Addicta Ball
Alligata Software of the U.K. released Addicta Ball aka Addictaball for Atari ST in 1987. Addicta Ball is a bat-and-ball block-breaker influenced by Taito's Arkanoid coinop of 1986.
Refer to the Arkanoid article for the basics of Arkanoid-style block-breaker gameplay.
Addicta Ball is unique in that its playfield auto-scrolls vertically over time in one pixel increments. Addicta Ball features nine power-ups and six levels ten screens in height. A life is lost if the bat comes into contact with an alien/block or the ball drops through a gap in the bottom-row barrier, which is made up of destructible blocks. The object is to guide the ball to an exit object or to the top of the level while breaking blocks and protecting the barrier from being progressively destroyed by falling fireballs.
On loss of life the entire level must be started again from scratch, and upon loss of all lives players are dumped back to the GEM desktop; they don't even get to enter their name into a hiscore table. No hiscore table in a block-breaker is unforgiveable.
The thruster unit power-up allows the bat to move vertically over the playfield, which is pretty cool -- especially when combined with the twin-laser unit power-up.
Addicta Ball block-types include single-hit blocks, multi-hit blocks, indestructible blocks and bonus blocks. There are also destructible moving objects and secret hyperspace transporters, which are akin in effect to Arkanoid Break.
Addicta Ball is a top-tier block-breaker.
Addicta Ball Power-Ups
- Blows holes in the barrier
- Rebuilds the barrier
- Catches the ball
- 1-Up
- Fuel recharge
- Ammo reload
- Pause scrolling
- Laser Fire unit (twin-lader)
- Thruster unit (booster)
- Speed up/slow down ball speed
- Spawn alien
ST/Amiga Addicta Ball displays in 16-color 320x200. Amiga Addicta Ball of 1988 is a port of the ST version.
The ST/Amiga versions of Addicta Ball were programmed by Michael J. Lister and drawn by NIX and Mark Potente. Amiga Addicta Ball was distributed on 1x 3.5" 880kB DD diskette whereas ST Addicta Ball was distributed on 1x 3.5" 720kB DD diskette. Neither version was installable to hard disk drive.
cf. Block-breakers:
Indexes:
- Impact Amiga Audiogenic Software 1987
- Arkanoid Amiga Discovery Software 1988
- Arkanoid 2 Amiga Imagine Software 1988
- Giganoid Amiga Starvision 1988
- Jinks Amiga Rainbow Arts 1988
- Krakout Commodore 64 Gremlin Graphics 1987
- Bolo Atari ST Meinolf Schneider 1987
Indexes:
- Amiga Games Reviews (Index to all Amiga game reviews)
- Computer Game Reviews (Index to all computer game reviews)
- History of Computer Games (Master Index)
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