DX-Ball (PC)

While my father cleaned up stack of CD, i found an obscured stash yesterday. It contains game that simple yet addicting back in the day: Michael P. Welch's DX-Ball (1996)! 

DX-Ball is another arcade-y game developed by one man besides XQuest. Unlike XQuest, DX-Ball doesn't have main menu with options. It's just title, disclaimer, and gameplay hint like this. If you look closely on Level Warp icon, you should have an idea what's this game all about. Press left mouse button to start, by the way.    

 

Yes, it's Breakout-clone. Hold on! Don't walk away, yet! [You may insert Electric Light Orchestra's 'Don't Walk Away' music here]. There's significant difference in this 1st level than Breakout. I'm not talking about the shape of bricks there. I'm talking about those glowing-yellow bricks. They're explosive brick that when get hit will explode and destroy other bricks around it. You can probably guess if i hit the outer most explosive brick, explosive chain will occur. It's like exploding barrel chain in 'Barrels 'O Fun' map in Doom 2 albeit without harmful cause on player. 

Demoman_specialcompleted11.wav. Beautiful, isn't? Anyway, about the control. It uses mouse but you can't move the paddle up or down, only left and right. Left mouse button to serve the ball at the starter of the stage. There's no mouse sensitivity setting but i feel the paddle's control is just enough. Not sluggish but also not slippery. It's just enough for you to control well.

On next stage, the bricks shape like heart. Isn't that sweet? And i will destroy it with the help of that explo-...what the hell? There's surprise bricks (that initially invisible and make broken glass sound when get hit) protect the explosives. This surprise method do them a favor because i lost my life (or to be more accurate ball) because of it. Fortunately there's a 1up ready to pick up. My life will be replaced if only i can get the 1up without losing my ball.

Eventually, i clear the bricks with the help of explosion chain but not all. Here we get the usual problem  on most Breakout games: picking up the last pieces. It's bit frustrating but manageable thanks to the ball control. Most of you probably know that you can control the ball's bounce based on the position of it lands on paddle. For example, if the ball lands on left from the center of the paddle, it will bounce to left. Also you can adjust the angle based on distance between the landing position and the center of the paddle. Do you see that yellow bricks? They're used to be pink brick with yellow outline (see previous screenshot). This kind of brick can only be hit once by your ball and later becomes indestructible, except if you hit it with explosion. But you don't need to destroy it completely to finish the stage.

Bad news to those who has arachnophobia because bricks in 3rd stage takes forms of spider! But don't worry! I will get rid of them. First, i need to aim for that explosive center legs...

Ach! I should know. They're protected by the surprise brick, again. But the ball bounces to ceiling which means good. Also there's 1down icon come to me but i can dodge it just fine.   

There goes its right leg, mostly. You should know that the red pickup is bad. In this case, this pickup will make the bricks go down and eventually kill you! Avoid this bastard thing at all cost.     

I picked power up that will make my ball passes through brick! But as if my luck doesn't feel enough of itself, a 'slow ball' power up appears. Speaking of it, there's a small chance that the bonus item will appears when you destroy a brick. On theory, breaking massive amounts of brick like this will net bigger chance to spawn more items. But in practice, there's only like 1-2 item that will spawn if you do massive demolition like this. I think, the bonus item will spawn more if you destroy the bricks one or two at a time than dozen in one go like this.

There's tiebreaker if a stage takes too long to finish: the ball will move faster everytime you manage to bounce it. At maximum speed, the ball will leaves a spark upon deflect on the paddle. But fortunately, i grabbed 'longer paddle' power up. There's adjustment on ball deflection control based on how long the paddle is. Meaning the paddle has lesser angle sensitivity than in normal size.

On next stage, the bricks make form of shooting target and i bet there's surprise brick surround those explosive bricks.

Really now? Yes, i expected the presence of surprise bricks but not by dozens like this! By the way, i happen to pick a power up that can hit all surprise bricks (and also make the indestructible bricks into normal orange bricks) by once thus mitigating the surprise element.

 

This time i happen to pick power up that will make the ball into small meteor that will creates explosion upon contact with the brick. Soldier_KaBoomAlts01.wav

I'm on my last live but my luck grows stronger in this dire time. My paddle turns into UFO that has ability to shoot the bricks from its both end by pressing left mouse button (which also the button to serve). That icon up there will multiply the explosive bricks to 4 main directions. As the explosive bricks here is only 4 left, the power up feel less useful now but still useful nonetheless.   

Oh, come on! There's only 2 bricks left. But i'm about to catch 'next level' power up anyway. Medic_thanksfortheteleporter01.wav

I really want to go next level despite the fact that i'm down to my last paddle. Strangely, that's when my skill/luck shines the most. Not even that 'small ball' icon can prevent me from going to next stage!

I happen to pick another 'shooting mode' power up plus piercing ball which results in bullets that can goes through bricks. Heavy_specialweapon09.wav     

This can be tricky. The indestructible bricks are on the front line and no. We're too good to know that there will be surprise bricks that protect the explosive ones. It's getting old.

I manage to get power up that detonate the explosive remotely and another 'shooter paddle' power up. Everything looks fine...until i miss the ball because i want to pick that 'exploding ball' power up. Silly me.

At least i got 13,492 scores. That's not bad, i think. Let's see the top score!

Not even the lowest top score. Sniper_jeers01.wav

Just so you know that WLS is the initial of my real name and it's on the highest position (also the lowest). How the mighty has fallen.

 

Michael P. Welch's DX-Ball (1996) is huge step up on its genre, that goes the same with Super Ping Pong. The gameplay has simple core and just enough extra to make it very interesting. Although surprise brick deployment feels getting old throughout the game. Later level will introduce you with brick that require 2-3 hits to destroy. The bonus items are welcome addition to the game, they can be either helpful or "challenging".  There's also stacking effect on power up. For example: 'The ultimate mini meteor' can be obtained if you get both 'exploding ball' and 'piercing ball' power up. The explosive bricks also welcome addition to the game. The paddle control is good and responsive. While the ball control is quite okay. There's no music but the sound effect is bombastic and great like in XQuest. There's a bit problem on this game: when explosions happen, the framerate drops but it's down to me who can't adjust the display setting for my relative modern laptop. It works fine in my old laptop that use Windows XP OS. 

I think i can recommend you to play DX-Ball (1996) especially if you like Breakout genre. It's fairly great Breakout clone that's made by one man. It's perfect mini game to pass your time. I almost forget that you can pause the game with 'P' key. You don't want to keep bounce the ball while ignoring your bladder's problem, do you?