Oyster Arkanoid
Jakub has built an impressive portfolio of gorgeous designs for Web games that can be licensed and re-branded as advergames through Oystergames of Poland. He recently sent me links to a couple of his latest games, and while each one features somewhat common gameplay, the presentation and attention to detail is of the best I've ever seen in Flash.
Oyster Arkanoid is a superb remake of the classic game that is not only very beautiful to behold, it also plays well, too. The speed is a bit slower than many Flash action games, and it's no BreakQuest; but this version plays solidly in your browser and it offers an array of features that set it apart from other games like it.
For example, I especially like the balance of power-ups, as it seems to be just about perfect with respect to risk vs. reward. The variety of power-ups is fairly decent, too, though I feel there is room for even more. The wide screen play field is also a nice touch, as is randomizing the background color of each level. The sound design adds to the overall commercial and professional feel of the entire package.
On the downside, although the collision detection seems solid most of the time, once in a while (very infrequently) the ball collides with a brick that it didn't seem close enough to. Also, the mouse pointer remains visible and this can be distracting to some. However, hiding the mouse pointer may cause a different issue since the play field takes up the entire stage of the Flash movie. This causes Flash to stop receiving mouse events when the mouse pointer is dragged outside the boundaries, and this can lead to frustration when playing Flash action games. This problem can be somewhat mitigated by increasing the size of the stage relative to the play field, thus creating a stage border around the game.
Finally, there doesn't appear to be a way to quit without reloading the game, or to mute sound volume. Even with these minor issues, the game shines with polish in its present form. Relive this classic game in your browser and with style.
It's always nice being some of the first on a highscore list, but it's too bad I find these kind of games awfully boring.
Yay for us :) On the other hand, I found this version to be a little harsh when it came to meeting the paddle at the bottom. I dont know what it was but I seemed to lose a ball more often than other versions. *shrug. The pace was slow too and you could rarely get the ball to do anything exceptional like get into a corridor to wrack up a lot of points. :\
The main factors that make the paddle ball game interesting are the variety, frequency and duration of the power-ups. Lets face it, nobody wants to make the ball hit every single block, they want to feel like they cleared the level quicker than normal due to their outrageous luck of finding a really good powerup. And as soon as that powerup is lost, they want to find a new powerup that is even better. In fact, they want to strategically avoid the not-so-good powerups like multiball and choose the super power-ups like sticky ball or paddle lasers. In short, this version is lacking in frequent, longlasting, repeating powerups.
It has a nice feel to it, the nice feature that you can play on the browser. Anything is, it would be nice if the mouse pointer disappears!
All good fun up until level 10, where I died. I mean physically died. Out of boredom.
This is a wonderfull, wonderfull game. But I am afraid I must break charachter for a moment and tell you what I really think.
I hate you, Jay. You almost have twice as many points as me. Well, at least I have more points than you at accumulative games like Zwok and Stick Arena. Sadly though... it's still not enough. I think I'll play zwok for a while.
[)arn you and your delicious game playing abilities!
[)ARN THEM!!!
-MANAX
I could kick your butt at Ratchet&Clank though. Any day.
I'd just like to point out that there are hundreds of versions of this game (though this is one of the better designed ones), but 99% of them use the mouse to control the paddle. That makes the gameplay horrible on a tiny flash window. If your mouse happens to go off of the flash part, which is easy to do if you're not paying close attention and don't hold your mouse in the middle of the window, your paddle will cease to move and you'll lose a life. This game would be EXPONENTIALLY better if the keyboard arrows were used instead.
I did 84430...
I've found the weakness. The secret is on the level #9.
Unusual game for JIG in that this is just plain ol' pong. And slow pong at that. However, what's fun is reading Jay's review because it's always interesting to get a connoisseur's perspective and then allow that perspective to take something that I thought was mundane to open my eyes to unique parts that I would otherwise have missed.
Thanks Jay… I think. ;)
WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Your score is down, Jay
, but mine is UP!!! I didn't wanna be arrogant, though, so I represented you by putting MANAX_JIG.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
-MANAX
Argh ...
stupid game design,
i hate that ... i cant move the mouse down .
it makes me sick,always the same
hate it x[[[[[[
dda--
Is the level 9 secret the part where you get stuck in an endless loop with the ball bouncing in between the + shaped indestructible blocks and won't come out? If so, then I found it too. Too bad you don't get points for hitting indestructible blocks -- I'd be KING of this game.
Since the launch of the game, the level 9 changed 3 time. The secret is that the indestructible blocks get points if you use the fire ball.
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