One of my favourite studio names of the last few years comes from the team that made PinOut. PinOut was basically Tron: The Pinball Game. Against a humming, buzzing, looping backdrop of glorious retro-futurist dance music, you raced across the highways and gutters of an endless swooping, arcing table, ricocheting off bumpers, finding secret paths and feeling like you were the single most vital part of a luminous living machine. It was a rush, a trip. And the studio? The studio was called Mediocre.
Subpar Pool reviewPublisher: Grapefrukt GamesDeveloper: Grapefrukt GamesPlatform: Played on Switch and PCAvailability: Out now on PC, Switch, iOS and Android.
Such a brazenly inaccurate name speaks to a great and quirky seam of buried confidence, I think. It’s intoxicating. Who wouldn’t love a studio that made a classic and still named itself Mediocre? And now – nobody, as far as I’m aware, from Mediocre involved – who wouldn’t love a brilliant pool game called Subpar Pool?
Subpar Pool. The thrill of it. Incredible Pool? No thanks. Brilliant Pool? Move along. Subpar Pool? My cheeks grow flushed. My hands sweat a little. The night, as the poet says, opens its eyes. And all this before I’d discovered that Subpar Pool is the work of Martin Jonasson, who bent resource management and puzzling into such ingenious ludic pretzels with games like Rymdkapsel and Twofold Inc. And who, with Holedown, gave us a preview of what we’re getting here: playful physics, confidently weaponised. Nothing Subpar about it.
As the name suggests, Subpar Pool is pool with a bit of golf – and with some lovely squelchy frog-and-toad music by Niklas Ström on top. Sink the balls, but do it before you run out of shots. It’s an interesting mix, but let’s put labels aside here, because it’s pure videogames when you’re actually playing it. It might as well be asteroids and planets you’re flinging around out there – half the time it feels like it is. This is really a game of timing, trajectories, vectors and lucky outcomes. It’s gorgeous stuff. Elastic physics, clicky audio and movement so fast and smooth each match feels like the game is telling you a series of one-liners.
The basics are thrillingly basic. With one stick you place your cueball on a table, and with the other you aim and fire it at a series of other balls you want to sink. Pockets are scattered about, and the game shows you your trajectory, as well as the directions in which both you and the ball you hit will move in afterwards. Newton would be very satisfied. Pocketing a cue removes your flawless rating for each level, but also allows you to reposition for your next shot. Sinking a ball you’re after is all well and good, meanwhile, but you really want to be working with trickshots: rebounds, long shots, posthumous shots (this means you pocket a ball after you’ve pocketed yourself), multiple sinks with one shot, onwards and upwards.