A bagatelle board resembles a light, flat board with nails (pins!) in it and short raised sides to keep the ball on the playfield during play. Each ball is launched from some sort of spring-loaded 'shooter' or cue, to the top of the board, where it then rolls towards the player, bouncing off the pins or landing in any of several scoring pockets. These scoring pockets can be depressions in the playfield, nails arranged in a U-shape, or both. They are marked with various score values, with the higher values usually protected by more pins or tougher paths to reach them. By "shooting" the ball harder or softer, the player can try to control where the ball drops.
