Snooker Solitaire

As a kid I used to watch ‘Pot Black’ – televised snooker. We only had a black and white set so I only saw the coloured balls as various shades of grey. But that didn’t matter - I was hooked.

For Christmas, I received a half size snooker/pool table and spent many enjoyable hours perfecting my cue action on a table that was never ever quite level. This stood me in good stead for later life, playing more socially in various pubs and clubs.

Snooker Solitaire recreates something of the feel and strategy of the sport, using just cards and dice. The cards create the table after the initial break, with a different distribution of balls each game.

The difficulty of each shot is calculated depending on the number of cards between the cue ball and the target pocket, whether there are any other balls in the way and the angle at which you hit the object ball.

There is an element of push-your-luck in deciding the best shot to go for - a safer, easy pot or maybe a riskier, more difficult one - and you need to think ahead about where the balls will end up for your next shot.

You have a cue (upgradable) with a power tracker as well as chalk (needed for trickier shots). You can opt to apply extra power to reduce the shot difficulty, but both cue power and chalk are limited resources that you'll need to manage.

Dice are rolled to see if a shot is succcessful. Miss a shot and there's a chance your opponent will clear the table and win.

You'll meet various AI opponents of different abilities on your quest to be crowned World Snooker Champion.