This help file explains how to navigate the menus and screens of the application, and also describes the gameplay in detail with most of the nuances. If you want to figure it out yourself, we recommend that you immediately go and familiarize yourself with the table of control keys.

## About the game

### Brief description

BallBouncer is a simple, yet hard to master arcade game which will put your reflexes and patience to the test.

Armed with a hefty bat, hit the ball at the right moments to turn it’s wild trajectory into a well thought out tactic of object destruction.

But can you really think ahead when cups, dishes, closets and tvs crash around you?

The ball’s unpredictable bounces can create thrilling chain reactions, keeping you challenged and your playstyle evolving.

Ball bouncer offers the possibility of creating your own scoring strategy. With a variety of skills, features and upgrades to unlock and max out in the store, can you beat your previous score? At the end of the gaming session, points are converted to coins. Spend them wisely!

So, are you ready to embark on a path of methodical, but chaotic destruction? Then go ahead!

### System requirements

windows 10 64 bit or later.

ubuntu 22 64 bit or later.

### First steps

When the game runs for the first time you will have to select a language. After making your selection, a welcome screen will appear. As soon as you make your selection our logo will start playing. You can skip it by pressing the enter key. After the logo is skipped or finishes playing you will be taken to the main menu of the game. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with its contents. If you want to learn the game sounds, you need to select “Settings” in the main menu, then on the “General” tab click on the corresponding button. On the “Sound” tab you can adjust the volume of music and sounds, change the sound panning mode And disable some alerts. on the “Behavior” tab. You can delete your progress and reset your settings to default by clicking the corresponding buttons on the General tab. Resetting the keyboard shortcut configuration to the default one is done on the corresponding tab as well.

If you don’t like the sound of the ball, you can change it in the settings, on the “Sound” tab, choosing from five proposed options. This can be done directly during the game by going to the settings from the pause menu. The ball sound will change as soon as you unpause the game.

You can also change the ball sound during gameplay. To do this, enter Ball watch mode by holding the G key, then press L to change the sound.

### Navigation

Moving through menus is done by using the up and down arrows. Enter selects an item, while home and end keys do their respective job by setting you on the first or last menu item.

Screen navigation(settings, shop, profile, etc.),: tab/shift+tab forward/back, activate controls by pressing enter or spacebar. Move through the lists with up and down arrows, change the value of the sliders with arrows. Tab selection is done by pressing left/right arrow keys.

On the shop screen, pressing Enter on the selected item will open the reference information, where the item is described in detail.

In the profile, on the “Statistics” tab, by pressing enter on a list item you can claim a reward, if available. By pressing ctrl+c you can copy the contents of the item into your clipboard.

On the “Skills” tab, pressing on an item will provide detailed information about the skill.

All menus and screens, excluding the main menu and the last game results menu, can be closed with the escape key.

## Game process

### Training mode

The game has a training mode where you can spend unlimited time and where all penalties are disabled. In this mode, a sound will be played when you can hit the ball, which you can listen to in the learn sounds menu. The sound will play when the ball has bounced at least once off the floor to teach you to sense the moment for the perfect strike. In training mode, game statistics are not collected, and points are not scored.

During training, you can press the F2 key, and a screen will open where you can set the level of the hit strength recovery rate upgrade, ranging from the first to the maximum level.

Also, in the future, when you acquire your first skills, you will be able to set their levels on this screen, if they are set in one of the slots, following the same principle as the hit strength recovery rate upgrade.

When you press the F1 key, your skills set in the slots will be instantly recharged and available for use.

If you press the B key and the ball is on the field, you will hear an audio cue indicating how high the ball is, along with a sound played in the ball’s pitch. This feature works in all modes.

These keys can be changed using the controls Configurator.

### How to play

After selecting the “Start Game” option in the main menu, the countdown will begin. Then, you will be able to control the character.

At the beginning of the game, the character is located in the center of the field. You can move them using the left and right arrow keys. The camera is initially set to a center-field view, but you can switch to a first-person view by pressing the “v” key.

By pressing the “C” key in the field center view, you will hear a sound positioned at the character’s location. In the first-person view, the sound will play from the center of the field, unless you are observing the ball. In that case, the sound will be played at the character’s position. This will help you better feel the character when attempting to hit the ball.

By pressing the left or right shift key, you can set the character’s facing direction. When moving, the direction is set automatically.

First, you need to throw the ball to make it appear on the game field. You can do this by pressing the “f” key.

After the ball is on the field, you will hear a tone which will move left and right, indicating movement of the ball in the horizontal plane. The tone’s pitch and volume will also change, indicating vertical ball movement. Decreasing volume and rising pitch mean that the ball is moving upwards, while increasing volume and lowering pitch mean the opposite.

There are two types of throw:

- Normal. Performed by pressing the f key. The ball begins to fly in an arc in the direction the character is facing.
- Vertical. Performed by holding down the alt key and pressing f. The ball starts flying along the vertical axis, but also moves slightly along the horizontal axis in the direction the character is facing.

The goal of the game is to destroy as many objects as possible, gaining points along the way. The ball always tends to fall down, and you need to hit it back with a bat.

The ball can be hit in two ways:

- Spacebar key. In this case, the ball will receive a strong horizontal impulse in the direction the character is facing.
- Hold down the alt key and press spacebar. The ball will receive a strong vertical impulse, maintaining a horizontal flight direction regardless of the character’s facing.

You can only hit the ball while being near it. After each swing of the bat, the character restores the hit strength. Once it is fully restored, you will hear an alert, the sound of which can be heard in the learn sounds menu. You can also toggle the sound of successful bat hits in the options on the behavior tab.

You should always aim to make perfect strikes, as they reward you with bonus points. A perfect strike occurs when the ball bounces off the floor only once. For the second and any additional bounces, you’ll lose points. The more times the ball bounces on the ground, the more points you lose. So, try to hit the ball upwards as quickly as possible.

It’s also not a good idea to stay in one place for too long, as you’ll lose points for being stationary for ten seconds or more.

At the beginning of the game, avoid holding the ball for too long, as each second the ball is held adds an increasing penalty. The same applies to a caught ball.

A penalty is applied for the fifth and subsequent misses.

You earn points for the ball colliding with an object, as well as for destroying an object. If the ball bounces off the ceiling, you will also receive bonus points.

After colliding with an object or destroying it, a streak begins. Each subsequent collision or destruction brings more points. However, if the streak was not continued for more than six seconds, it is reset. The same applies to the ball’s bounces off the ceiling.

After making a perfect strike, a separate streak begins. For each new perfect strike, you earn significantly more points than the previous one. If the ball bounces more than once off the floor, the streak ends, and you’ll have to start over.

After being destroyed, objects will fall to the ground, creating noise and adding chaos to what’s happening.

During the game, you can not only observe the entire field but also switch to the ball watch mode. To activate this mode, hold the G key. The ball watch mode will stay active as long as you hold G, and will deactivate as soon as you release it.

You can pause the game by pressing the escape key. After pressing it, you will enter the pause menu, where you can view the time remaining in the session, the score, and other information. From the pause menu, you can also access the settings or abort the game.

However, you can check the remaining time and current score not only in the pause menu. Press the T key to check the time, and the P key to see your score.

If your score drops to minus one thousand, the game session will end prematurely. No coins will be awarded, but you won’t lose anything else.

The game session lasts five minutes. This time can be extended by upgrading the Time Aura in the profile.

After the game session ends, a sound animation of coin awarding will play, which can be skipped by pressing the Enter key.

Then, the last game results menu will open, where you can find out how many points were ultimately scored and coins received. After closing the menu by pressing enter, you may be shown a notification about an available reward for reaching a statistic milestone. The display of the results menu for the last game and notifications about available rewards can be disabled in the settings, on the “Behavior” tab.

The game also has skills that are fully described in the game. To use a skill during the game, you need to set it in one of ten slots. Assigning is done in your profile, on the “Skills” tab. Slots are accessed using keys from 1 (first slot) to 0 (tenth slot).

In the store you can unlock the abilities to jump and catch the ball. These two abilities are also fully described in the game, including the keys to use. They are also present in the table of controls.

### Other game modes

In addition to the normal and training modes, there are three other modes in the game, but they are not unlocked immediately.

To unlock new modes, earn rewards for reaching statistical milestones.

In the profile, on the statistics tab, you can see how many rewards you need to unlock the next mode.

When you receive the required number of rewards, an informational menu will appear, briefly describing what has become available to you.

To learn detailed information about any mode, select the mode from the list on the new game start screen and press the D key, or click the “Open mode description” button.

All additional keys for a specific mode are listed in the mode description and are also mentioned in the controls tables.

After unlocking all three modes, you will be able to see the requirements for unlocking the quest board. A corresponding tab will appear on the profile screen.

### The object map

The object map works in any mode. You can open it by pressing the M key.

The map displays all the objects that were on the field when it was opened.

Using the arrow keys, you can move the cursor around the map, which will play a short sound of the object in the place where this object is located, and the type of object will also be announced. You can turn off the announcement of the object type using the f1 key. Using the f2 key you can switch between movement modes.

There are two cursor movement modes:

- Free movement. The cursor can be moved on the map in any direction by one cell. When moving in free mode, empty cells will also be visible under the cursor, which are indicated by their own sound.
- Moving through objects. The cursor moves only over objects; moving to the right or left will move through objects in the same row horizontally. Moving up or down will move the cursor to the nearest object vertically and skip empty rows.

In addition to the cursor, the map features an observation point located at the center of the horizontal axis, which can move vertically. All object sounds are played relative to this point.

You can move the observation point using the keys w - up, s - down. In this case, a sound will be played that changes its pitch depending on the position, so that it is easier for you to understand where the point is located along the axis.

You can also find out how many objects are on the field at the moment. To do this, press the o key.

All of the listed keys can be changed using the controls configurator.

### Gameplay recording

You can record your gameplay and then play the resulting recordings in any media player.

Important: recordings are not made during training mode.

To start recording, make sure the “Record game” checkbox on the game mode selection screen is checked. Recording begins after the game start countdown.

In the settings, on the “Recording” tab, you can determine whether to cancel or save the recording when aborting the game from the pause menu.

Your recordings are located in the mp3recordings folder, which is inside the userData folder, and have the .mp3 extension.

#### Old format recordings

Before version 1.3.0, the game used an internal recording format, with files in this format having the extension .sgr, and they could only be played in the built-in game player.

To listen to recordings of the old format, select the corresponding item in the main menu of the game. Then, in the recordings menu, select the one you want and press enter.

After loading the recording, you will enter the player.

Player control keys:

- To start, pause and unpause playback, press spacebar.
- To adjust the volume, use the up arrow keys to make it louder, down arrow keys to make it quieter. The recording volume can be increased to a maximum of two hundred percent.
- to rewind the recording by 5 seconds, use the arrow keys right - forward, left - backward. Rewinding by 30 seconds is done with the ctrl key held down.
- You can find out how much you listened to, as well as the duration of the recording, by pressing the t key.
- You can stop playback and return to the recording menu using the escape key.

The old format recordings are located at the path userData/recordings.

If you want to play a recording in the old format, place it in the “recordings” folder. It will then appear in the recordings menu.

Attention! The ability to play recordings in the old format will be removed in version 1.5.0!

## controls

All keys in this section can be redefined by customizing the controls configuration.

### Basic

Action | Key/keys
--- | ---
Move the character right/left | Right/Left arrows or d/a keys
Play the sound at the character’s position or at the center of the field (depending on the view). | c
Set character facing right/left | right/left shift
Swing the bat (hit the ball with a strong horizontal impulse) | Spacebar, s or e key
Swing the bat (hit the ball with strong vertical impulse) | alt+space, alt+s or r
Throw the ball in an arc | f
Throw the ball vertically | alt+f
Switch ball sound | l (only when Ball watch mode is active)
Switch the camera to ball watch mode | Hold down the g key
Switch the camera to normal mode | Release the g key
Switch camera mode between first person mode and field-centered view mode | v
Jump (if the ability is unlocked) | Up arrow or w key
Catch the ball (if the ability is unlocked) | left or right control
Select a skill slot from 1 to 10 (if the skill is set) | keys 1 to 0/numpad1 to numpad0
Cancel skill slot selection | Grave / numpad enter
Switch to the previous ready to use skill | Minus (-) / Numpad Minus (-)
Switch to the next ready to use skill | Equals (=) / Numpad Multiply (*)
Activate/deactivate the star module set in slot 1 to 4 (if the module is set). | alt + keys 1 to 4/numpad1 to numpad4
Activate the item (if allowed in the current game mode). | x
Check the amount of available star energy (if you have at least one star module and module usage is allowed in the current game mode) | y
Open the object map | m
Find out the time until the end of the gaming session | t
Find out the current number of points scored | p
Find out how high the ball is | b
Pause the game | escape

### Training mode

Action | Key/keys
--- | ---
Instantly recharge all skills | f1
Set skill levels | f2

### The object map

Action | Key/keys
--- | ---
Move cursor | Arrow keys
Move observation point lower | s
Move observation point higher | w
Toggle object type announcement status | f1
Toggle cursor movement mode | f2
Find out the number of objects on the map | o

### Configuring controls

In the settings, on the “controls” tab, you can customize the control keys to your personal preference by pressing the corresponding button.

On the configuration screen, there is a tree where the first level displays individual blocks, which, in turn, contain actions.

Each action has a list of assigned key combinations. You can add or remove combinations from this list using the corresponding buttons.

After pressing the add combination button, a new screen will open, containing four lists, a field to assign the main key, and the “Add” and “Cancel” buttons.

Each list corresponds to its modifier key (alt, windows, control, shift) and contains 4 options for using the modifier key (none, left, right, any).

To set the primary key, follow the instructions in the key-assignment field, which comes immediately after the list for the shift modifier key. If you want to use only modifier keys in your combination, leave the field unassigned.

After you have set all the necessary parameters, click the “Add” button. However, keep in mind that duplicates within a single action block are not allowed.

If required, you can share your controls configuration with other people. The configuration is located in the user data folder (userData) and is named “keyConfig.json”. The other person will have to replace their configuration, located in the same location, with the one you passed on. Despite the fact that the configuration is stored in open form, it is not intended for manual editing.

## Translation of the game into other languages

If you would like to translate ball bouncer into your native language, please visit sooslandia-games translation repository on github

Github was chosen because it allows us to centralize all translations in one place, automatically confirm that the game with a new translation will launch without errors, convert different translation formats using scripts, and maintain the structure of the stored data in order.

If you have any difficulties, contact us for help in the telegram group, discord or email. Look for links to the above in the “Conclusion” section.

## Conclusion

We are glad that you got interested in this project and we hope that you will like it. Destroy and have fun!

Subscribe to our channel on telegram, or join our discord server, to receive the latest news about updates to this game, as well as about other interesting projects.

Join the channel chat, where you can share your opinion about the game, report any bugs, or suggest your idea, just like in discord.

If you don’t use telegram and discord, you can write to our email, but a quick response is not guaranteed.

All the best, Sooslandia-games.