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Arkanoid is a 1986 block breaker arcade game developed and published by Taito. In North America, it was published by Romstar. Controlling a paddle-like craft known as the Vaus, the player is tasked with clearing a formation of colorful blocks by deflecting a ball towards it without letting the ball leave the bottom edge of the playfield. Some blocks contain power-ups that have various effects, such as increasing the length of the Vaus, creating several additional balls, or equipping the Vaus with cannons. Other blocks may be indestructible or require multiple hits to break.
Breakout is an arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and released on May 13, 1976. Breakout was released in Japanese arcades by Namco. The game was designed by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow and prototyped via discrete logic chips by Steve Wozniak with assistance from Steve Jobs. In the game, eight rows of bricks line the top portion of the screen, and the player's goal is to destroy the bricks by repeatedly bouncing a ball off a paddle into them. The concept was predated by Ramtek's Clean Sweep (1974), but the game's designers were influenced by Atari's Pong (1972). The arcade version of Breakout uses a monochrome display underneath a translucent colored overlay.
Alleyway is a 1989 video game developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo as a global launch title for the Game Boy. It is a Breakout clone and one of the first four games developed and released for the system. The game was released first in Japan in 1989, in North America later that year, and in Europe in 1990. It was later re-released for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in June 2011, and on the Nintendo Switch Online service in May 2024.
Seumas McNally was a Canadian video game programmer and designer. He is best known for indie games, notably DX-Ball and Tread Marks, which won the Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival (IGF). The award was posthumously renamed in his honour when he died at age 21 of Hodgkin's lymphoma, shortly after having received the award himself.
Pocket Tanks, often abbreviated as PTanks or simply as PT, is a 1- and 2-player computer game and mobile game developed by Michael P. Welch from Blitwise Productions. It was originally released for Windows and Mac OS X in 2001 and was later released for iOS in 2009 and Android in 2012. It is available as shareware as well as a premium version known as Pocket Tanks Deluxe, which includes the content from all 30 expansion packs.
Kirby’s Block Ball, known in Japan as Kirby no Block Ball, is a video game developed by Tose and Nintendo and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy. It is a spin-off of the Kirby video game series. It is a Breakout clone; the player controls paddles along the screen's edge to knock a bouncing ball, Kirby, into destructible bricks. The game's 55 levels include power-ups, bonus rounds, and minigames. The team spent half a year revising the gameplay to match Kirby's signature characteristics. Kirby's Block Ball was released in Japan on December 14, 1995, later in North America on May 13, 1996, and finally in Europe on August 29, 1996.
The Menacer is a light gun peripheral released by Sega in 1992 for its Sega Genesis and Sega CD video game consoles. It was created in response to Nintendo's Super Scope and as Sega's successor to the Master System Light Phaser. The gun is built from three detachable parts, and communicates with the television via an infrared sensor. The Menacer was announced at the May 1992 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago and was released later that year. The gun was bundled with a pack-in six-game cartridge of mostly shooting gallery games. Sega also released a Menacer bundle with Terminator 2: The Arcade Game.
Brick Breaker is a mobile video game developed by Canadian developer Ali Asaria, that came preloaded on certain BlackBerry devices.
Gee Bee is a block breaker/video pinball hybrid arcade game developed and published by Namco in 1978. The player controls a set of paddles with a rotary knob, where the goal is to score as many points as possible by deflecting a ball against bricks, pop bumpers and other objects in the playfield. It was developed by Toru Iwatani, known as the creator of Pac-Man and Pole Position. Outside Japan, it was published by Gremlin Industries.
Super Breakout is a sequel to the 1976 video game Breakout released in arcades in September 1978 by Atari, Inc. It was written by Ed Rotberg. The game uses the same mechanics as Breakout, but allows the selection of three distinct game modes via a knob on the cabinet—two of which involve multiple, simultaneous balls in play. Both the original and sequel are in black and white with monitor overlays to add color. It was distributed in Japan by Namco and Esco Trading.
DX-Ball 2 is a 1998 Breakout clone for Microsoft Windows, developed and published by Longbow Games. As a follow-up to the 1996 cult-classic DX-Ball by Michael P. Welch, the sequel introduced a number of improvements to the original game, including high-colour textured graphics, an original soundtrack by Eric "Sidewinder" Gieseke, multiple board-sets with distinct visual styles, and a hotseat multiplayer mode. On November 21, 2018, the game was re-released on Steam as DX-Ball 2: 20th Anniversary Edition, commemorating the game's 20th anniversary, while also ensuring compatibility with more recent versions of Windows. The anniversary edition introduced high-definition graphics, widescreen gameplay with a selection of new widescreen board-sets, additional power-ups, online leaderboards, and a board-set editor for creating custom board-sets. Following the release of the anniversary edition on Steam, distribution of the original demo version of DX-Ball 2 via the Longbow Games website was discontinued, alongside sales of the game's original board pack expansions.
Dragon Ball Z: Buyū Retsuden is a 1994 fighting video game developed and published by Bandai and Ecofilmes for the Sega Mega Drive. Based upon Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball franchise, it is the only game in the series released for the Mega Drive, following the Frieza and Cell sagas. Its gameplay has been described as a combination of the original Super Butōden and Super Butōden 2, consisting of one-on-one fights using a three-button configuration, featuring special moves and two playable modes.
Ricochet Infinity is the fourth installment of the Ricochet video game series by Reflexive Entertainment. Similarly to its predecessors, Ricochet Xtreme (2001), Ricochet Lost Worlds (2004) and Ricochet Lost Worlds: Recharged (2004), it is a Breakout clone. As in Atari's Breakout game, the purpose of each stage is destroy all the bricks on the screen. Like the rest of the games in the Ricochet series, Infinity is more stylized than Breakout, adding various power-ups and brick variations.
Drop Off is a Breakout clone by Data East. The game was published in 1990 for the PC Engine as Drop Rock Hora Hora and subsequently saw a US release for the TurboGrafx-16 as Drop Off.
Off the Wall is an arcade game produced by Atari Games and released in North America in 1991. A remake of Breakout, it has a much wider variety of gameplay elements of the original. Most notably, it models spin on the ball. Off the Wall supports up to three players simultaneously. The game's graphics include many backgrounds modeled after modern abstract art. In spite of the identical title, this is a different game from the 1989 Atari 2600 cartridge release.
Superball Arcade is am Arkanoid-like video game for Microsoft Windows released as shareware on May 29, 2003 by Canadian developer Cheeky Monkey Software. It is a sequel to the 2002 game Atomic Superball: The Chicken Edition.
Rival Ball is the sequel to the PC Breakout clone DX-Ball 2 from Longbow Digital Arts. Released on March 19, 2001, the game features square bricks and online split-screen multiplayer. It introduces a cursor-based layout with buttons for navigation, two new power-ups, the ability to save and resume games, and game options for randomising board order, setting timers, repeating board-sets, and choosing between four difficulty levels. The game also plays all the original DX-Ball 2 boards. A Mac version was announced on April 3, 2002. Rival Ball was the first game from Longbow Games to succeed the passing of Seumas McNally (1979–2000), the company's founder and lead programmer. Rival Ball was followed by Rival Ball Tournament in 2004.
Breakout 2000 is a 1996 action video game developed by MP Games and published by Telegames for the Atari Jaguar. Part of the 2000 series by Atari Corporation, it is a remake of the arcade game Breakout (1976), and one of the last officially licensed releases for the platform. Featuring a similar premise to Breakout, the player must destroy a layer of brick lines by repeatedly bouncing a ball spawned off a paddle into them and keep it in play. Gameplay modifications to the original game include a third-person perspective behind the paddle in a pseudo-3D playfield, power-ups, bonus levels, enemies, varying level designs, and multiplayer features.
Clowns and Balloons is a circus-themed video game written by Frank Cohen for Atari 8-bit computers and published in 1982 by Datasoft. The game was also released for the TRS-80 Color Computer, written by Steve Bjork who had released a similar game called Space Ball for the TRS-80 in 1980. Clowns and Balloons is a clone of the 1977 arcade game Circus. A variant of Breakout, the player moves a trampoline left and right to catch a bouncing clown who pops rows of balloons at the top of the screen with his head.
Dragon Dance is a 2000 action game for the Game Boy Color developed by Natsume Co., Ltd. and published in the United States by Crave Entertainment. The game is a paddle-and-ball game similar to the arcade video game Breakout.
References
- ↑ "Treasure Pack Hidden Surprise" Archived 2012-02-07 at the Wayback Machine . Blitwise Forums. August 15, 2006. Retrieved June 22, 2012.