Roll the Ball Games

In roll the ball games you control a sphere that has to get somewhere without falling, getting stuck or crashing. It's one of the biggest sections on the site, with almost 190 games, and the formula leaves room for plenty of different ideas.

Types you'll find

Ball mazes are the most classic: Marble Maze, Drop Maze, Roto Maze or Color Maze Puzzle ask you to take the ball along a course with walls, turns and holes. They're cousins of those wooden mazes you tilt with your hands, only on a screen.

The course games, like Rolling Ball or Zik Zak, are more about reflexes: the ball moves along a narrow, twisting path, and one extra move sends it over the edge. Speed and rhythm rule here.

And there are ball machines too. Happy Pachinko recreates pachinko, the Japanese game where you launch balls that fall through a forest of pins toward a prize. Pinboliada leans toward pinball.

How they're controlled

Each game asks for something different. Some use the mouse or your finger to drag the ball, others the arrow keys, and in a few you just tap the screen to change direction. Use your first game to feel how much momentum the ball has, because if it keeps rolling after you let go, you have to brake before the curve, not in it.

A trick that works for almost all of them

Look a little farther ahead than the ball, not at the ball itself. And make small moves: in the narrow-course games, most failures come from over-correcting. If you're stuck on a level, try the same route a couple more times before changing it, because the problem is almost always timing, not the path.

To start, Marble Maze is the easiest to grasp, since you see the whole course and only have to guide the ball. If you want reflexes, Rolling Ball and Zik Zak are tougher and more enjoyable after a few tries. In the mazes, before moving anything, trace the path with your eyes from start to finish and spot the holes: it's faster than trial and error.