Off the AppStore: Having a ball in Ball Game!

• Bounce a ball against other balls in a rogue ball arena!
• Tilt and twist your device to send your ball spinning and wild
• Eliminate ball opponents to earn power cards and unlock weapons

Welcome to Off The AppStore, a weekly feature with a twist. Namely, that while these - as with all the games we cover here - are games that you can play on your phone, they're ones that operate outside of the realms of the big two ways to play: The Google Play Store and the Apple AppStore.

That means that there might be a bit of work required in downloading alternative AppStores or APKs, or that the games can simply be played in your phone's browser. We'll make sure to detail that for each game, though. Anyway, read on to find a new game or experience to play Off The AppStore.

Even in a world where there exist titles and ways to insert yourself into a digital environment to move around and manipulate things with your own hands, there's still a lot of value in playing the simple things. Sometimes it feels good to play a game of catch, jump a few platforms, or just run around in a field for a bit. If there's anything that digital games of all kinds can learn from books, it's this: A good thing is a good thing, no matter how short or simple it is. However, if you can combine some more complex elements onto something familiar, you're in a good place. Blue Coyote has arrived in that place, using Ball Game as their ticket to ride.

You have entered the brutal world of balls, and it's bounce or be bounced. In the ball dimension, balls compete to be the toughest and bounciest ever. The problem is that all the balls are made of the same material and the arenas are sealed, so they can't really do much by bouncing off each other. So, to compensate, balls have learned to wield weapons of all kinds from medieval fare to modern firearms. The challenge is that their control over their weapons is limited, so they can only attack in whichever way they bounce or spin.

This is something you just have to cope with if you're trying to be the best ball. You'll start by picking a ball and their assigned weapon. From there, you'll enter the arena with another ball, and you two will start bouncing. You must tilt and rock your device to control the ball's bounce and spin so that you can get more attacks off in more directions. Keep hitting your opponent to eliminate them and then earn a card to boost your ball's abilities. Then, you'll get the option to choose what kind of fight you want to take on, with the tougher ones yielding better cards.

Ball Game is a 2D roguelite-ish game where you pick a ball with a weapon and physically bounce it around arenas to fight other balls. You've got a selection of weapons to unlock, arena challenges to defeat, and plenty of power-up cards to find. Who knew that the idea of bouncing a ball could be taken to such extremes? I mean, after all, it's just a ball game.

Ball Game is available to download and play from its itch.io page!