Balance

This German game of dexterity delivers what the title promises. Balance is a lesson in applied gravity: guide a ball to one or more targets by tilting the plane it sits on, much like in those little plastic toys that drive you insane. A simple premise made challenging by tricky, maze-like level layouts that go beyond the "A to B" routine, but require you to touch a certain number of target tiles in no particular order. You must reach all targets in limited time, or else you have to start over. If the ball falls off the edge, one of ten lives is lost. Special fields such as jumpers, accelerators or crumbling tiles test your reflexes; some levels even rotate.

Balance uses vector graphics to draw flat, untextured fields on which the ball rolls. The plane is tilted with the mouse. Every few levels, you get a password to jump directly to that map. Even so, Balance is extremely difficult and only recommended for players with *a lot* of patience.