What is Billiard Parlour ?

The showpiece of the public domain game collection is Billiard Parlour; an impressive simulation that converts the Mac's screen into a pool table (see Figure 4). Created at Reed College by Richard Crandall, Scott Gillespie, and S. Lew using the Rascal development system, Billiard Parlour lets you play pool, billiards, eight ball, nine ball, or snooker. When you line up a shot and release the mouse-controlled cue, the balls roll in surprisingly realistic paths, accompanied by the appropriate clacking sounds as they collide.
     The game's verisimilitude doesn't stop there: You can place balls on the table with a hand pointer, add English to a shot, tally points on a scoring rack, and lag the ball to see who shoots first. And if you hit the cue/ball too hard, it hops, just like an actual cue. If you're having trouble setting up the proper angle for a shot, Billiard Parlour's magnification option allows you to zoom in and make careful adjustments.
     For interested programmers, a Help file explains some of the Rascal routines used to produce Billiard Parlour's realistic animation. Besides instructions on how to play the various games, technical information about the program code is on line. The game takes up 79K, so you won't be adding it to all your disks, but Billiard Parlour is a worthwhile addition to any Mac game library.

− Macworld, 1986 August, p.103, excerpt from Robert C. Eckhardt's "Gems from the Public Domain"

See also: Colour Billiards

Download Billiard Parlour for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 1.0 up to Mac OS 8.1

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Mini vMac