Dark Ball 2.1

[Fou-Lu]

Hi everybody

I've being working on a game for some years now. Little by little I finally finished it, I really hope you enjoy it. It's an arkanoid-like game, heavily inspired in DX-Ball, but with lots of new features.

You'll find the download link in my blog: http://nebulaflare.blogspot.com
As I upload it to other sites I'll put all the links there.

Before I describe it better, I want to thank all of you from the forums who always gave me precious tips which helped me a lot! And I am not talking only about this game!

Now, the game features:

*Over 200 levels, with various kinds of bricks to create all kinds of challenge;
*More than a hundred different power ups;
*Bosses (tough ones, I must say );
*5 different level sets, each with its own rules;
*Save the game anytime you want (even during a boss fight).

For those of you who want to know a bit more about the game's history:

It wasn't until last month that I updated from PureBasic version 3.93, because I was afraid there could be some kind of incompability! XD
If you are wondering about Dark Ball 1, well, it was never put for download, since I wasn't satisfied with the game. It got its name from the editor I used for the first game, DarkBASIC.
You will notice Dark Ball 2 has some weird story in the beginning. That's because many people who played the first game complained this kind of game is senseless since there is no proper ending. I can guarantee you will see a nice ending. If you ever manage to finish it, that is.

[Num3]

Love Arkanoid style!

Already downloading (87Mb for those interested).

[swan]

Crashes on loading. Vista 64

[netmaestro]

Very well done! Works to perfection on Win7 w/onboard intel video. Impressive game and belongs on the Purebasic.com showcase.

[Num3]

Impressive indeed!

So many details coded.

I love the water shine effect on the main menu, and the plasma effects on the 'no boundaries' mode!

I don't like the fact i can't go very far on any game mode :$ .

In my opinion the the levels should ramp up in difficulty a bit slower.

My favorite game mode is with no boundaries!

I really did not understand the instructions on how to build specials :$ (i can do the LMB and RMB thing, but nothing really happens), most of the times the bonus on the dock just get's replaced by the new one i picked up...

All in all, it's a huge and fun game!

Congratulations!

[Fou-Lu]

@swan: Indeed, I coundn't test it on a 64bit OS. But now that you mentioned that, I think that somewhere in the code I use a "Sizeof()" in a place I was sure of the number of bytes I was getting. Could I ask you your e-mail, so that I can send you just a corrected .exe? (which is less than 1Mb ) If it works I'll upload it again.

@netmaestro: Thanks a lot! I would love to see it there! ^_^

@Num3: Thank you :>

It's funny how you like the one with no bounds, it's the one I like the least XD My favorite is the one with the falling bricks.

The trick with the power ups is that you can only fuse the grey ones. But when they are there in the dock they won't do anything You have to hold RMB and left click, they will fall, then you just grab them!

About the difficulty, I'll think about something to make the first levels easier. Let me know if you have any sugestions.

[Thorium]

Works on my 64bit system, Win 7 x64.

Nothing much to say about the game, it's just awesome. Definitly one of the best Breakout clones out there.

[Kuron]

I am downloading it now, but probably won't have a chance to try it out until this weekend. I absolutely love the leprechaun shot.

Actually, from looking at the shots, you gave me an idea for a somewhat original them for a "breakout game" although there are some serious logistics I will need to work out. Thank you for the inspiration.

[Num3]

About the difficulty, I'll think about something to make the first levels easier. Let me know if you have any sugestions.

IMHO, make them easy by placing some unbreakable bricks on the bottom line, and place the 1st bricks high enough so you can warm up your mouse throttling and takes more time for the ball to hit something...

Over the next levels start bringing the bricks down and removing ubreakable's.

[luis]

Hi Fou-Lu, just tried it on XP SP3 with nVidia 9800 GT / AMD X2

The game is really nice, congratulations

It's quite difficult and you certainly spent a lot of time in devising all the game mechanics, awesome work.

Only thing I noticed is the frame rate in my case it's sometimes inconsistent. One time the scrolling text in the "choose your path" section were jumpy. After some back and forth between menus they started to be smooth. The same happens ingame, sometime is just like a cpu hungry process was launched in background, this happens for a couple of seconds and then all is back to normality.

The system is able to play other games without this problem, always smoothly.

Apart that, very very nice indeed.

On a side note, in the introductory text: "ressurrected" should be "resurrected" and "blured" should be "blurred" if I'm not mistaken.

Is this all written using the 2d commands from PureBasic ?

[djes]

Really nice job, but so hard!

[Num3]

After a *few* hours of game play i've mastered it...

Save and skip level truly are a must

[swan]

I got it going on my system by fooling around with my video settings (so it wasn't a 64 bit issue).
I have two video cards driving three monitors, and that was the problem.
I notice putting the game in windowed mode isn't an option until the first menu. Perhaps if this was an option earlier it wouldn't be a problem with setups like mine. I always select windowed with games like this because of the unpredictability.
I play very few games on the computer except for classics like this. Great work ...

[OldSkoolGamer]

I had the game crash on me on the continue screen the second time I only had 1 blessing remaining & when I clicked to use it the game crashed back to desktop. Windows 7 home premium 64-bit

[Fou-Lu]

Thanks for trying it out guys

And I was really worried about the 64bit issue, now I'm just wondering how functions like ReadLong() and PokeL() behave on a 64bit system :\

@Kuron: Isn't he cute? And you're welcome! Now you made me really curious XD

@luis: It's funny, that's also happenend to me before (It usually happens when I test it on my laptop without plugging the power cable). There is no thread running in the background, I'm still looking at the code to find what might be causing it. And thanks for correcting the text, I totally missed that XD And it was written using the 2d functions from purebasic, but only for the 100% 2d stuff. The 3d sprites are draw using DirectX7 functions.

@Num3: I see how placing the bricks higher would make it easier, but what do you mean by "placing some unbreakable bricks on the bottom line". I've already done that in some levels and it usually makes them way harder! Could you detail it a bit more?

@swan: Ok then, I'll make windowed the default mode and put a ".config" file in the game folder so that the user can change the settings without needing to start the game.

@OldSkoolGamer: Do you remember which blessing was it, and which path you were in?

I'll wait a bit more before uploading it again, since the file is 87mb But I'm working on all the issues you related, just tell me if you think something should be corrected!