Gravity Balls

Gravity Balls is a 1994 freeware arcade oddity by Aaron Davidson, published under the Silicon Creek Software banner, in which the player uses the mouse to keep a wandering ball penned inside a yellow rectangle on screen for eight continuous seconds at a time, advancing through faster levels with smaller targets.

The objective

Each level demands that the ball stay inside the target rectangle for eight continuous seconds; succeed and the game advances, with the rectangle shrinking and the action quickening as you progress.

Controls and feel

Steering is entirely mouse-driven, putting reflex and fine motor control at the centre of play in a way that fits the early-90s shareware fashion for short, replayable arcade loops.

System requirements

The build targets 256-color Macs with QuickDraw and runs across 68k and PowerPC machines under System 7.0 through Mac OS 9, making it a natural fit for emulators such as Basilisk II configured to Mac OS 8.