterns: Kenney (kenney.nl), CC0; a star model by Savino, CC0; the Material Design copy and paste icons by Google, Apache License 2.0.
• 3D models: Volleyball (PatelDev) and Football (siixarn), CC BY 4.0, and Octoball (EZduzziteh), CC BY 3.0, as the author's REUSE file declares them.
• Font: Manrope, The Manrope Project Authors, SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Because the game is AGPL, the complete source of this exact version is hosted next to the game (see the links on this page). This version is modified: the buttons and links that opened other sites were removed, the credits screen was made reachable, and the two shop balls that were unlocked by opening those sites are free. The information screen of the game says so. The licence texts, the notices of the libraries inside the Godot engine and the source are linked from this page.