Shooting Ball

Review by eFreeware

Most pool games on phones ask you to turn the handset sideways and treat the screen like a table. Shooting Ball takes the opposite route: it is built to be played upright, one-handed, in the orientation a phone is normally held. That single decision shapes everything else about it, and it is the first thing I would point out to anyone deciding whether to install it.

The developer describes it as a relaxing billiards game with realistic physics and a 3D look, and the numbers behind it are hard to ignore: more than 100 million installs, a 4.7 average across over a million ratings, and a release date back in November 2019. This is an established, widely played title rather than a new experiment.

It is free to download and carries both ads and in-app purchases, which is the usual shape for a game of this size. If you want a pool game you can dip into for a few minutes without rotating your phone or clearing a large block of time, this is the one I would look at first.

What the upright table changes

Playing pool vertically is not just a cosmetic choice. A portrait layout puts the table in front of you in a way that fits a phone grip, so aiming and shooting can be done with a thumb rather than two hands and a flat surface. For anyone who plays in short bursts, standing in a line or waiting for something, that matters more than a wide cinematic view.

The trade-off is the view itself. A vertical table is a narrower window onto the action, and the developer leans on 3D presentation to make that framing work. The physics are pitched as realistic, which for a billiards game is the claim that matters most: balls need to roll, collide and settle in a believable way or the whole thing falls apart.

I would not expect this to feel like a simulation of a real table in a hall. It reads as an accessible take on the sport, with the physics and the 3D look doing the work of making shots feel satisfying rather than accurate to a regulation setup.

Levels, cues and how a session runs

The structure here is level-based rather than match-based. The developer puts the count at more than a thousand, arranged from simple to complex, so the game hands you a specific arrangement of balls and a goal rather than dropping you into a full rack against an opponent. That is a good fit for phone play: a level is a self-contained problem with a clear end.

Progress through those levels is also where the collectible side comes in. Cues are the reward, and the developer describes them as good looking, which suggests variety in appearance as much as anything else. Collecting them gives the level grind a second thread to pull on, so clearing stages is not only about moving a number forward.

This is a single player game, and the level structure supports that reading. If your idea of pool involves competing against another person, the shape of this one is different: you against the table, over and over, with the difficulty climbing as you go.

Ads, purchases and the free price

Shooting Ball costs nothing to download, and it contains advertising and in-app purchases. That combination is worth weighing before you install.

I would treat the free entry as a genuine way to find out whether the vertical format works for you. Play a stretch of levels, see how the aiming feels with a thumb, and decide from there whether the ads and the option to spend are tolerable at the pace you play.

The game has been updated as recently as September 2026, so this is not a title that was published and forgotten. For a free game with this many players, that ongoing attention is a reasonable sign.

A pool game for short, solo sessions

The clearest audience for Shooting Ball is someone who wants billiards as a casual habit rather than a serious pursuit. The portrait layout, the level-by-level structure and the relaxing tone the developer sets all point at short sessions: a few shots while you wait, a stage or two before bed, a game that does not demand your full attention or a second hand.

It also suits players who like a collection running alongside their progress. Working through more than a thousand levels while picking up cues gives the game a longer arc than a simple series of shots would, and the difficulty curve means the early stages should not be a wall.

It is less obviously suited to anyone who wants a pool game built around match play against other people, since the developer frames this as a single player experience. And because it is free with ads and purchases, anyone allergic to either should factor that in before committing.

On balance this is an easy recommendation for the casual, phone-in-hand pool player. The install base and the 4.7 average suggest the format works for a lot of people.