Beyond Classic DOS Games

Continuing my review of Totebo Flash games, I recently tried out Smashing. George Santayana famously wrote that, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This appears to be relevant here.

Smashing is a Breakout clone, and sadly, it’s one of the better ones. It’s sad that the game is one of the best of the genre because it isn’t very much fun. A history lesson is clearly in order.

In 1972, Pong became the first arcade machine to achieve significant commercial success, only a year after the first coin-operated arcade machines were invented. Pong required two players and was designed to be “so simple that any drunk in any bar could play.” It had the novelty of being new, but the lack of variation or complex gameplay eventually limited the replay value of the game. It also required two players.

In 1976, Breakout was released. It could be played by a single player, and the addition of a breakable wall added new dimensions of strategy and gameplay. A good strategy is to break a passage all the way through the wall on one side or the other, then send the ball up it and let it destroy the wall from the top. The only downside to this strategy is that the ball speeds up as it hits the blocks at the top, and it’s moving pretty fast when it finally comes back down. It was exciting, and it allowed players to compete with each other’s high scores, which was impossible in a game like Pong. The one fatal flaw of the game was that it could be incredibly difficult to hit the last block.

This flaw was passed along to future clones, such as Arkanoid in 1986. Arkanoid breathed new life into the genre by introducing new elements of gameplay, such as unbreakable blocks and blocks that required multiple hits to destroy, and various power-ups, such as multi-ball and laser beams. Most importantly, every level was different. Instead of repeating the same wall over and over forever, each level had the blocks arranged differently to change the strategy and keep the gameplay dynamic. It is also known as a ridiculously difficult game, mostly thanks to the unbreakable blocks. Breakable blocks are often shielded by unbreakable ones, and it can take forever to get the ball where it needs to be to clear out the screen. The game is so difficult that it just isn’t very much fun.

Then came Moraff’s Blast and Super Blast in 1991. A new “adventure” mode used a different layout in every level, and lots of helpful powerups, but the goal was no longer to clear the screen! Hitting every single block is simply too boring to complete an entire adventure like Arkanoid, so the goal in Blast was simply to hit one of the exit squares to get to the next level. Blast was a lot of fun, and is a gaming classic. Although to a much smaller extent, it still suffered from Breakout’s original Achilles heel: it could be incredibly difficult to hit that one exit square in a huge empty screen. The level design in all versions of both games was generally excellent, but there were a few levels that were just needlessly frustrating. There’s giving the player a challenge, and then there’s just wasting his time. Blast and Super Blast took multi-ball to a new level. Some levels were filled with power-ups that split the ball into 4 or 8 balls, and the screen could get filled with balls! Overall, both of these games were way more fun than every paddle game that had come before, and they remain classics of the genre.

Finally, in 1996, Psycon Software fixed the problem. Cybersphere was a revolution in the genre. Aside from featuring gorgeous graphics and great music, the big empty screen became a thing of the past. The blocks are brought closer to the paddle, making it easier to hit them, but maintaining the challenge because the ball bounces back much sooner. It also added angled corners, so that the ball could bounce off of them and back into the center. The angled corners and edges virtually eliminated the problem of hitting that one last block, and the genre was saved! Finally it was possible to have a game that had a variety of levels and power-ups for dynamic gameplay and excellent replay value, that had a high enough difficulty level to be challenging, but eliminated the tedious task of hitting a single block in a huge empty screen. New elements like invisible blocks and bonus screens also increased the challenge and fun factor of both games. Cybersphere and Cybersphere Plus are, to the best of my knowledge, the best Breakout clones of all time.

So, it’s 2007 or so, and Totebo decides to make a Breakout clone. It’s a good idea because it’s very easy to program (I had to make one in a high school computer class), and hours of gameplay can be created by simply designing new layouts. If done properly, this could potentially become my favorite Flash game ever. Hoping for hours of non-stop brick-smashing fun, I assumed that Totebo had learned from the mistakes of the past and made a game with all of the genre’s strengths and none of its weaknesses. I was quickly relieved of that delusion. (more…)

I liked Monkey Kick Off so much that I decided to try Zed yesterday. It’s an easy enough game that I can beat it without losing a single life, and yet it has a charm to it that I really enjoy. A game doesn’t have to be hard to be good. I like the fact that there’s a bit of exploration to it, which any good game should have. You should always throw in an Easter egg for players who enjoy the game enough to look for them. Let’s talk about the game.

So, this is Zed. Zed is an android who dreams of having a space suit made of gold. I don’t know why. It’s a good enough excuse for me to play a game. So, you’re a robot and you enter a gold mine that is full of monsters that look like dinosaurs. Good things include:

	200 points (103 in the game)
	500 points (105 in the game)
	800 points (30 in the game)
	Gold, mandatory, 3 per level
	Key to open a door (10)
	Energy, restores energy to 100% (6)
	Invisible, makes Zed invincible for a few seconds (2)
	Speed, makes Zed faster, jump farther (3: 2-1, 4-2, 10-1)
	Jump, makes Zed jump much higher (3: 5-3, 7-1, 8-1)

The effect of the Speed and Jump power-ups are permanent, but the abilities are lost when you lose a life.

There are six kinds of enemies. I don’t know what they’re really called, so I made up the names.

	Purple Walker, just walks back and forth (4 in the game)
	Red Walker, walks back and forth, breathing fire (3 in the game)
	Green Walker, walks back and forth, occasionally with a burst of speed (5 in the game)
	Purple Flyer, just flies back and forth in a horizontal line (2 in the game)
	Red Flyer, follows Zed and drops fireballs, can only move horizontally (2 in the game)
	Green Flyer, chases Zed horizontally and vertically, can fly through walls, has occasional bursts of speed (3 in the game)

The six monsters make their first appearance sequentially in the first six levels, in order of deadliness. Green Flyers are, by far, the most dangerous. Zed has no weapons, and the monsters can’t be killed or trapped. The only way to deal with them is to avoid them.

The game is a platformer, but not a sidescroller. That is, the screen doesn’t scroll; you move from screen to screen.

There’s really no way that I can write a whole post about this game without significant spoilers, so consider everything from here on covered by a spoiler warning. This is a complete walkthrough of the game. Codes for each level can be found in the screenshots. (more…)