If you like the sound of mixing together cue sports like pool with Balatro's popularized mechanics of challenging rounds - Ultrapool is one for you. Seemingly not part of Steam Next Fest, it does have a sweet demo available that I took for a spin after finding it in the GamingOnLinux inbox recently.
The basic idea of Ultrapool is the same as normal pool - try and pot the balls. Here potting balls gives you points and money to spend at the bar to buy new balls, upgrade and synergize all your balls into a crazy set to give you the most insane amount of points you can. It puts you through round after round of increasingly challenging odds, where just like Balatro (hi again) you need to hit a certain score to continue.
With some really nice presentation, and a demo that worked beautifully on Fedora KDE 44 with Proton 11, I've genuinely had an absolute blast trying out different combinations with it.
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Fun idea - and with multiple modes of play and several difficulty levels, the full game should be a real gem.
The full game is due out sometime in Q3 2026.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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