v0.49.0 22 October 2026

The Ivory Pocket, a pool and snooker hall

• The Sanctuary & its games

The hall

• Where: built onto the outside of the Sanctuary's east wall, through a carved stone arch between the Satchel-Wright and the corner, with its name over the door.
• Cheap when you're not in it: the interior isn't drawn unless you're inside or looking at the arch. The static dressing is merged into one mesh per material, all balls on a table are one draw call, and only the lamps over the tables cast shadows (on qualities that allow light shadows).
• Real sizes: a 9 ft pool table (2.54 x 1.27 m playing area, 57 mm balls) and a 12 ft snooker table (3.57 x 1.78 m, 52.5 mm balls, the tighter pockets).
• The cloth and cushions: felt with a nap, cushions with the proper nose profile running into angled pocket jaws, a mahogany frame with sights on the pool rails, chrome or brass pocket plates, leather baskets (pool) or string nets (snooker) that hold the potted balls, turned legs.
• Markings: the baulk line, the D and the spots on the snooker; the spots on the pool.
• The balls: polished resin with a clear coat. Pool balls are numbered, with stripes; the cue ball has small red spots so you can see it spin. The snooker set is in its colours. Each has a soft contact shadow under it.
• A proper billiards simulation: each ball slides, grips and rolls. Stun, screw-back and follow-through come out of the cloth friction on their own; side spin bends the rebound off a cushion and squirts the cue ball a fraction off line.
• Collisions: balls are nearly elastic. Touching balls (a rack, a cluster) share a blow the way a real pack does, so the break spreads instead of firing one ball down the table. Cushions give back about three quarters of the speed. Pocket jaws have rounded knuckles, so a ball can rattle in the jaws and stay out.
• Exact: collisions are found continuously, so nothing tunnels even off a full-power break. A break runs in about 40-50 ms of CPU.
• Deterministic: the same shot plays out identically on every machine. In co-op only the shot is sent, not the balls, and every player watches it play out live (checked by the net test).
• 8-ball (pool tables):
  • break from the kitchen; the table stays open until someone legally pots;
  • clear your group, then pot the 8;
  • fouls (no ball hit, wrong ball first, nothing to a cushion, a scratch) give ball in hand;
  • the 8 early, or a scratch on the 8, loses.
• Snooker:
  • 6, 10 or 15 reds;
  • a red, then a colour (respotted while reds remain), then the colours in order;
  • fouls give your opponent at least 4, and an in-off gives ball in hand in the D;
  • respotting follows the rules (own spot, else the highest free spot, else behind it);
  • level after the black brings a re-spotted black.
• Respotted balls are lifted out of the pocket and set back on their spot.
• Play another player, or one of three skeleton hustlers, each dressed for the game in waistcoat and bow tie:
  • Rattlebones, a nervous novice (stakes to 50);
  • Old Knuckles, who plays the percentages (to 250);
  • The Marker, who hasn't been beaten since the plague (to 1000).
• How they choose a shot: they weigh every ball into every pocket, check both paths are clear, and judge pace from the distances and the cloth. The better ones play their best few ideas ahead on a copy of the table with screw, stun or follow, and keep the one that leaves the next pot. With no pot on, they play safe.
• How they miss: as their skill allows. The Marker pots an easy ball every time; Rattlebones about one in five.
• Snooker: a skeleton concedes once he needs more points than are left on the table.
• The skeletons on the table: they walk round the table to their shot, chalk up, get down over the cue, feather it and strike, then stand to watch. A pot gets a fist pump, a miss a hand to the skull.
• Stakes: each player puts up the same stake from banked gold, and the winner takes both. Leaving mid-frame (or dropping out of the party) forfeits it. Taking your stake back before anyone accepts refunds it. Friendly frames are free.
• Joining: walk up to a table and press E. Pick the game, the opponent and the stake. "Open the table" waits for another player to walk up and match your stake.
• Your shot:
  • a cue-cam behind the cue ball; move the mouse to aim (Shift for fine), up and down to raise the view;
  • hold the left mouse button or Space to draw the cue back (the power), release to strike, right-click to cancel;
  • W, A, S and D set where the tip meets the cue ball (top spin, screw and side), shown on the cue-ball dial;
  • the mouse wheel zooms, Tab switches to an overhead view (aim at the mouse there), Esc opens the table menu (concede, leave).
• Aiming guide: shows where the cue ball meets the first ball, the line that ball takes, and where the cue ball goes off it.
• Ball in hand: the overhead view; the cue ball follows the mouse within the kitchen, the D or anywhere, as the rules allow; click to put it down.
• Animation: you're shown down over the cue, your arm drawing back with the power and striking through. Your own body steps out of the cue-cam's way.
• Watching: a broadcast view while the balls run, or while your opponent plays. Others in the party see your cue move as you aim.
• Scoreboard: whose shot, groups and balls left, or snooker scores with the current break; the last ruling ("Foul: the 10 was struck first. Ball in hand.").
• New sounds: the click of the balls, cushion thumps, pocket drops, the cue tip, the rack and the chalk.
• New textures: the ball atlas, the felt, the damask and the rug.
• New test: (52 checks) covers the physics (sliding then rolling, stun, screw, follow, english, the break, determinism), the 8-ball and snooker rules, the skeletons' skill and whole frames between them, and the hall end to end (taking a table, a stake, a frame won and paid, a skeleton's turn, leaving).
• The net test now plays pool between host and client: the client opens a table, the host takes it on, the break replays exactly the same on both machines, the client concedes and the host is paid.

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