frustating game

rid!!!cule

So I started playing this game, and hoping (and expecting) it was the same quality as the previous games I played from nal. At the first glance it was indeed another very good game!
The game is in fact a very advanced breakout clone! You need to bump a ball and prevent it from reaching certain areas (level restarters, or point reducers). The goal of the game is in first place to beat all 5 maps (beating a map you do by bumping the ball in the right direction until it reaches a “finish block”). And secondly there are also high scores at which you can compete. Points you get by bumping against certain blocks. Green +? blocks add a random value (about 10000 points), green X 2 blocks double your score. And the red -? And / 2 blocks remove a certain amount and half your score respectively. Also your points reduce with about 50 points/second and the scored get halved if you ‘die’.

The basic graphics are similar to the game elemance (gold) and other games made by nal. All simple, yet good graphics. The graphics really fit to each other making the game have a professional feeling. This game has (better than elemance) also quite a few nice “eye candy” type effects.. In fact the only drawback in graphics I think in this game are the title screens. Bother are way to flashy, and because you have to watch the first title screen (you can’t press “enter” or “space” to quit it) my eyes were already burning !
Sounds in this game are another very strong point, both sound effects, which are clear and nice, as well as the background music is pretty good! No real remarks I can really make here. (except that you can’t put it off during the game..).

Where elemance had the best gameplay I’ve seen in ages, this game seriously lacks good gameplay! The idea is pretty original (even though it’s based on breakout the twist is very original). Whenever I try to play the game I seriously don’t have the feeling I’m in “control” of the situation! The game view simply moves to fast making it almost impossible to aim! For example I think the ball is moving very fast to the “right” – well I move my mouse as fast as possible to the right too, but because the view always keeps the ball centered I simply “miss” the ball. This wouldn’t be so bad (you just need to get used to it: keeping the player in the center is the only way, and will always work), if the problem of NOT view changing wouldn’t happen in at the sides.. Since the view doesn’t move at the side the ball isn’t centered anymore.. And this makes it you’ll have to move to save the ball. When you combine these two things in this very, very fast paced game, you’re simply not in control of the game.
What’s even worse, the rooms are often so big, and the bouncing code is simply so unpredictable making it you can’t really “aim”. So it’s mostly just luck where the ball is going!
But even if we were in “full” control of the game in some way.. The basics are pretty “poor” – the game is badly documentated (especially about the point structure there is no explanation during the game). Also whenever you die, you simply don’t have a time to think about what went wrong: the next ball already falls at the moment the first 1 died. As well as simply the fact that your whole (good) score can be removed at the end by simply hitting a / 2 two times doesn’t make it very fun.
Programming wise this game is has some neat features, like ‘particle’ effects, or the sling at the start. However the core of the game also has a few problems: it’s possible to get the ball “stuck” by fast moving your bad over the ball next to a wall, and sometimes the ball also gets stuck in a corner (though this has only happened to me once).

There is no story in this game, yet a story wouldn’t really suit this game anyway. However when I look at the learning curve from the game I can see that it’s basicly “there” – The first level is much easier than the 2nd or 3rd. Only the last level is “out of the tone”: it’s a 100% luck level (I only hit the ball once there!).

The interface is (like explained already before) very bad! – The bouncing isn’t right, and because the screen is (often) moving when the ball is moving it’s very hard to aim for the ball. It would’ve been better if the bad wasn’t using the absolute mouse position, but rather the mouse “offset” – view “offset”. This would make it possible that the bad would go out of the view, so you would need to move the mouse to keep it under the ball.

conclusion
Well this game looked good at the first glance, the graphics and sounds looked very fun at the first glance. And since the first levels was very small the main problem didn’t really happen here! However in the second (and next few) levels things got really worse, making this game rather frustating to play!
So I only recommend playing this if you like very fast gameplay and don’t mind doing the same thing over and over again .