Arkanoid Amiga 1988

Discovery Software International ported Taito's legendary Arkanoid coinop of 1986 to the Amiga in February of 1988. The Arkanoid coinop was designed by Akira Fujita and Hiroshi Tsujino of Taito.

A souped-up, high-speed clone of Atari's Breakout coinop of 1976, Arkanoid is one of the most fiendishly addictive games to appear on Western computer-game machines. In addition, Amiga Arkanoid is one of the greatest coinop ports of all-time; it is as playable as the original arcade game and practically arcade-perfect.

As in Breakout and most other bat-&-ball games, the object of Arkanoid is to destroy colored bricks by hitting a ball into them with a bat that can only move horizontally along the bottom of the screen. In Arkanoid, the ball is an energy ball and the bat is a spacecraft called "The Vaus." Once all the bricks are destroyed, you can go to the next round.

Bricks randomly drop capsules that confer power-ups to the Vaus. The most coveted capsule is the Break which allows the Vaus to move to the next round regardless of round state, but the most fun power-up is the Space Invaders-style laser. Some bricks are indestructible and protect destructible bricks so the laser is not always useful. Some bricks also have soak or "hit-points."

The ball bounces off the Vaus, off the bricks, off the top, left and right walls of the round, and off aliens that hover about the playfield and descend towards the Vaus. If the Vaus fails to connect with the ball, a life is lost. Aliens are destroyed when they come into contact with the Vaus.

The ball also accelerates over time, making it harder to hit. If the ball splits into three via power-up, it accelerates more quickly.

To master Arkanoid it is necessary to hit the ball using the edges of the Vaus in order to angle the ball into hard-to-reach places. Arkanoid forces players to get good at angling the ball during level 3. It is level 3 that can end many attempts to beat Arkanoid.

Arkanoid is all about reflexes, timing, prediction and trajectories -- and a bit of luck.

The 1987 Atari ST version of Arkanoid is as good as the Amiga one. The ST version of Arkanoid was programmed and drawn by Peter Johnson. The Amiga version of Arkanoid was developed by Chris Chirogene, Eric Reinharrt, Rock Ross and Joe Sleator.

Arkanoid Capsules

B: Break: Purple (Opens a door to the next level: warp)
C: Catch: Green (Allows you to catch the energy ball)
D: Disruption: Light Blue (Splits the energy ball into three balls)
E: Expand: Dark Blue (Increases the length of the Vaus)
L: Laser: Red (Enables the Vaus to fire laser beams)
P: Paddle: Grey (1-up aka extra life)
S: Slow: Orange (Decreases the speed of the energy ball)

Arkanoid subtleties

Capsules won't drop if more than one ball is active
It is possible to aim for the corners of blocks in order to take out two blocks with one strike
Points can be farmed by leaving a few blocks alone, keeping the ball active and killing aliens (preferably with a laser)
Sharp angles allow you to drill through walls of blocks that are in close proximity to border-walls
Even if you can warp to the next level, try lingering for a while to accumulate more points. Maybe a free life will drop. Don't get greedy, though!

Arkanoid IBM PC MS-DOS 1987

NovaLogic released Arkanoid for IBM PC MS-DOS in 1987. The IBM PC version of Arkanoid was programmed by David Seeholzer. While not as good as the ST/Amiga versions, the IBM PC version is still a great game though the overall balance and bat/ball "physics" are different. Indeed, the IBM PC version is much easier than the ST/Amiga versions. The IBM PC version lacks the intro, sprite drop-shadows and backdrop patterns.

Arkanoid displays in 16-color Tandy or EGA 320x200. It supports mouse, joystick and keyboard control.

Arkanoid was distributed on 1x 3.5" 720kB DD diskette or 1x 5.25" 360kB floppy disk.

cf.

Lilura1 cRPG

Search String