Virtual Pool Demo

Virtual Pool Demo is the playable demonstration version of Celeris's Virtual Pool, published on the Mac by Interplay's MacPlay label in 1996. The full game was widely cited as the most physically convincing pool simulation of its era; the demo offers a single trimmed-down mode so prospective buyers could feel the engine before committing.

The Engine

The simulation runs in real-time 3D, letting the player orbit the table freely with the mouse to line up shots from any angle. The cue ball model supports adding English (side spin) and a Track The Balls cheat overlay for studying ball paths, which were unusual touches in 1996 sports software.

What the Demo Includes

The demo limits play to a single game of 4-Ball, omitting the full title's 8-ball, 9-ball, networked multiplayer and the filmed Machine Gun Lou Butera trick-shot tutorial that shipped with the retail box. It is enough to evaluate the physics and camera, not enough to replace the full release.

Requirements

The demo requires a Power Macintosh with at least 4096 KB of free memory and a 13-inch or larger monitor. It will not run on 68k Macs and predates the PowerPC G3 era it would later coexist with.

Distribution

Submitted to Info-Mac by johvan@ip-isp.interplay.com on behalf of MacPlay and preserved in the funet mirror as virtual-pool-demo.hqx in the game/com folder. The retail Virtual Pool went on to spawn a long sequel line on Windows.