[moki]

Rochester, NY -- March 16, 2005 -- Ambrosia Software, Inc. today announce the release of GooBall, a 3D action game like no other! Roll, jump, and slime your GooBall through dozens of fanciful worlds of wonder as you control the cutest little alien around, the Goober. Being trapped in a gooey ball of protoplasm has never been this fun! Download it now here:

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/gooball/



GooBall has a breathtaking 3D graphics engine called Unity, which creates the 6 distinct fanciful worlds -- with a gaggle of levels in each world -- for you to careen through and conquer. GooBall is simple to pick up and play, but only the truly skilled will master the game... and the immersive graphics, music, and sound will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time.

[Weezer]

sorry, but meh. I was hoping for a super monkey ball kinda thing. The game just isnt that fun...although the sticky ball control was kinda neat.

[RonnieoftheRose]

It's not that good. Nothing compared to the highly addictive Kill Monty.

[phillryu]

I played for about 10 minutes, so take this with a grain of salt. The graphics are definitely very cool. However, I'm having trouble grasping the controls. Does pressing command toggle the goo, or do I have to hold it? Is there a limited amount of gooing? If I am gooey and I jump onto something, then try to jump from there to somewhere else, I generally fail. Is that because I'm not yet used to the controls yet?

I guess I was a bit spoiled with Monkeyball, which has much more precise controls. (Probably because it has the analog stick.)

[moki]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
It's not that good. Nothing compared to the highly addictive Kill Monty.

Hey, different strokes for different folks -- they are certainly two very different games, I'll grant you that!

[moki]

Originally posted by phillryu:
I played for about 10 minutes, so take this with a grain of salt. The graphics are definitely very cool. However, I'm having trouble grasping the controls. Does pressing command toggle the goo, or do I have to hold it? Is there a limited amount of gooing? If I am gooey and I jump onto something, then try to jump from there to somewhere else, I generally fail. Is that because I'm not yet used to the controls yet?

It does take a little time to get familiar with the controls, but it shouldn't be too bad.

Regarding your sticky jump question, the Read Me covers this a bit. When you're stuck to something, and you jump, you jump in the opposite direction. If you just sit there for a moment, the camera will swing around to show you where you're jumping to (takes 2-3 seconds or so).

Good luck, feel free to post any other questions!

[Elvin]

Sorry to say, but this game wasn't for me either.... beautiful game visually, but after you fall off the beautiful world for the 20th time it looses it's appeal. I found it a little too hard to control the ball (the sound effects sound great too) and especially since your line of sight is fixed. Sure jumping shoots you in the opposite direction, but most of the time you can't see where you're even going. It also forces you to look in certain directions rather than letting you pan around quicker to get a better feel as to where you are going.

Oh well, I'll just stick to Apeiron X! I can play that for hours.
(Here's hoping for Barrack X soon).

[littlegreenspud]

Well my kids love it!

[V]

Isn't that Spam?

[Macrat]

Seems like a fun game, reminds me of Marble Blast. I could only play it for 5 minutes though, it is almost impossible to control without mouselook.

[phillryu]

Yes, why isn't there mouse controls? I think that would make it a lot easier and responsive.

[nforcer]

I also agree with the mouse control comment. The auto-tilt is nauseating for me and the camera does not always have the best angle. I would prefer more marble-blastish controls, where I could set a constant point of view with the mouse and keep it or adjust it as needed.

[Horsepoo!!!]

It wouldn't work with mouse-control.

The game is based on a physics engine a little more realistic than what you're all used to. You guys are used to games that allow 180 degrees turns in .1 second with a mouse (in FPS games for example) and controlling/adjusting jump paths while in mid-air. All of this is just not realistic physics.

You may argue that the non-realistic physics is more fun but you can't tell the GooBall author to add mouse-control because it just won't work.

The game revolves around the idea of gaining momentum and the difficulty of the game revolves around the difficulties of breaking that momentum.

Losing that aspect of the game would make the game stupidly easy to finish unless all level timers decreased to compensate for the ease of moving the balll around.

You all must hate Chrono Logic's Gish also if you hate GooBall.

Mouse-control should only be put in to adjust the camera view, IMO. But it just can't be done for controlling the ball without breaking the essence of the game. If you don't like the essence of the game, move on to something else...it's just not for you.

This game is like Monkey Ball but without the tilting of the entire world. The principle is learning to control the momentum of the ball.

[moki]

Originally posted by phillryu:
Yes, why isn't there mouse controls? I think that would make it a lot easier and responsive.

Mouse control would be very, very ugly. :/

[the_glassman]

I like it. It does take some getting used to control wise, but the graphics and sound effects are great!

[PurpleGiant]

I enjoyed it for the 10 minutes I played for. Didn't find the controls at all hard or confusing, and I'm not much of a gamer.

Good job

[Tetsuo]

downloading it now, thanks

[Dimethyltrypt]

MarbleBlast was a success, why not copy it?

That is, after threatening to sue me for "copying" that shitty-arse application (more like a bloody rip off than anything else, really) "iSeek" that never got updated past like 1.0.2 and costed like 15 bucks.

Damn you suck, Ambrosia. But the fun part is, you used to be a cool company that developed cool games.

[phillryu]

Originally posted by moki:
Mouse control would be very, very ugly. :/

Are you sure that it wouldn't work with moving the mouse forward to accelerate, backwards to deaccelerate, directions with left/right movements, and click to jump? Right click to goo? I have a real feeling it could work... but whatever, I'm sure you guys thought this through more than me before release.

[phillryu]

Just checking up on this. I've really really wanted to like this game, but I still can't figure out the controls! For an example, in the first level, the little area where you have to jump onto the spheres hanging in midair to get to a crystal... still can't do it. The camera and direction of the gooball abruptly switches while climbing objects, and I can't properly aim the ball to jump in the direction I want to.

Is this game really something you get used to? Anyone here play through and actually get expert enough to control the ball with precision?

[suvsr4terrorists]

I just downloaded it to see if I could figure out your question... in that first level, in order to get to that crystal you need to figure out a few things they don't tell you.

You can jump, but you can't reach it. You don't jump very high. So what you do is enable the goo-mode, and get right up on top of the sphere. Then hit jump WHILE you're in goo mode. You jump about 2X as high. Cool game. Looks great on my cinema display. I might even buy it!

[suvsr4terrorists]

BTW: The controls are fine, but I wish they had enabled "MOUSE LOOK". The automatic camera is kinda of a pain in the ass.... is there a way to enable mouse look, but keep it so the keys control it?