Gyroplast: Greetings!

After default installation of The Ball and starting the game by running the shortcut on my desktop, I noticed that neither my settings, nor achievements or game progress were being saved.

Some research revealed the reason. The default shortcut created on the desktop adds the -nohomedir argument to the executable, instructing the game to attempt saving any settings right into a subdirectory of the installation location. While this might be a sensible default chosen by GOG.com to ensure that multiple user accounts on one computer share the same settings and progress, this is a show stopper when the installation location is not writable by restricted users! The game does not even mention having a problem saving the progress and settings.

If you experience this problem, you may either choose to extend the user's permissions on the installation directory of The Ball, or simply remove the -nohomedir argument from any shortcut you're using to start the game. The latter will cause the game to write its settings to a user-specific directory below the user's home directory, and not compromise your system's resilience to unauthorized file manipulation in restricted directories like the first option would.

I honestly have no idea why -nohomedir is enabled by default, and I'd suggest removing this argument. Even if you're not having permission troubles, I don't quite see the point in sharing a game's progress, achievements and settings across all users on a single computer. *shrugs*