Cozy Classic
Free Pool Game
Fallowmere Pool
Eight-ball on a nine-foot table where the balls slide, roll and spin the way real ones do, with a ghost-ball aim guide, follow, draw and side from a tap on the cue ball, the 8 called for you as you aim, three levels for Hester, a table for two and a practice rack to clear in as few shots as you can.
Read the full Fallowmere Pool guide
How to play
- Press Play. You break first against Hester, and after that the break alternates. The cue ball starts behind the head string, the faint line across your end of the table, and while it is in hand you can drag it anywhere behind that line.
- Aim by dragging on the table: the cue turns to follow your finger or pointer. The ghost ball shows where the cue ball will touch the first ball, and the short line from that ball shows where it will go. Drag the brass wheel for fine aim.
- Draw the cue back on the strength slider beside the table and let go to shoot: the further you pull, the harder the shot. With a mouse you can also press on the cue ball and drag back away from the aim.
- Tap the cue ball picture to choose where the tip strikes: above the middle for follow (the cue ball rolls on after contact), below for draw (it comes back), to one side for side spin. The middle is a plain shot.
- The break must pot a ball or send at least four balls to a cushion, or the balls are racked again and the other player breaks. After the break the table is open: hit any ball but the 8 first. Your first pot gives you that group, solids (1 to 7) or stripes (9 to 15).
- On every shot, hit one of your own balls first, then pot a ball or send any ball to a cushion. Pot one of yours and you shoot again. A foul (potting the cue ball, hitting nothing, hitting the wrong ball first, or no cushion after contact) gives the other player the cue ball in hand anywhere on the table.
- Clear your group, then pot the 8 in the called pocket to win the frame. Pot the 8 before your group is cleared, in a pocket you did not call, or on a foul, and you lose it. An 8 potted on the break comes back to the foot spot.
Controls
- Touch or mouse: drag on the table to aim. Drag down on the strength slider and let go to shoot; a tap on the slider does nothing, so the cue never goes off by accident. Tap or drag on the cue ball picture to set follow, draw or side, and drag the brass wheel sideways for fine aim. With ball in hand, drag the cue ball where you want it. When you are on the 8, tap a pocket to call it.
- Keyboard: the left and right arrow keys aim (hold Shift for steps of a tenth of a degree), up and down set the strength, and Space or Enter shoots. W and S add follow or draw, A and D side, and X puts the tip back in the middle. C calls the next pocket for the 8. B picks up the cue ball when it is in hand, so the arrow keys move it. H suggests a shot and M or Escape opens the menu.
- Menu starts a new frame and opens Settings (who you play, Hester's level, the length of the aim guide and how fast the balls move on screen), your statistics and the rules. The toolbar has pause, restart, help, optional sound and fullscreen.
What you do
Fallowmere Pool is eight-ball, the solids-and-stripes pool game, on a full-size table in the snug of an old inn at the edge of a mere. Lamplight falls warm on the cloth, cues stand in a rack, a pot of tea goes cold on the shelf and the window looks onto the water at dusk, where a heron stands about. Your opponent is Hester the lynx, who wears an ink-blue cardigan and her glasses on a cord, chalks her cue before the break and plays a tidy, unhurried game. Break the rack from behind the head string, take solids or stripes with your first pot, clear your group and then sink the 8 in the pocket you call. The balls behave like pool balls: they slide and then roll, follow and draw decide where the cue ball goes after contact, side spin changes how it comes off a cushion, and a ball that catches the point of a pocket stays out. Play Hester at Gentle, Steady or Sharp, play a friend on the same device, or rack up alone and see how few shots it takes to clear the table.
- Table physics worked out step by step: the cue ball slides and then rolls, follow carries it on after contact, draw brings it back, a stun stops it dead, and side spin changes the angle it takes off a cushion. Balls collide cleanly, cushions take some pace off, and the pockets have angled jaws.
- A ghost-ball aim guide: a faint cue ball shows where the cue ball will meet the first ball it reaches, with the line that ball will take and the way the cue ball glances off. Switch it to short in Settings for less help.
- Three levels for Hester. Gentle pots the easy ones and misses a fair few. Steady takes the two likeliest pots and tries each plain, with follow and with draw through the physics before she plays, and plays safe when none of them goes. Sharp tries every promising pot nine ways, judges what each leaves her, plays safe when nothing is on and kicks off a cushion when she is hooked.
- The 8 is called for you: once your group is cleared, the pocket the 8 is heading for as you aim is called and ringed in brass. Tap another pocket, or press C, to call it yourself.
- A table for two on one device, and a practice mode: clear all fifteen balls in as few shots as you can, with a penalty shot for each scratch or miss and your best kept.
- Eight-ball rules after the World Pool-Billiard Association, simplified for a computer table and written out on the rules card: a legal break, the open table, groups, fouls with ball in hand anywhere, and the called 8.
Tips worth knowing
- Aim at the ghost ball, not the object ball. Picture a second ball touching the object ball on the side away from the pocket, and send the cue ball to where that ball would be.
- Thin cuts need less strength than they look, and most of the pace stays with the cue ball, which can then wander into a pocket.
- Think one ball ahead. A little follow or draw puts the cue ball where the next pot is nearly straight, and a straight pot is a likely one.
- On a straight pot, strike a little below the middle and the cue ball stops where it meets the object ball. It is the simplest way to stay out of the pockets.
- When nothing is on, play safe: hit one of your balls softly and leave the cue ball behind other balls or against a far cushion. It is a fair shot as long as a ball reaches a cushion after contact.
- Break up clusters early, while you still have other balls to play, and leave the 8 alone until the end.
Accessibility
- Everything can be played with a keyboard: the arrow keys aim and set the strength, Space shoots, single letter keys set the spin, call the 8, move the cue ball in hand and ask for a suggestion, and the menus are ordinary buttons.
- Nothing is timed. The balls wait for you, the frame pauses while a menu is open, and Brisk in Settings plays the balls out faster on screen without changing what they do.
- Solids and stripes differ in pattern as well as color, every ball carries its number, and a wrong first ball is marked with a cross on the ghost ball as well as by color.
- The message line by the table says what happened on every shot and whose turn it is, and is read out by screen readers.
- Reduced motion keeps Hester still and shortens her aiming. Sound is optional and never needed to play.
Questions
How strong is each level?
In our own simulation of 1,000 frames for each pairing, with the break alternating, played through the game's own physics and rules, Steady beat Gentle in 892 frames (89.2%), Sharp beat Gentle in 964 (96.4%) and Sharp beat Steady in 906 (90.6%), while the first of two Gentle players won 475 (47.5%). A frame took 43.9 shots on average between two Gentle players, 30.0 between Steady and Gentle and 18.0 between Sharp and Gentle. Clearing a practice rack alone, penalty shots included, took Gentle 72.4 shots on average, Steady 29.0 and Sharp 19.8. These are computer players against each other, not people.
Can a beginner beat Hester?
Yes, most often at Gentle. In our own simulation of 1,000 frames for each pairing, with the break alternating, a scripted beginner that knows the rules and the ghost ball and nothing more (it takes the straightest pot it can see, aims with a 2 degree error, always strikes the middle of the cue ball and never plays safe) won 180 frames against Gentle (18.0%), 69 against Steady (6.9%) and 31 against Sharp (3.1%), and took 95.3 shots on average to clear a practice rack alone. Start at Gentle, use Suggest to see what a good shot looks like, and move up a level when you win about half your frames.
Which eight-ball rules does this use?
Eight-ball as the World Pool-Billiard Association writes it, simplified for a computer table. The break is played from behind the head string and must pot a ball or drive at least four object balls to a cushion; otherwise the balls are racked again and the other player breaks. An 8 potted on the break comes back to the foot spot. The table is open after the break, and the first ball potted without a foul decides the groups. Every foul gives the other player ball in hand anywhere, including a scratch on the break. You call only the 8, and the game calls it for you from your aim unless you pick a pocket yourself. You lose the frame by potting the 8 early, in an uncalled pocket or on a foul.
How is the 8 called?
When your group is cleared, the pocket the 8 is heading for as you aim is called for you and shown with a brass ring, and the message says which pocket it is. If you would rather call a different one (for a bank or a combination), tap that pocket, or press C to step through them. Tap the called pocket again to go back to calling by aim. Hester calls her pocket out loud before she plays.
How do follow, draw and side spin work?
The cue ball picture beside the table shows where the tip will strike. Above the middle gives follow: the cue ball keeps rolling forward after it meets the object ball. Below the middle gives draw: it spins backward, and after contact it comes back toward you, more on a firmer shot from closer in. A strike to one side gives side spin, which does little on the cloth but changes the angle the cue ball takes off a cushion. The table works these out as it goes, so the same shot always does the same thing.
Does Hester see anything I cannot?
No. Pool has no hidden cards: Hester sees the balls where you see them. At Steady and Sharp she tries shots on the same physics the table uses before she plays, much as a player pictures a shot, and then plays it with her level's own wobble in aim and strength. She tries the shot she means to play, and the wobble comes after, so she misses the way anyone does.
What does the game save?
It saves after every shot: your settings, the frame in progress with every ball where it rests (so you can close the page and carry on later), your statistics for Gentle, Steady and Sharp, the number of two-player frames and your practice results. Everything stays in this browser's local storage, with no account.
Guides and roundups
Game details
- Genre
- Cozy Classic
- Difficulty
- Medium
- Session
- About five minutes a frame, saved as you go
- Inputs
- Keyboard, Mouse, Touch
- Devices
- Desktop, Tablet, Mobile
- Made by
- CozyWorld
- Updated
- 2026-10-31
A quiet game of pool against a computer opponent or a friend, played for the frame only, with no betting, purchases, accounts, timers or streak pressure.
