Ballance

Ballance is a singleplayer third-person rolling ball game.

General information

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GOG.com		Pre-packaged with dgVoodoo 2.
Steam		Pre-packaged with dgVoodoo 2.

Free demo with the first level is available.

Monetization

Type	Notes
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
No microtransactions	No microtransactions are available in this game.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Level 13 - 速度 (SuDu)	Free download from official website (archived).

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Ballance\Settings^{[Note 1]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2000770/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Database.tdb^{[Note 3]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2000770/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game video settings.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		Only 4:3 resolutions are available, up to 1600x1200. See the community mod.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen		See the community mod.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Always exclusive.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Set in dgVoodoo.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Set in dgVoodoo.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Called Synch to Screen.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Windowed

Set windowed mode.
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Change the value of `FullScreen` from `1` to `0`.

Input

In-game keyboard settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		Mouse is not used in gameplay.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

In-game audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles		No speech.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese				Retail and GOG only.
Traditional Chinese				Retail and GOG only.
French
German
Italian
Russian				Local retail only. Use this guide for digital releases.
Spanish

Issues fixed

Game freezes on Windows 10

Enable Windows 98/Me compatibility mode on `<path-to-game>\Bin\Player.exe`^[1]

Fixing issues with operating systems newer than Windows XP

Use dgVoodoo^[2]

Download dgVoodoo 2.
Copy dgVoodooCpl.exe, dgVoodooCpl.conf and MS\x86\D3D8.dll from archive to <path-to-game>\Bin.
Run dgVoodooCpl.exe from <path-to-game>\Bin\ folder.
On General tab select preferred scaling mode.
On DirectX tab select preferred antialiasing, anisotropic filtering, watermark, resolution etc.
Apply and exit dgVoodoo setup.
Run the game.

Enforcing widescreen resolution in dgVoodoo DirectX settings would make image stretched.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	8.1

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98	ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II 350 MHz	Intel Pentium III 450 MHz
System memory (RAM)	64 MB 128 MB (2000, XP)	128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	150 MB
Video card (GPU)	8 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.1 compatible	16 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0 compatible

Windows NT is not supported by the game.

Notes

↑ Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for more details.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/2000770/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2000770) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
↑ When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References

↑ Verified by User:Silent on 2023-07-01
Fixes the game freezing upon picking an extra life.
↑ Verified by User:Mastan on 2019-05-04

[HKLM-1] Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for more details.

[Proton_path_note-2] 2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/2000770/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2000770) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[gamedir-3] When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

[4] Verified by User:Silent on 2023-07-01
Fixes the game freezing upon picking an extra life.

[5] Verified by User:Mastan on 2019-05-04

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[Note 3]

[1]

[2]

Developers

	Cyparade
Publishers
Retail	Atari
Retail (Russia)	1C Company
Digital	Ziggurat Interactive
Engines
	Virtools
Release dates
Windows	April 2, 2004
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Rolling ball