We built a free online 8 ball game with city leaderboards. Honest feedback wanted.

KINGSCOURT905

KINGSCOURT905

Member
Hello AZ. Long time reader, first time poster, and I will put my cards on the table before anything else: I'm David Finlay, co-founder of Kings Court, a small platform we run out of Hamilton, Ontario. This post is about a game we built. If that is not welcome here, mods, do what you need to do.

The game is called Table Kings. It is 8 ball, it is a free web app at www.mykingscourt.ca, no downloads, and you play real people.

AZ is full of league players, so here is the idea I want to put in front of you, because league players are who we built it for. Every online pool game I have played ranks you against the world. Table Kings ranks you against your city. Your city's leaderboard is the one that counts, the same way your league night standings are the ones you actually care about.

Season 1 ends Monday, January 11, 2027 at 11:59 PM EST. That night, every city with real competition on its pool board crowns a King and a Queen of the table. City champs pick a gear pack (Zombie, Dragons or Christmas) and get a Champion theme set we will never sell. Finish number one in pool overall and it is 500,000 crowns. A city with no real race crowns nobody. The board has to be earned.

We also went deep on cues. There is a full collection to earn, and we just added Birthstone and Dragon cue sets. I have read enough cue threads here to know this crowd will tell me straight if our cues look right.

So, straight answers wanted. Try it free, then tell me what feels off. Break physics, aiming, matchmaking, whatever you find. I will be in this thread answering as myself, and the criticism is as welcome as the praise. That is how the game gets better.

Thanks for reading,
David Finlay
Co-founder, Kings Court
Hamilton, Ontario
 
No offense, but the physics are horrendous. Not even gonna comment on other issues (blatant AI usage for the texts/graphics etc.), as the physics make it unplayable.

For a 2D pool game 100% realism isn't needed, but right now it plays like something you'd throw together with AI in a day with no fine tuning at all. There's too many things wrong with the physics for me to even bother listing them.
 
Thanks for being straight with me, Oikawa. I asked for honest feedback, and that is honest feedback, so I appreciate it.

I won't argue with 'unplayable.' If the physics feel that far off, that is the thing to fix first, before anything else. You said there are too many things wrong to list, and I understand that, but if you have a minute, even the one or two that bothered you most would help me a lot. Was it the cue ball speed after contact, the rails, spin, or the way the balls collide? I would rather fix the right things first than guess.

Thanks again for actually trying it.
 
Appreciate you looking. I have to be honest, that surprises me. The physics get played and tested daily by me, my family and real league players, and they hold up. If something specific felt off on your device, tell me exactly what: cue ball speed, rails, spin, collisions, and what you played on. If there is a real issue I can reproduce, I will fix it. A general 'horrendous' I cannot do much with.
 
One more thing from me: we openly accept criticism here, that is exactly why I posted. All I ask is honesty and specifics. If something felt off, leave a proper review of exactly what felt off and I will read every word. Thanks guys.
 
One more thing from me, and then I will stop hogging my own thread.

We did not come here just to drop a link and disappear. I love this game, and I plan on being around here talking about everything pool: cues, chalk, tough rolls, league nights, all of it. Honestly, the game talk is the best part of this place.

Thank you for accepting us here, and for the honest feedback, good and bad. I read every word of it. I cannot wait to get to know this community properly, and I cannot wait to meet some of you.

David
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Reading through your post history, almost all (if not all) of your posts are clearly written by AI. Anyone who has even the slightest experience in seeing the type of text produced by LLM's (e.g. ChatGPT or Gemini) will spot exactly what I mean.

Posting AI slop into random threads deteriorates the quality of these forums. I don't know if the contents of the messages in other threads are at least based on reality, but seeing the timing of the posts makes me highly doubt it. A human using AI as a tool for enhancing their text would still spend a reasonable amount of time per post. For example, the original post of this thread was posted 1 minute after another message in another thread, so if we assume that the writing was started after the last post was made, this thread would've been written at a speed of ~340 words per minute, which would be faster than the typing speed world record... And the same pattern appears multiple times across different posts, making 2 semi long posts in different threads with 1-2 minutes between the posts.

I wouldn't care if the advertisement in this thread or the text in your game was made by AI or not, but posting normal conversational messages into other threads acting like a human wrote the messages is very questionable. What is your motive here?
 
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Oikawa said:
Reading through your post history, almost all (if not all) of your posts are clearly written by AI. Anyone who has even the slightest experience in seeing the type of text produced by LLM's (e.g. ChatGPT or Gemini) will spot exactly what I mean.

Posting AI slop into random threads deteriorates the quality of these forums. I don't know if the contents of the messages in other threads are at least based on reality, but seeing the timing of the posts makes me highly doubt it. A human using AI as a tool for enhancing their text would still spend a reasonable amount of time per post. For example, the original post of this thread was posted 1 minute after another message in another thread, so if we assume that the writing was started after the last post was made, this thread would've been written at a speed of ~340 words per minute, which would be faster than the typing speed world record... And the same pattern appears multiple times across different posts, making 2 semi long posts in different threads with 1-2 minutes between the posts.

I wouldn't care if the advertisement in this thread or the text in your game was made by AI or not, but posting normal conversational messages into other threads acting like a human wrote the messages is very questionable. What is your motive here?
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Oikawa, I read your post a couple times before answering. You put real work into checking the timing, so I owe you a straight answer.

My motive is not hidden. I am David Finlay from Hamilton, I co-founded Kings Court with my partner Mary, and I came here for two reasons I said in my first post: to tell this room about the free game we built, and to actually be part of this place as a player. That second part is real for me. I have played in Hamilton halls for years.

On the timing, you are right that it looks fast. I draft a lot of my posts in my notes first, sometimes the night before, then paste them when I get a few minutes. I am not sitting there typing 340 words a minute live, I could never do that. I should have slowed down how I was posting them, because I can see exactly how that reads from your side.

The pool stuff in my posts is my own experience — the Dufferin wraps in our halls here, staying on wood because carbon felt dead to me, the ghost flattering me one night and humbling me the next. That is my game, warts and all.

I am not going to argue with you about how the writing reads to you. If you are willing, tell me one of the pool points I made that you think does not ring true, and I will answer that one straight, in detail. And I will space my posts out properly from here.

Thanks for calling it out in the open instead of just writing me off.

David
 
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