This week, I played Factory Balls, a family puzzle game created by Bart Bonte Games for those ages 4 and up. Available on iOS, Android, and even mobile and web browsers, the game is extremely accessible for anyone who enjoys logic-based challenges that gradually increase in complexity.
In puzzle games, mechanics serve as both the challenge and the solution—the obstacles to overcome and the tools to overcome them. Unlike action games where reflexes and timing influences success, puzzle games rely on the player’s ability to understand and manipulate the game’s mechanics.
When I first launched the game, I was greeted with a minimalist interface—a box, a colorless ball, and a pattern target to match. The mechanics are introduced rather simply: dip the ball in paint and apply tools like a bowl, helmet, or belt to create a visual design. No tutorial is needed; the game lets you experiment with different colors and tools, providing visual feedback after each transformation, allowing you to discover the game’s mechanics on their own.
The fundamental mechanic in Factory Balls—applying colors in a specific sequence through tools—influences the entire puzzle experience by creating a unique form of spatial-sequential reasoning. For example, on level 10, I needed to create a ball with black and blue eyes and a red mask. If I painted the ball blue first, then applied the helmet tool with black paint, I’d get black eyes on top and blue below. But reversing this order would have given me the opposite result.
Image 1: Level 10 highlights the importance of ordering your color transformations with tools.
This sequential logic transforms what could have been a simple color matching exercise into a complex puzzle of process and order. The game doesn’t just ask “what tools do I need?” but “in what order must I apply them?” This mechanic gradually trains players to think in terms of layered transformations and to visualize steps backward from the end result. Also, there are several ways to solve the puzzles, allowing the player to reach the solution on their own terms.
As levels progress, the puzzle difficulty increases without changing the game’s fundamental mechanics. New tools like half-masks are introduced, expanding the possibility space of transformations as you are tasked to create a more complex ball design. The simple addition of these tools exponentially increased the difficulty of the puzzle without the controls becoming more complicated as you were given harder designs to replicate with these new tools. In that sense, Factory Balls’ difficulty comes from the color combination you need to create, rather than the usage of increasingly complex tools.
Image 2 & 3: The complexity of the design on level 8 is very simple compared to the design for level 24, which also requires you to use more tools.
For me, the absence of any timer in Factory Balls significantly shaped my playing experience. Without any time pressure, I found myself able to slowly calculate and think how to solve the puzzle. In that sense, the game encourages players to take a more contemplative, almost meditative approach to puzzle-solving, allowing me to fully explore the various tools and color combinations without much stress.
What struck me most was how the mechanics create those V-8 “Eureka moments” through reverse engineering. Often, I would stare at the target pattern, mentally deconstructing it layer by layer to determine which tool applied last, then second-to-last, and so on. This process of working backward from the solution to the starting point created moments of revelation when I suddenly visualized the correct sequence. I found these epiphanies to be extremely satisfying and rewarding, especially as I received visual feedback from each transformation, showing me that I was on the right track to solving the puzzle.
My main critique is the game’s lack of an undo button. The inability to undo my actions often made me feel frustrated, as the puzzle-solving environment felt very punishing whenever I made a small mistake. Often, I would simply reset by painting over everything with a color whenever I made a mistake and start over. Additionally, the lack of a “hints” mechanism was another source of frustration. When faced with a particularly challenging pattern, especially as the complexity of the designs rose on higher levels, I would sometimes reach an impasse—trying the same incorrect sequences repeatedly, making me feel discouraged.
In conclusion, Factory Balls proves that fun puzzle design doesn’t require complex mechanics. Through its simple sequence-based transformations, the game creates a distinctive thinking pattern that turns basic interactions into moments of discovery. Despite minor interface frustrations, the satisfaction of reverse engineering solutions makes each puzzle fun and deeply rewarding.
Ethics:
Factory Balls assumes players understand basic color theory principles—how colors mix and layer—which potentially excludes those who are colorblind or have color vision deficiencies. However, the game’s strength lies in its visual feedback system that teaches through experimentation rather than explicit instruction. This design choice makes the game more accessible across language barriers and educational backgrounds, though the lack of an “undo” feature disadvantages players with motor control challenges who might make accidental inputs.
