Everything from the minimalist design right down the the Windows Phone logo on the box art suggests that Pendulous was built for mobile devices.  The controls, simple though they are, didn’t feel natural with a traditional controller.  Any time the ball “character” made a full rotation around a peg, I became completely disoriented.  This frequently brought my momentum to a grinding halt as I struggled to understand the mechanics.  It would be satisfying to string together a series of death-defying acrobatics, but the controls are too unforgiving to allow that.  Some of my issues with the controls seem to be inherent in “swing the ball around the peg” games.  It takes great patience to nail the precise timing for leaping between pegs, and the confined movement is deeply unsettling.  Even more disturbing is the lack of music and the bizarre steam punk theme.  I kept going back to Pendulous, hoping that something would click and I’d start enjoying it, but that never happened.