UPDATEDSports
Dead Stroke
Pool under one lamp: 8-ball and 9-ball against five AI players, and a camera that is already waiting at the pocket before the ball gets there.
What it is
sink them under the lamp
A 9-ft table in a dark hall, simulated before it is shown: every shot runs through a 1 ms physics step with real draw, follow, english, squirt, throw and cushion rebound, so the camera already knows which ball drops and cuts to the pocket ahead of it. Play WPA-style 8-ball (called eight) or 9-ball against five AI opponents or a friend on the same screen, race to 1, 3 or 5. Run three balls in a row and the hall goes dark around the table. Eighteen Run-Outs are fixed layouts to clear within a shot limit, each with a house solution you can watch, and Practice is a table to yourself. Once you have finished a match against the AI or a Run-Out attempt, or potted a ball in an 8-ball or 9-ball match, the Nightly opens on the title and above the Run-Outs: one spread of the nine balls a day (Taipei time), the same for every player, ball in hand and lowest ball first, and the first shot that pots nothing ends the run.
How to play
Controls, then the numbers that matter
Power maps to cue speed as 0.15 + 7.85 × p^1.7 m/s, so the bottom half of the rail is touch: 50% is only about 2.6 m/s, and full power (8 m/s on the cue, about 10.6 m/s on the cue ball) is for breaks.
The spin disc is the tip offset, up to half a ball radius. Bottom is draw, top is follow; side english bends the cue ball off the cushions and pushes it about 2.3 degrees off the aim at full side (squirt). The guide line is simulated, so it shows that.
A break is legal if it pots a ball or sends four object balls to a cushion. In 8-ball an illegal one is re-racked for the other player; in 9-ball it is ball in hand.
Three balls in one visit is In stroke, five is Five straight, seven is Dead stroke: the room darkens and the lamp warms at each step. A miss or a foul breaks it with a flicker.
Three fouls in a row lose a 9-ball rack, and the plate warns you at two. 8-ball has no three-foul rule, but the 8 on a foul or in the wrong pocket loses the rack.
Run-Out stars: one for clearing, a second for clearing in par, a third for par plus the bonus line on the card (a bank, a combination, a kick, two in one shot, finishing in the ring, or never touching a rail). Set two opens at 8 stars, set three at 20. Clear one at three stars with the Guide on Pro for the whole attempt and its card is marked Pro.
Each opponent misses its aim by a set spread: 1.6 degrees for Pip, who hits hard and hopes, down to 0.1 degrees for The Owl, who also plans two shots ahead. Mae plays safe only when nothing is on; Vance and above choose safeties when a pot is risky.
Settings: Guide Full shows the cue ball's path to two cushions and the object ball's line, Classic one cushion, Pro 30 cm and the ghost ball only. Director Calm or Off tones down the cuts and the slow motion.
The Nightly keeps the day's best and how many tries it took, counts the nights you have played and your longest run of nights in a row, and a night you miss takes nothing away.
Opponent cards keep your record against each one, and a win offers the next opponent from the results screen.
Trophies
20 trophies
Sign in and the ones you earn light up here and on your account.
Match
- First match won
- Beat Pip
- Beat Mae
- Beat Vance
- Beat Odile
- Beat The Owl
- Beat The Owl in a race to 5
Shots
- Broke and ran a rack
- Nine on the break
- Seven straight: dead stroke
- Rattled in the jaws and dropped
- Banked the 8 to win
Run-Outs
- First run-out cleared
- Matched the house
- Every run-out at three stars
- A run-out at three stars on Pro
- Every run-out at three stars on Pro
Nightly
- Played a Nightly
- Ran out the Nightly
- Seven nights at the Nightly
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From the changelog
What changed
StuStudios 2.2
- Dead Stroke’s Nightly is one spread of nine balls a day for every player, ball in hand, until a shot pots nothing.
Dead Stroke, pool under one lamp
- Dead Stroke: 8-ball and 9-ball on a 3D table against five AI players or a friend on the same screen. Every shot is simulated before it is shown, so the camera is already waiting at the pocket, and eighteen Run-Outs are fixed layouts to clear in par.
Dead Stroke went up on the arcade
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