I'm having troubles getting this program to work. Yes i know its stupid and immature but hey at least its original. All seems to work fine until it tries to use the program play(). it outputs "Time to play :Dplay_balls". Someone please help me im new to c++. and I'm not sure if passing strings through functions is legal but couldnt find any help anywhere else. I'm on linux using KDevelop. (Any suggestions for a better linux compiler, i was using dev c++ on windows)

Code:
/***************************************************************************
  Name: Balls
  Copyright: Charles Ewert
  Author: Charles J. Ewert
  Date: 06/09/04 23:29
  Description: A wonderful text-based console "game" about balls.
  *Intended to get familiar with functions*
 ***************************************************************************/

 
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;


string play (string c_balls);


float n_balls;
string color = "";
string c_balls = "";
string balls = "";


  int main()
  {


      cout << "You are in a dark room and you stumble upon some balls.\n"
      << "Play with balls?(Y/N)";
      cin >> balls;
      
      if (balls == "Y" || balls == "y")
      {
          cout << "\nGood choice.\n"
          << "How many balls did you feel?";
          cin >> n_balls;
          
          cout << "\nVery hot.\n"
          << "What color were they? (W)hite or (B)lack";
          cin >> c_balls;
          
          cout << "\n\nTime to play :D\n"
          << play(c_balls)
	  << n_balls << " " << color << " ."
	  << "\nCongrats! Thanks for playing skank";
      }
      else
      {
          cout << "Everyone loves balls!!\n"
          << "Go home... Game Over";
        
          return 0;
      }
  }
  string play(string c_balls)
  {
      
      if (c_balls == "B" || c_balls == "b")
      {
          color = "black";
      }
      else 
      {
          color = "white";
      }
            
      return "Even though it was dark you managed to fondle " ;
      
  }