I've been working on this project for a few weeks now, I haven't posted about it because I didn't wanna abandon it after a week and leave people hanging. But I've been revving it up on twitter (not that anyone cares there xD) and posting on my game blog about it, so here's hoping!

For those who never played a breakout style game here's a wiki.

Basically you move a bar back and forth to hit a ball and it hits blocks for points....There's a little more to it than that but that's the basic idea. xD

My old style was trying to be kinda woodsy like and fantasy but I didn't like it and I went with a more "sleek" style for graphics.


Here's a level that might end up in the Demo.


This is how the power-ups I have so far work in a nutshell.


I learned what a feature does, now when a bomb hits the bar (which takes points btw) you get an explosion effect.






I posted some blog posts that would show the evolution of it thus far, if anybody wants to read them.

Post one: "annoucement"
Style establishment
Some updates
Establishing a points-system
Power-ups


Enjoy!


~ God Bless ~

~ Moko

Neat! I like breakout type games. Will there be a mobile version?

Cool,
did you hear about Google's Deep Mind playing 49 Atari games on its own?
One of the games is a breakout kind a game and after 600 times playing it managed to come up with strategies to trap the ball up top where it can accumulate the most points.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-02/25/google-deepmind-atari
read the article if you like, or you can skip to and scroll down to the 2nd youtube video and watch it learns and gets better after plays.

I didn't, maybe I'll take a look.



I wish. I can't with GameMaker 8.0, in 8.1 I could for Andriod but I'd have to buy 8.1 and it costs a lot of money and I can't afford it. :\

So far I've found it's harder to make money on Android markets than iOS. GM looks pretty expensive... $300 just for the Android module!

See what I mean. A friend gave me his version so I don't have to pay for it...and that was over a year ago so mine is outdated. If I ever went out and got good enough to make money, I'd for sure buy it but for now I'll use the gift version to learn.

I made a logo for this finally and named it. It will be called Blox (pronounced blocks).



Topic for the logo here

Also....


Hear'ye Hear'ye Read all about it here.

As neat as the level designs are, I wonder if they're too big. How long is it going to take to clear a screen? I did an image search on "breakout clone", and most of the screens are substantially smaller.

Your designs are colorful and intricate. I think they'll help your game stand out from the others. But, I'd suggest scaling the number of bricks down considerably.

Hmm...Well I made big because if I make it full screen everything will look REALLY blurry and I don't want to make everything in windowed mode...you think in this case it's a bad idea...?

I think you'll get the best possible answer by making one test level and rounding up a few good playtesters --people who would be willing to give honest critique. Does GM have a reliable user forum?

I don't think the size of the level is the main issue--rather, it's time (which correlates with the size of the level). For example, I did a little research and found Arkanoid has about a 10-hour gameplay time with 35 levels. That works out to about 17 minutes per level on average--but that will have to include time to start over due to losing, etc.

You can divide those 10 hours however you want. But, if a player almost gets to the end of a long level, then loses, he/she is more likely to get frustrated.. and possibly quit. You want the player to feel like they're making progress, which will keep them hooked and wanting to play the next level.

Another possibility would be to consider some power-ups that increase the power of the ball: a bigger ball that can destroy multiple bricks at once, a ball that just zips right through them, or bombs.

I have some of those power ups and things already it's showed in the first post.
But I get what you mean, I'm sure there are a lot of people like my mother, loose once and the game's no fun. xD
Joking aside they have a good forum but since I didn't buy gamemaker myself I don't want them to say I can't post my games and maybe make my games "blacklisted". As I said it was given to me by a friend.

same aspect ratio but I made the level smaller within...I think I like this better looks more secure or something.

In terms of size and playability, the latest screen looks better. The older screens were more whimsical, though, and I have to say I miss that.

I've got a lot of updates since I posted here, I've written about them here.
I've got some screenshots though.













Well I've edited the levels I made so they still have most of the original look.

I personally think the image for the bat is a bit too plain and generic. I think it needs to stand out from everything else that is going on. More along the lines of this:



I created it at a fairly large canvas, but it can be downscaled:



I agree with the other comment, your revised levels look better than the initial ones.

Thanks! I was thinking about changing it but wasn't sure. Maybe I will.