White Dwarf version 0.1
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Author: Kim Randell
E-mail: kim (dot) randell (at) blueyonder (dot) co (dot) uk
Homepage: http://members.lycos.co.uk/kim0randell/ (apologies for giant advert, it goes away after a while)

How to play
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White Dwarf is essentially 8-eight pool, but using a solar system. The planets are analogous to the balls, the system is the table, the asteroid belt (equivalent to our solar system's Kuiper Belt) is the cushion, and the six gaps in the belt are the holes. The main game objectives are exactly the same: pot 7 balls of your colour, chosen by the first ball potted, then the black to win the game. If you pot the black before the coloured balls, you forfeit the game. Potting a ball of the opponent's colour, missing all balls with the cue ball, or striking the opponent's ball first is a foul. A foul gives the opponent a double shot. The double shot allows a second shot after a shot in which the player has failed to pot, but is forfeited if they foul.

The major difference between White Dwarf and normal pool is that the balls are constantly in motion, due to the gravitational field of the sun. This means that the usual pool rule of a turn ending when the balls come to rest is invalid, and instead I have put a 10 second time limit on turns; they will also end early after a foul. To aid aiming shots, the orbits are predicted for the player, with the dashed lines indicating the speed of the balls.

Controls
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Hold left mouse button and drag up/down or use 'w' and 's' to alter shot power.
Hold left mouse button and drag left/right or use 'a' and 'd' to alter shot angle.
Hold right mouse button and drag or use cursor keys to alter camera angle.
Press space or click Fire to take the shot.
Press 'r' or click Reset to begin a new game.
Escape or clicking the Exit button quits.
Window can be resized or maximised if desired, although readouts and buttons may become messed up if shrunk too far.

Known issues
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-Some z-fighting at edges of balls
-Collision detection imperfect at very high speeds
-Damn near impossible to pull off shots unless you have a degree in astrophysics.

Future work
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-Texture mapped planets
-Better potting algorithms
-Alternative initial configurations; make it easier to "break"
-Tweak difficulty away from chance and towards skill