Rack
8-Ball Pool — drag from cue ball to aim & shoot
You Win!
Score: 0
PAUSED
Select difficulty to startDAILYScore: 0Best: 0
Rack is a top-down 2D billiards game built on the classic rules of 8-ball pool. Sixteen balls are racked in a triangle at one end of the table — seven solids (1–7), seven stripes (9–15), the 8-ball in the centre, and the cue ball in your hand at the break. Your goal: pot all seven balls in your assigned group (solids or stripes), then legally pocket the 8-ball to win. The AI opponent plays every alternate turn, and on higher difficulties it will run the table if you leave it an easy shot.
To aim and shoot, click or tap anywhere on the canvas and drag away from where you want to send the cue ball. The further you drag, the more power transfers to the shot. A dotted aim line projects outward from the cue ball so you can visualise your line before releasing. Releasing the mouse or lifting your finger fires the shot. The physics engine handles the rest — elastic ball-to-ball collisions, felt friction slowing every ball naturally, and cushion bounce off the mahogany rails.
A foul is called when you pocket the cue ball (a scratch), fail to make contact with any ball, or strike a ball from the wrong group before groups have been assigned on the break. After a foul your opponent receives ball-in-hand — they can drag the cue ball to any position on the table before their shot. On your own foul, you will see a red flash across the felt signalling the infraction, and the cue ball respawns for placement.
Three difficulty modes shape how challenging the AI opponent is. Easy mode gives the AI up to 30 degrees of random aiming error and unpredictable power, making it beatable even for newcomers to pool. Medium mode targets a legal ball each turn with only a small aiming wobble, representing a casual pub-league opponent. Hard mode calculates the optimal angle and fires with near-maximum power — it will run long strings of pots and rarely foul, so winning requires you to play clean, efficient pool.
Most browser and mobile 8-ball games funnel you through account creation, energy meters, or coin shops before you ever break a rack — and many lean on heavy aim-assist that draws the full path of every ball, turning pool into a geometry-tracing exercise. Rack takes the opposite approach: it loads straight into the difficulty select, and the dotted aim line shows only your cue ball's initial line, so reading angles off the cushion is still a skill you develop rather than a solution the game hands you. The physics carries the rest — elastic ball-to-ball collisions, felt friction that slows every ball naturally, and cushion bounce off the mahogany rails — so position play behaves the way you'd expect from a real table.
The other distinctive piece is the Daily Challenge. Alongside the three standard AI tiers, a seeded daily mode gives every player the same starting conditions each day, so your score is directly comparable with everyone else who played that date. Combined with a scoring system that pays a base 10 points, 10 more per ball in your group, and a 5-point speed bonus for closing the game in under 8 turns, the incentive isn't just to win — it's to win cleanly and fast. That gives Rack the shape of a score-attack arcade game layered on top of faithful 8-ball rules, including proper fouls, scratches, and ball-in-hand.
Pocket billiards descends from centuries-old European table games, but the eight-ball variant is a comparatively modern American invention that took hold in the early 20th century and spread through bars, pool halls, and family basements to become the world's most widely played casual pool game. Its enduring appeal is the clean structure Rack reproduces: fifteen object balls split into solids and stripes, groups claimed on the first legal pot, and the neutral 8-ball saved for last — pocket it early and you lose instantly. That simple rule set produces genuine strategy at every level, from safety play after a foul to planning the position of your final shot on the 8, and it translates naturally to a top-down browser table where the rules are enforced for you and the rack is always ready.
