Switchball HD
Atomic Elbow · 2021 · Arcade, Physics, Casual, Puzzle Platformer, 3D Platformer
PC
Very Positive88% · 140
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About Switchball HD
Switchball is an inventive and fun puzzle-driven game based on real world physical interactions. Beautiful and elegant 3D graphics offer panoramic views of 30 incredible levels in 5 amazing worlds.
The game puts the player in the role of a marble, which is guided through a narrow winding course suspended in mid-air in five different worlds:
Skyworld, Iceworld, Caveworld, Cloudworld and Lavaworld.
The marble can be morphed into different balls with unique physical properties, like a Marble Ball, a Power Ball (which can be charged and have an accelerated "dash", a "jump" ability or switchable "magnetism" properties), a Steel Ball (which can push heavy objects around), and so forth. Each course contains obstacles and traps, such as wooden blocks, sheets of cloth, spinning fans, magnets, and cannons. The game uses physics-based puzzles as well, such as moving boxes; also, different balls react to the environment in different ways; Steel Balls, for example, will tear cloth platforms.
Each level is timed, and players are rewarded with Gold, Silver and Bronze medals, depending on how quickly they complete the level.
Switchball has received several awards over the years and is now relaunched on Steam as Switchball HD. Originally called Crazy Ball, the game won "Best PC Game" during the 2005 Swedish Game Awards and was a finalist in the "Technical Excellence Class" during the 2006 Independent Games Festival. Switchball also won Team Xbox XBLA Game of the Year in 2007.
This type of game never goes out of date!
The game puts the player in the role of a marble, which is guided through a narrow winding course suspended in mid-air in five different worlds:
Skyworld, Iceworld, Caveworld, Cloudworld and Lavaworld.
The marble can be morphed into different balls with unique physical properties, like a Marble Ball, a Power Ball (which can be charged and have an accelerated "dash", a "jump" ability or switchable "magnetism" properties), a Steel Ball (which can push heavy objects around), and so forth. Each course contains obstacles and traps, such as wooden blocks, sheets of cloth, spinning fans, magnets, and cannons. The game uses physics-based puzzles as well, such as moving boxes; also, different balls react to the environment in different ways; Steel Balls, for example, will tear cloth platforms.
Each level is timed, and players are rewarded with Gold, Silver and Bronze medals, depending on how quickly they complete the level.
Switchball has received several awards over the years and is now relaunched on Steam as Switchball HD. Originally called Crazy Ball, the game won "Best PC Game" during the 2005 Swedish Game Awards and was a finalist in the "Technical Excellence Class" during the 2006 Independent Games Festival. Switchball also won Team Xbox XBLA Game of the Year in 2007.
This type of game never goes out of date!
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
about 15 years ago i played the original [i]switchball[/i] and i loved everything about it. however [i]switchball hd[/i] isn't just a remake but it's a different game altogether with new maps and new game mechanics. that's good news and bad news at the same time. good because old fans get fresh food. bad because the old idea of a ball switching between stone, wood and paper got watered-down with even more material types and actual power ups. and sadly that really doesn't add as much to the game as you would hope. it's not so much about the puzzles anymore but about getting from start to finish as fast and smooth as possible. you always need to change form for one or two tasks and then switch again for another one or two tasks. and again and again. this way it's more like a chore than a fun game mechanic. also there are very few secret passages hidden along the way. all in all i didn't enjoy this game as much as i did the original [i]switchball[/i]. parts of the game were not properly tested and sometimes you'll need to go back to the last checkpoint or restart the whole level because some other balls or crates or other world items fly off the rails and can't be used to solve p…2 found this helpful
This was a fun puzzle platformer back on xbla. Still fun today but with an HD upgrade.1 found this helpful
One of my favorite ball rolling games, even one of my favorite overall games, of all time. So happy an HD version was made and brought to Steam so it could played easily on modern computers! Graphics/levels look amazing in this HD version! Extremely happy the original music was kept in this version. A DLC should be made that includes more levels since 30 levels is not enough.
Light puzzle/marble hybrid. Love that having a time limit is optional. Good fun, give it go.
Switchball is a spiritual successor to "Ballance", a puzzle game that came out in 2004 for Windows XP. I'd have to say that I liked Ballance more, thought it had more of a cool vibe to it but Switchball is a great little fun game. This game came out in 2005, made by a different developer and it definitely has that sort of Xbox 360 "fun arcadey" aesthetic. I would say the game is easier than Ballance, and probably I would have liked the game to be a bit more challenging, but it's nothing to complain about. The music is great for each "world", just your typical gamey well-done synth melodies. Hmm, apart from that not much else to say, dont think the HD did much, game looked great back then, looks great now. I know this was perfect as an Xbox 360 Arcade Indie title 15+ years ago. The devs that made this game made it in 5 months........... That was normal back then though.
A fun ball game heavily inspired by the ball game Ballance where you roll around as a ball doing puzzley ball stuff. Compared to Ballance, this tries to lean more towards puzzles, though the puzzles are very much on the easy side, especially in the early worlds. The graphics are a big highlight. One big bummer about this release is that they didn't move over the co-op content that was create for the Xbox 360 release.
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