Tuesday, August 21, 2012

AlphaBounce vs. Otaku-Ball

Just a minor update, but I wanted to point out that for anyone wondering, I am planning on developing a new breakout clone that you can play entirely for free. It's a tribute to many, if not all existing brick-breaking games. It will be entitled "Otaku-Ball".

Since I keep coming up with different concepts for it though as time passes, I eventually decided on dropping the AlphaBounce story mode since it contains roughly the same plot and characters. Why I had chosen to do such in the first place was that AlphaBounce's staff refused to upgrade the game further (unless it was to fix bugs) and remove some of the "stupid hard" parts of the game that would rape the knowledge one would have with vitally any other brick breaker. A thread I had started on the AlphaBounce forums regarding Otaku-Ball caught the attention of some, with negative reactions from two high-ranking players (one whom replied sarcastically), and a single positive voice from a lower-ranking someone. With the others however, they bashed the game, ignoring that it was a non-profit tribute/upgrade and said Otaku-Ball was a competitor to AlphaBounce. When I still had the chance, I tried telling everyone that despite the problems AlphaBounce may contain (in the eyes of a casual, at least, especially the hard as heck limited editor to unlock) I still enjoy playing it, though it only guarantees happiness on the right days. I also instructed those very few that actually came to enjoy the project's concepts to come on over to this blog just before I ended up getting a mild cease and desist from one of the board's moderators.

Otaku-Ball like I said, will be free to play, in that it contains block graphics and special gimmick blocks based on other breakout clones (drawn in a slightly upgraded Arkanoid style), and ship designs based on those featured in the Ricochet games. Since very few breakout clones to this day contain simple-to-use editors with a lot of features, the editor for this game will be the main selling point (without the actual selling). It will allow users to create single levels or entire level sets with support for up to 300 levels each across four dimensions/paths (thus allowing 1,200 levels per set, and that's not counting the special bonus stages you can scatter on the level set), and with the many features it'll contain, one can roughly make their own Breakout game with Otaku-ball. Users can upload, download, and share user-made levels at will with no limitations (however you cannot submit levels with NSFW content). Levelsets can also have boss fights scattered around (please no boss rushes; I promise such will be a bonus mode).

Why so many brick types will be present? Well let me ask you, do you want to create levels using features from breakout games without level editors and mix and match them to your liking? How about being able to make levels each having their own set playfield width (like one with a width of 18 blocks and another with 13)?

Aside from the main editor, a single player arcade mode (Plus available as co-op up to four players, local or online) with 648 available levels across 4 dimensions (162 levels per dimension, six of the levels in each dimension being boss levels). Over 60 enemy species across many Breakout clones will appear (once again, tribute, non-profit), and one can choose power up load outs (configuring which powerups can appear) that suit them the best incase playing with the possibly of gaining one of the many 130+ powerups proves to be too much. There is also a series of versus head-to head modes based on several Breakout variants released for the arcade, and these follow a quest-based format like the one established by the Puyo Puyo games.

I certainly hope this game being 100% free'll help in my defense. If anyone wants a list of planned power ups, I can post my current listing in the form of a text document.

P.S. Expect the same thing to happen to a Pac-Man fangame I'm going to create in the future. If Soap Creative cannot create "World's Greatest Pac-Man" even with me in the director's seat, I will.

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