Pool on Facebook: Simple But Highly Social

Poolby Matthew Smith is a basic recreation of the game of pool, written in Javascript. It features several multiplayer options, in addition to league play.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Pool currently has 110,000 monthly active users and 9,000 daily active users.

Matthew Smith’s pool follows standard English pool rules, where each player is assigned either solid or striped balls to pocket after the break. There are nine balls, one cue ball, and six pockets on the table. The game is played completely with the mouse, with players aiming by moving the pointer left and right in relation to the cue ball, and choosing how powerful they wish their shot to be by moving towards and away from the cue ball once their shot it lined up.

Gameplay is asynchronous, allowing players to take turns at their leisure, although they can be playing at the same time and see each others’ shots in progress. The game features practice play without score, head-to-head play against other users, and league rankings. Players can join a league, if they so choose, and the game will follow their statistics. There’s also a messaging system within the game for league discussions. Players can send invitations to other players directly, or see a list of active players to challenge, which can be refreshed by the player for more options. If players have Facebook friends who are also players of Pool, they can view and compare their scores from within the game, as well as issue invites to play.

Pool is free to play and does not feature any monetization features. Inside Social Games has not been able to reach the title’s author to find out whether or not he plans to monetize the game in the future and, if so, how he intends to do so. The game sustained a steady growth curve for the early part of October before stalling out in the last seven days or so.

You can follow Pool’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.