Black Ball

Good game! I included it in my GM48: One Tool, Many Uses compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/i6dgliSj-A0

How really like how everything was made of triangles, I would just have hoped that the ball was more impacted by the position on your bar. Usually with breakout games the more you hit on the side, the more the ball bounces with an angle, and with triangles it should be the case even more.

Anyway good game overall, and the black ball upgrade was really satisfying.

Triangular bouncing is an interesting twist on the traditional ball breaker game. The mechanics felt really solid and when the ball bounced it was pretty predictable. However, I did manage to get the ball stuck between two walls, bouncing perfectly horizontal between them. Waited for about 30 seconds then had to restart. The sounds / music were really good. And for some reason, I really liked that simple depth particle background. Kinda loses points for me on theme though.

"There is an anti-stuck system to avoid the ball to bounce for eternity. Be carefull, when you think that the ball is stuck, it will not last long."

I once waited 2 minutes for the ball to get back to me...

And that sums up my issue with Black Ball. I kind of like breakouts game but here, the level design and ways for you to bounce the ball makes it more difficult (as in, slower) then your regular breakout. To be more specific:

• The ball sometimes has unexpected bouncing (not saying it's your fault or anything but it felt a bit strange and difficult to "aim"; maybe regular breakouts have "more simple bounce patterns")
• The level design is such that the ball has more opportunities to bounce for a long while (also triangle don't always help) LIke on the level 2, I wait a long moment (2 minutes) for the ball to come back. And when It came back, It again bounced for a moment (shorter though). So yeah, the game made me kind of impatient.. :/ Not bad though!

I read your Biography. I'm also the olny programmer in a team of 4 people working on a sci-fi game for more than one year. Maybe that's funny. Maybe I'm wierd.

Anyways, great game! You focused on making a fun rather than long experience and got some original mecanics even if the main mecanic is just brick breaker. The bouncing is well made and I hade no problem with the ball getting stuck.

The GUI was off when I activated fullscreen mode. It made the mouse collisions apart from the buttons and I couldn't see how many balls I had. If I turned fullscreen off was the bar offscreen so I had it on anyways. Can you tell me how you make fullscreen mode that way? Like, by clicking the corner button on the window.

Nice game and good music. Everything ran smoothly. I didn't use the power ups often other than the long paddle which came in handy. A couple of times the ball got caught in a near horizontal back and forth but the ball eventually got back into play. Good job.

Oooh, nice tutorial/title screen! Makes it look somewhat professional from the get-go. The music is pretty good too. I really like the idea of the ball getting faster when you hit it fast, it's too bad that there isn't a real reason to do it. The triangle bricks are also unique and add a slightly new twist on the breakout idea.

There are some things to improve, though. Trying to hit the last few bricks took me way too long (a common problem with breakout-style games, but a serious one). Another smaller thing is powerups could display a simple message somewhere telling you something like "XXXX Powerup received!", as I didn't understand what the red powerup did.

Solid game idea!

P.S. What if speeding the ball up to max caused "black ball" instead of waiting for a powerup? Could be interesting, and also then the game's name would fit better.