How to aim, control spin and power, read path previews, set up positions, use the shot recommender, and play frames.
From the menu to your first pot in a few minutes. Tap or click a number on any picture to see what that control does.
The controls hug the edges of the screen so the table stays clear.
Swing the cue round with a drag, then settle on the exact line with the fine controls. The dotted line shows where the cue ball goes and which way the first ball it hits will travel.
Leave the tip in the centre for your first shots, then try a little screw (below centre) to see the cue ball come back.
The camera follows the shot. When the balls stop, Replay runs it again, Undo puts the balls back so you can try another line, and Recommend shows what the engine would have played.
Back on the menu, start a frame against the computer or with a friend. The referee keeps score and calls fouls.
Every setting is in one of the side panels, and each choice is remembered on the device you made it on. How much the table shows you is set by Paths on the practice table and by Hints in a frame.
As a guest, everything on the table works, but the Account panel holds little more than your player profile, and what you do stays on this device. Sign in (it's free, with no password) and the panel opens up:
Signed in, your challenge stars and times, medals and recent games follow you to every device.
Trick Machine is a real snooker table in your browser — somewhere to play with the game as much as play it. Try shots, study angles, recreate positions you've seen, or rack up a frame against a friend or the computer.
Under the hood it's a proper physics simulator. Every shot is modelled — cushion bounces, spin transfer, throw, squirt, swerve, jumps and massés — with no scripted outcomes. If you put bottom-left on a thin cut at three-quarter pace, the cue ball does what the laws of physics say it should. The path previews on screen are the engine running ahead of time, so what's drawn is exactly what will happen.
That opens up things a normal snooker game doesn't:
And when you do want to compete, the simulator wears a referee's hat. Play a frame Solo, Pass & Play with a friend, against the Computer (which uses the same recommender at varying strengths). The Challenge panel turns it into structured practice with star ratings — and you can build your own challenges and publish them for everyone to play.
The referee works to the WPBSA Official Rules of Snooker — the same rulebook used on the professional circuit — so what counts as a foul, a miss, a free ball or a touching ball here is what would be called in a refereed frame.
Quick start shows every aiming control. This is how they behave.
In the Aim camera, the further you drag, the bigger the turn, so dragging is for the coarse part of an aim. On touch the sensitivity follows your finger: a quick sweep turns the cue a long way and a slow drag settles it gently.
With Aim assist on (Scene panel, Camera), a sideways or slightly diagonal drag only turns the shot, so the view can't tilt by accident. Drag clearly up or down to change the view: down lifts the camera a little and pulls back for a look at the whole table, up drops back in behind the cue. Turn it off for free orbiting.
You can aim from Overhead or TV view too: drag on the empty cloth and the shot turns while the camera stays parked. The other fixed views, a cushion or reverse aim, only move the camera.
Holding a cue-tip arrow ramps from a crawl to a fast sweep, so let go as soon as the line looks right; swipe on one instead and the cue follows your finger. The aim wheel turns the cue at a fixed gentle rate (about 1° for every 40px you drag) however far the camera is zoomed, in every camera view. In Object Ball, the wheel, the arrows and the arrow keys all go finer still, sized to the shot, so a nudge moves the object ball's line by about the same hair on a long thin cut as on a short one.
Use Look to check a pocket angle, scout the run of a colour, or see if a snooker is real, without losing your line. Switch back to Aim to carry on aiming.
Judging "half-ball or three-quarters?" is much easier here than from behind the cue. A, L or Esc takes you back.
The Shot panel's Aim slider covers the full ±180°, and Fine tune (±2°) the hundredths of a degree. After each shot the fine offset is folded into the coarse aim, so you always have the full ±2° for the next one.
The mark on the cue ball shows where the tip will land. The Vertical / Side spin sliders in the Shot panel, and Shift + arrow keys, set it too.
You can't strike off the edge of the ball: the tip is held inside a realistic miscue limit, so the tip you see is where the ball will actually be hit.
Power runs from a barely-rolling touch to a full break-off, on a curved scale: the lower half is for safeties and positional shots, the top half for power.
There are two ways to use the power bar. Switch any time under Shot → Cue power:
Once a shot is played, the controls lock until the balls stop.
The Follow slider models how long the tip stays with the ball. Leave it on Neutral for normal shots. Push it up (Through / Deep) to deepen spin — sharper screw-back, more aggressive running side. Push it down (Short / Stab) for a dab. A very low follow-through near touching balls is judged a push shot and refused. That's the push stroke of WPBSA Section 2 Rule 19 — the tip still on the cue ball as it meets the object ball — and in a frame it's a foul.
Elev raises the butt of the cue, from the 3° every shot starts at. Use it for jump shots, massé curves around a blocker, or to clear a cushion behind the cue ball. Its minimum lifts itself when something's in the way: that's the engine telling you a flatter stroke won't fit. A massé is elevation plus side spin; a jump is elevation plus a firm strike with topspin.
In a refereed frame, remember that a jump shot is a foul under WPBSA Section 2 Rule 20: the cue ball may not leave the cloth and pass over any part of a ball. The rule's exceptions are honoured — a cue ball that hops after a fair contact and flies over a different ball, or comes back over the struck ball off a cushion or another ball, or lands short of the ball it went over, is fine. Climbing straight over the ball you've just struck is not, and a touching ball doesn't count as a fair contact for any of these.
When the cue ball is out of reach for your height and cue hand (Account → Player profile), a rest is laid for you; turn off Place the rest for me there to be asked first. You can also put one down or take it away with the Cue bridge tool, or the keyboard: the rest (R) seats the cue in its X-cross, and the spider (Shift+R) arches high so the cue bridges over balls in the way.
The path previews run the real physics, so what's drawn is exactly what happens if you shoot. Choose how much you see with the Paths button. In a frame, the Hints level decides instead.
If a line surprises you, it's worth a pause: usually it's throw on a slight cut, squirt from side, or running side carrying off a cushion. The preview is a reliable teacher of those small effects.
You can rearrange the table whenever a frame or challenge isn't in progress. Click a ball to select it, then drag it, or nudge it with the arrow keys (Esc lets go). Everything else is in the Tools panel.
Show labels, at the bottom of the panel, prints each ball's name above it, handy when you're describing a position to someone.
Photograph a real table from above one end, with all four corners in the picture, then Import from photo… rebuilds it here in two steps.
Reflections and shadows can fool the detector, so give the picture a quick check before you apply it.
Copy share link, under Share position, puts the whole scene into a link — ball positions, settings, the score so far — and opens that exact frame for whoever you send it to. Useful for snooker puzzles, mid-frame discussions, or asking for a second opinion. Tick Include predicted paths to have the previews on when it opens. A link opens in Aim; from another camera view, choose Open in that view instead.
Show Trickshot Props opens a palette you can drag anywhere on the screen. Props really are part of the table: a ramp launches a ball, a bumper kicks it away and a tube carries it through, and the path previews show all of it. They're saved with the position, so they travel in share links, saved shots and challenges.
The camera button opens the views: overhead for plotting position, the cushions for safety angles, TV for the broadcast look. On a phone it switches between Aim and Overhead instead.
How the camera moves during and after a shot is set in the Scene panel.
When a frame starts, or you re-rack in practice, the camera walks you up to the cue the way a player gets down on a shot. Press Space to skip it.
On a computer or tablet. While you're watching an opponent, the window switches to their behind-the-cue view so you can see what they're lining up.
A replay is identical to the original, so it's the place to study a near-miss frame by frame. The main Replay button never records.
Record a clip (Tools) records whatever happens on the table, for up to a minute. Set the camera first: TV view and a slow-motion replay make a good clip. Stop it with the red indicator at the top of the scene.
Every frame you play is recorded. Under Recent games in the Play panel, Watch replays one from the break, at any speed, with the clocks as they were. The replay bar has play and pause, a shot back and forward, speed, paths and record, and you can drag it out of the way.
The menu cards start a frame straight away. The Play panel sets it up first.
The rules engine referees to the WPBSA Official Rules of Snooker. It handles scoring, fouls (four points, or the value of the ball on where that's higher — Section 3 Rule 11), the cue ball in hand from the D, respots while reds remain, and end-of-frame detection. The break chip top-left tracks the current visit — click it for a breakdown of pots.
It also plays the tactical rules that decide close frames. After a foul the table doesn't simply pass over: the incoming player chooses to take the position, to make the offender play again, or — once a miss has been called (Rule 14) — to have the balls put back exactly where they were, and a third consecutive miss forfeits the frame. A striker left snookered by a foul gets a free ball (Rule 12): nominate any ball to stand in for the ball on, and it scores what the ball on would have, then goes back on its spot. When the cue ball comes to rest against a ball that is or could be on, the chip reads “Touching ball” (Rule 10): you may play away from it without hitting anything else and it counts as striking it. With the black the last ball left the first score or foul settles the frame, and level scores re-spot the black and toss for who plays it (Rule 4). Jump shots and push strokes are fouled exactly as the rulebook defines them (Section 2 Rules 19 and 20). Watch the break chip for the “Touching ball”, “Free ball”, “Miss” and “Re-spotted black” markers, and use Concede frame in the play panel to give one up.
One place the rulebook leans on a referee's judgement is whether a failure to hit the ball on was a “miss”. Here the engine stands in for the referee with a fixed policy: every failure to strike a ball on is a miss, except once either player needs snookers, when Rule 14 says no miss can be called. The three-miss forfeit is only applied when the striker could see a full ball on from where they played.
Once the computer has lined up its shot, nothing you do on the table changes it. Pause computer, in the bubble while it plays, makes it wait between shots, to replay one or look at the table. It concedes a frame it can no longer win.
Pause puts a Solo, Computer or Pass & Play frame away to finish later, once the balls have stopped and any foul choice is made. It waits under Game in progress, one per mode: Resume brings back the table, the score and the clocks, without the time you were away; Discard throws it away. Starting that mode again asks first, because the new frame replaces the paused one.
The Challenge panel has structured drills: pot sequences, spin requirements, break targets, clear-the-table puzzles. Each awards up to three stars, more for using fewer assists. Three stars always needs the path previews off, so it's the test that you've learnt the shot, not just followed a line.
Every challenge is timed. Some are time-limited: finish before the clock runs out or it counts as a fail. The rest are open-ended, but your time is recorded, so a clean, fast run climbs the rankings. A challenge opens with a fly-over of the layout; S skips it.
You're not limited to the built-in drills — you can build your own and, if you like, publish them for everyone else to play. Open the Challenge panel, find My Challenges and press + Create challenge to open the Challenge Builder. (Authoring needs an account, so you can edit and sync your challenges across devices; playing other people's never does.)
The table is the editor. Drag balls where you want them, drop potted balls back on from the tray, and use Full rack or Empty table as a starting point. Snap to grid lands balls neatly on the spots and grid crossings. Choose which ball the cue is aimed at to start, and optionally let the player place the cue ball anywhere before their first shot. Trick-shot props you put on the table are saved with the challenge.
This is what the challenge is testing. Choose one:
Modifiers turn a layout into a real test: force topspin-only or backspin-only, require a single uninterrupted break, require every pot in a sequence to land off one stroke, ban cushion contact, relax the colour-after-red rule, set a shot clock, and decide what happens when a ball is potted (stay down for break-building, respot the colours, or respot colours and reds so a drill repeats cleanly). You can also tag the challenge with categories so it surfaces in the right groups of the Challenges tab.
Press Test play at any point to try the challenge on the live table before committing. When it plays the way you want, Save it — it lands in My Challenges, always available and never affecting the progression.
Tick Public — others can play to publish it. Public challenges show up in everyone's Community Challenges list, where players can rate them out of five and rack up a play count; as the author you get a Stats view of plays and ratings. Choose to be credited by your leaderboard name or stay anonymous. Either way, the Share link (🔗) copies a URL that opens the challenge straight onto the table for anyone you send it to — signed in or not. Shared and community challenges sit outside the Trick Machine progression and don't count toward the global leaderboard.
Recommend is on the practice table only. Press it and the engine runs the real physics on a large pool of candidate shots, scores them on the points they win and the position they leave, and ranks the best lines. It isn't a rule of thumb: it's simulating the table. When you need snookers, it looks for safeties that can get you back into the frame.
Style sets how hard it chases the big colours when a colour is on. Safe takes whichever colour leaves the easiest next shot. Balanced prefers the black and pink when they're there, but not at the cost of a straightforward pot. Attack plays like a break-builder and goes for the high colours whenever they're makeable. Position always comes first — none of them will send you after a half-chance black.
Comparing two candidates is the fastest way to learn why one leave is better than another.
An account is optional: everything on the table works without one. Make it yours shows what signing in adds.
Open Account from the main menu or the side dock. There is no password.
The Medals panel is your trophy cabinet. A frame or a challenge can unlock a medal as it ends.
Post about Trick Machine on social media or a snooker forum, with a link back to us — a clip of a great shot works best. Then open Spread the word in the Account panel and Send for review with the link to your post. Once it's approved you get the Ambassador badge, which shows on your profile, next to your name on the scoreboard, and on the leaderboards.
Everything works by touch. What's different from a computer:
Trick Machine is also an app for iPhone and Android. Get the app on the main menu, and the links in About, take you to the store. In the app, updates download in the background and install the next time you open it, so a frame is never interrupted. About → Version history shows whether one is downloading or ready, and what's new in the version you're running.
Ideas, bugs and questions all have a door:
| Take shot | Space |
|---|---|
| Skip the walk-up camera | Space — at the start of a frame or a re-rack |
| Aim / Look / Object ball | A · L · O |
| Cycle camera view | C — Aim → Overhead → TV |
| Add / remove rest | R |
| Add / remove spider | Shift+R |
| Skip challenge intro | S — end the fly-over and start playing |
| Aim (Aim mode) | ← → — hold to accelerate |
| Elevation (Aim mode) | ↑ ↓ |
| Side spin | Shift+← → |
| Top / back spin | Shift+↑ ↓ |
| Move selected ball or prop | ← → ↑ ↓ |
| Power | + / − — hold to accelerate |
| Move camera (Look mode) | ← → ↑ ↓ |
| Orbit camera (Look mode) | Shift+← → ↑ ↓ |
| Undo / Redo | ⌘/Ctrl+Z · ⌘/Ctrl+Shift+Z · Ctrl+Y |
| Deselect / close dialog | Esc |
| Play / pause | Space or K |
|---|---|
| Shot back / forward | ← → |
| First / last shot | Home · End |
| Stop watching | Esc |