Floyd's Bumpershoot is a puzzle game in which you must deduce the hidden locations of bumpers on a pool table by shooting pool balls onto the table and seeing where they exit. There are three types of bumpers: Flippers (the most common), Reflectors, and Holes.

Flippers are at 45 degree angles. When the ball strikes a Flipper, it rebounds at a 90 degree angle from its previous path. The Flipper then "flips" 90 degrees, so the next ball will rebound in the opposite direction.

Reflectors cause the ball to bounce back (180 degrees) in the direction from which it came.

Holes are just that: holes in the table, down which the ball disappears. All balls shot onto the table will come off of the table somewhere around the edge UNLESS they encounter a Hole.

By shooting balls onto the table from various locations around the edge and watching where the ball comes off of the table, you can deduce where bumpers HAVE to be and where they CAN'T be. When you've located all of the bumpers (correctly) the puzzle is solved and you win. (Don't you just hate it when you lose?)

Puzzles are available in three preconfigured sizes: Small, Medium, and Large. There is also a Custom Size that is user configurable in terms of the width and height of the table, the number of bumpers on the table, and the maximum number of Reflectors and Holes. Below is an example screen-shot of a SMALL game.

The left half of the above picture shows the puzzle after the first shot (from the upper left where the cue stick is displayed). The right half of the above picture shows the solution to the puzzle, so you can see the Flippers, a Reflector, and a Hole. The first shot traveled to the right (in the topmost row of the table), struck the Flipper, and rebounded downwards where it exited the table. You can shoot from any of the brown squares around the edge of the table.

Everett Kaser Software
PO Box 403
Albany OR 97321-0117
Phone: (541) 928-5259 between 8am and 8pm Pacific Time daily.
email: everett@kaser.com