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Powernoid is my homage to the Amiga family of comuters. It's a Breakout clone with powerup features. This game was inspired by MegaBall, a game I use to play on the Amiga CD32 which also inspired DX-Ball for Windows.
Powernoid is coded from scratch. The program itself is entirely my original work with the exception of the Intrafont library by BenHur used for printing text to the screen, and sounds that were scavenged from various free sources on the internet, and In game music by Drax.
The idea is to destroy all bricks on each level by hitting the ball toward them with the paddle. As the player progresses through the levels, some powerups are available to make this job easier. Some bad powerups also make the game harder! 100 points is also awarded for hitting a powerup brick.
Unlike the games mentioned above, powerups in this game remain active as the player progresses through stages, and can accumulate, but all powerups are reset when a life is lost.
The player begins the game with three lives, each of which is lost when a ball is missed. The game is over when all three lives are lost. An extra life can be gained by hitting an extra life powerup brick. One will randomly appear in any 1 of the 15 stages, and another will appear in one of the first five stages. Both appear in a random position on the third row of bricks.
In any stage when only one brick is left on the screen, a timer begins. If the timer reaches a set time before the last brick is hit (approximately 10 seconds), the brick will explode, and 100 points will be awarded. You may like to avoid hitting the last brick in any stage to achieve this goal.
Powernoid was tested with 3.52 M33 firmware, but is expected to work with any homebrew firmware.
Controls are simle. Move the paddle left or right with either the analogue stick or the D pad. You can fire missiles with the Cross button if the missile powerup is active. You can pause the game and see the score at any time by pressing the HOME button. This actually pauses the game for a little even after you select "No" and return to the game, so you are not unfairly caught off guard when the game restarts.
Cheats!!! There are a couple of cheats used for development have been left in the released version of the game. If you press Up and Triangle at the same time, every good powerup will be activated at once. If you press Up and Circle at the same time, both bad powerups will be activated at once. Any high scores achieved with these cheats will not be saved to the Memory Stick.
Tip!! If you hold left just before stage 6 or 15 start, you will avoid the ball hitting red bricks right away. YOu still need to avoid them for the rest of the stage though!
Cheers, Art.
bmar8190@bigpond.net.au
Powernoid V4e (07/02/09): Black and white death screen implemented to fall in line with the Windows DX-Ball game. Last brick blows up if it is in play for too long to fall in line with Windows DX-Ball game. Some code optimisation.
