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Krakout Commodore 64 Gremlin Graphics 1987


Krakout



Gremlin Graphics of the U.K. released Krakout for the Commodore 64 in 1987. Krakout is a bat-and-ball block-breaker influenced by Taito's Arkanoid of 1986. However, Krakout is no direct clone thereof.

Krakout was designed by Robert Toone, programmed by Andrew Green, drawn by Terry Lloyd and composed by Ben Daglish and Lodger Shriggzy.

Krakout's playfield is horizontal, not vertical like Arkanoid. In addition, capsules do not move towards the bat, they remain in place when revealed and need to be hit by the ball. Expand, Glue, Missile, Slow and Extra Life capsules are the same in effect or similar in effect to Arkanoid's Expand, Catch, Laser, Slow and Paddle capsules, but Krakout's Shield and Bomb capsules are novel. Shield causes a barrier to appear behind the player's paddle whereas Bombs destroy adjacent blocks, which is cool. Missile allows for only one shot, but it is an armor-piercing shot.

Krakout aliens are more varied, spawn more often and play a more important role in level completion than Arkanoid aliens. Krakout aliens move at different speeds and some can deploy other aliens or home-in on ball or bat. The Exit alien is similar to Arkanoid's Break capsule and the Twin Ball alien is the same as Arkanoid's Disruption capsule but creates only two balls, not three. However, one Krakout ball can ricochet off another, which cannot happen in Arkanoid.

Joystick-controlled Krakout lacks the fine controls of mouse-controlled Arkanoid. As such, players do not hit the Krakout ball as frequently as they do in Arkanoid. Thus, Krakout is forced to focus more on strategy than cat-like reflexes.
 
  • 100x levels
  • 8x capsules
  • 10x alien-types
  • Bat position switchable from left to right
  • Toggleable sound/music
  • Tailorable ball speed (1-6)
  • Tailorable mode (0-9)
  • Dual-speed paddle
  • Tailorable background scrolling: none, random & follow ball direction

After level 100 Krakout wraps around to level 1 as level 101; that is, there is no DOH-like boss in Krakout. Gremlin Graphics should have cut-down the no. of levels by 20 and added a multi-phase boss battle or something instead.

Krakout was published by Prism Leisure Corporation.

cf. Other Block-breakers (alphabetical listing):


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