Just letting people know that there wont be more art submissions from me for a while due to my school project which involves creating the classic arcade game of breakout/arkanoid in the not so common game development language of visual basic. I may however post screenshots of the game. I might even upload the game when its done to a file hosting service to let you guys play it. In my opinion this is a form of art so I thought I would let you know.

Currently 2/3rds through development. 1100 + lines of code which is definitely the biggest project I have ever done.

The game has been developed by two friends and myself for our Advanced Higher Computing project.




I am in charge of level design so if you guys have any map suggestions or ideas feel free to send me them and I will try and test them all.

Simply create a notepad file and type something similar to the following

block,space,space,powerup,powerdown,explode,block,mirror,space,strong,space,block,
powerup,powerdown,space,powerup,powerdown,block,mirror,explode,space,block,space,space,

repeat until you have 16 rows 12 columns. You MUST include commas separating each word as this is the key used to separate entries in the 2d array and when you reach the final line, for the last entry do not include a comma after it as this will overflow the 2d array since its size is fixed. If this doesnt make sense then here is an example of last line

block,space,space,powerup,powerdown,explode,block,mirror,space,strong,space,block

Note this is the same as the the first example row I used earlier however the comma at the end of the line is missing.




Just so I have a record somewhere I will include all the current features and intended features in this entry.

Current Features
Artificial Gravity on ball - makes ball decelerate
Inertia/Momentum of pad meaning pad doesnt instantly stop when the mouse stops
Level making tool allowing players to create there own maps.
File handling involving converting a text file into a 2d Array.

Types of blocks
Normal
Strong - requires 3 hits to destroy
Explosive - destroys blocks above below to the left and right of th explosive
Powerup - When hit a powerup orb will appear and descened towards the pad
Powerdown - When hit a powerdown orb will appear and descened towards the pad
Invulnearble/Reflective - Ball only bounces of block

Types Of Powerup
MagnetPad - Ball sticks to pad allowing players to aim accurately
MultiBall - 2 extra balls are created
Shield - Barrier is placed at bottom of screen to prevent losing a life. Can take 3 hits
Point Boost - Points accumulated are doubled
Life Boost - Gain a life
Big Pad - Pad size increases
Slow Ball - Ball slows down

Types Of Powerdowns
XInvert - when a player moves there mouse to the left the pad moves right and vice versa
XtoY - when a player moves there mouse up and down the pad moves right and left however moving the mouse left to right does nothing
Point Drain - Halfs the amounts of points earned from destroying a block
Life Drain - Lose a life
Gravity boost - Gravity is increased on the ball making it decelerate faster
Small Pad - Pad decreases in size
Fast ball - Ball speed increases
Difficulty Boost - Gravity boost AND small pad AND fast ball are on

Features In development
Collision Detection
Explosive blocks to set of chain reaction when effect removes other explosive blocks