Pool of Madness gun guide: the Orbcaster and rituals

In Pool of Madness the gun is called the Orbcaster, and it does two things: it can shoot balls and it can pull balls toward you. The developer's own description frames it as the second half of a single toolset, with seamless cue-gun interplay and an explicit fallback of using the gun to blast your way out when everything else fails. That is the core of how you use it during a ritual: the cue plays the table, the Orbcaster rescues the play when the balls, the score or the horror side of the ritual have gotten away from you.

This guide covers what the material actually establishes: what the gun is, how the developer positions it in a run, where it sits in the ritual loop, and how to decide between a cue shot and a gun action. It is not a shot-by-shot walkthrough of particular tables, and it does not give button bindings, because those are not documented in the available material. Pool of Madness is a PC billiards roguelite with full controller support listed on the official Steam page, so check the in-game controls screen for the mapping on your setup.

What the Orbcaster is

The gun's name comes from the developer's Steam announcement about upgradable cue parts, where the cue and the Orbcaster are described as the pair you carry into each ritual. The official Steam description puts the same idea in play terms: the game is a "roguelite fusion of trick shots (billiards), ricochets (pinball), and raw firepower (shooter)" and promises "seamless cue-gun interplay for addictive flow".

Two capabilities are stated plainly by a press write-up covering the game: when a shot goes wrong, the Orbcaster can shoot balls or pull them towards you. The pulling half is what makes it more than a firearm. It is a positioning tool on a table where the arrangement of balls is the puzzle, and it can bring a ball back into the play you wanted rather than only removing obstacles.

What the material does not establish is a damage model, ammo economy, cooldown, cost or upgrade track for the gun itself. The Steam page and announcements talk about upgrading your cue with collected parts, and about reforging the cue between runs; the gun is described as an instrument you use, not as the thing you build. Do not assume the cue-part loot system applies to the gun.

How the gun fits the ritual loop

Rituals are the structure of a run. The developer describes the pool tables as altars and the cue and gun as instruments of the liturgy, and says rituals are your "baptism of blood, preparing you to face a void lurker". Some rituals are procedurally generated for each run; some are built by hand. Completing a ritual is what lures out the horrors, and killing them is where loot comes from.

That ordering matters for how you reach for the gun:

1. Start the ritual with the cue

   The cue is the primary scoring instrument. The developer's updates focus on cue parts, cue builds and trying an upgraded build against the next ritual, so treat the opening of a table as cue work: pocket balls, chase the special equipment ball that sometimes appears in rituals, and keep the score and chain reactions going.

2. Watch for a break in the plan

   The gun's stated role is recovery. If a ricochet leaves the balls in a position your cue cannot reach cleanly, or the run has stalled and the ritual demands something the table will not give you, that is the moment the Orbcaster is for. The same applies when the horror pressure of a run starts to close in and you need out rather than a better shot.

3. Choose shoot or pull

   Use the shooting function to move or clear balls; use the pulling function to bring a ball back toward you when repositioning is more useful than removal. The material treats these as the gun's two options, not as a sequence, so pick whichever resolves the problem in front of you.

4. Finish the ritual and move on

   The gun is a step inside the ritual, not a replacement for it. Once the table's objective is met, the ritual is complete, the void beast comes out, and the loop continues: hunt the horror, take the loot, upgrade the cue, enter the next ritual.

Cue or gun: deciding in the moment

The developer frames the gun as the last resort rather than the opening move. The Steam description lists it under the cue-upgrade section as "and if all else fails, use your gun to blast your way out". Read that literally: if you can still solve the table with a well-aimed cue shot, that is the intended path, and the gun exists for the cases where you cannot.

One caution that comes straight from the material: "Ritual is law. Everything else is yours to break." The freedom to improvise is a selling point, but the ritual is the requirement. Blasting your way out is a survival move, not a way to skip the ritual and its rewards.

What to check if the gun seems to do nothing useful

If you shoot or pull and the table does not change the way you expected, work through these in order before assuming something is broken. None of these are documented behaviours; they are conditional checks based on how the game presents itself as a cue-and-gun flow.

• Confirm the ritual objective: some tables may want balls pocketed, and a ball you move with the gun may not count as progress. The ritual, not the gun, defines success.
• Re-read the table state after a pull. Pulling changes position; it does not remove a ball, so if you needed the ball gone, the shooting function is the one you wanted.
• Check your cue build before blaming the gun. If the run has stalled, the documented fix is upgrading the cue with collected parts and trying the upgraded build against the next ritual.
• Check the controls screen for your device. The Steam page lists full controller support, but the material does not give a keyboard or gamepad mapping for drawing the gun.

Early Access caveat

As of 2026-11-11, the official Steam page lists Pool of Madness as coming soon to Early Access on 13 November 2026, for Windows, with no price listed. Everything above comes from the developer's own store description and Steam announcements, plus one press write-up of the same material. Weapon balance, ritual rules and control schemes are exactly the kind of thing an Early Access launch changes, so the behaviour described here is the behaviour the developer has announced, not a tested final build.

The Next Fest demo is a separate, earlier slice of the game. If a mechanic behaves differently in the demo than in the launch version, the developer's description of the full game is the better reference. The cue-part system, including the Equipment screen where you combine tip, shaft and wrap, is described for the full version.

Next steps

• Read Pool of Madness cue upgrades next, because the cue is the build you are expected to invest in and the gun works best as its safety net.
• Review Pool of Madness powerups to see how to unlock and use them alongside your growing cue build, which is the documented way to make each ritual easier.
• Check Pool of Madness haunted totems when you are ready to finish a ritual and set up the next horror, since totems sit in that same ritual progression.

FAQ

How do you use the gun in Pool of Madness?

Draw the Orbcaster when the cue cannot solve the table: shoot balls to move or clear them, or pull balls toward you to bring them back into play. The developer describes it as the option you take when all else fails, so it is a recovery tool inside the ritual rather than a replacement for cue play.

In the Pool of Madness gun guide, does the gun upgrade like the cue?

The material does not describe gun upgrades. The developer talks about collecting cue parts by pocketing a special equipment ball and reforging your ever-evolving cue, so the documented progression is the cue. Treat the gun as a fixed tool until the game says otherwise.

Can the gun replace cue shots entirely?

The developer's description does not support that. The gun is listed as a fallback when the rest of your play is not enough, and the ritual itself is described as law, with everything else yours to break. A ritual still has to be completed, and cue builds are how you make the next one easier.

Do you need VR to use the gun?

The official Steam page lists Windows as the only platform and does not describe motion controls, so the gun is operated through the standard game input whether you play flat or in another mode. Check your in-game controls screen for the actual mapping on your setup.

This page is drawn from the Pool of Madness Steam store page, its Steam community announcements and the Indie Game Press Kit page for Pool of Madness. What remains unconfirmed is the exact input and tuning of the Orbcaster, since no first-hand player account of the final Early Access build documents its controls or limits.