Posted By
Csabo
on 2021-10-08
09:54:24
|  Arkanoid +4!
 Arkanoid, the massively successful block-breaker game - originally released by Taito in 1986 - arrives to the Plus/4! KiCHY maestro's the tech-demo that you may have seen in CD5 is now a standalone, fully playable game.
Based on the actual arcade version, the game boasts smooth gameplay with scoring and bonuses, 32 levels, bossfight, faithful music and sound effects, intro and more. This is not one to be missed, fire up the old iron (or an emulator) and start playing!
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Posted By
Luca
on 2021-10-08
09:54:24
 | Re: Arkanoid +4!
Sexy object of desire since years, it's now here! Delicious achievement KiCHY and Csabo, all the time passed to wait for this has been well spent! Playing it, I collected several curiosities about it to be solved spealing with the authors, but that's for another time: now it's time to play this real gem!
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Posted By
Ati
on 2021-10-08
10:27:03
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
One new game every week. It’s ok. 
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Posted By
MIK
on 2021-10-08
18:26:46
 | Re: Arkanoid +4!
WOW! Awesome work guys. Big surprise and many thanks. It was looking sweet and then level 4 was like - WOW!
Level 15 was the last level I remember making a note of, I might of got to level 16 but as I only had 2 lives left I was more worried about surviving. 
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Posted By
aNdy/Cosine
on 2021-10-08
11:58:58
 | Re: Arkanoid +4!
Looks gorgeous! That's my evening sorted, thanks very much!
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Posted By
retroscener
on 2021-10-08
17:04:49
 | Re: Arkanoid +4!
Oh wow. I never expected this. An actual conversion rather than a C64/Speccy port. The closest we had was Arthur Noid. Well sadly it's still the closest for the unexpanded C16 as this beats it by miles. Great graphics and sound but most of all the playability is spot on. Great job
As I have joystick adapters, I assume that our systems are not compatible with a NEOS/Commodore mouse nor Commodore/Atari paddles? Worried it may damage the TED and I wouldn't know if this conversion supports it anyway.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2021-10-08
18:23:56
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
That mini Arkanoid logo and the blue fading behind it on the cheat screen is awesome. Keep looking at it and try to see the blue fade as a floor like in Space Harrier, Trailblazer. And like magic the logo starts floating above it!
Maybe it was intended that way all along and I'm just blind but still... It's very cool.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2021-10-09
04:28:59
 | Re: Arkanoid +4!
Wow, such a nice and polished game again! You did not tell it is already Christmas!
Wonderful conversion, the graphics and music are ace, and the gameplay is fluid. 10/10!
Not to mention the perfect SW-sprite (was not realized in the Artur Noid, though that was a very decent and funny game too).
Thank you for all the joy!
PS: did you know, that the Arkanoid intro SID music had an alternative version with very strong drums? With headphones it is a great experience.
Martin Galway just learned the digi sound at that time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XjmFzuyirc
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Posted By
MIK
on 2021-10-09
09:14:28
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
@MMS If you like bass also try C64 Shadow of the Beast death scene game over tune, 64c SID for best results. As for Mr Galway, it is said his works sounded very different on his own machine to what everyone else got to hear. If I remember correct when they went to make direct recordings for a CD all his stuff was on a C128D. Kind of impossible everything was done on that as the C128 was late to the party, but yeah as they say or did 20 years ago that no two SID's (from the bread bin era) sound the same.
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Posted By
Degauss
on 2021-10-09
18:24:29
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
Holy Cow! This is a very truthful adaption. Very very well done!
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Posted By
Mad
on 2021-10-10
16:29:22
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
Seems to be the most faithful adaption on 8 bit homecomputers? It was already stunning on Crackers Demo and now that Csabo and Kichy completed it one of the technically most impressive games I know on plus/4.. Ah music is also exceptionally awesome + sfx + very nice gfx adaptions! Thanks for this impressive gem!
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Posted By
MMS
on 2021-10-10
17:10:36
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
@MIK Thanks for the info, it resulted a new picture too 
PS Arcanoid +4 is a TOP game ! (Why it did not came out in 1985??? Could be a game-changer)
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Posted By
GeTE
on 2021-10-11
02:33:48
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
Oh no, not yet! That was too early ... :,-(
Even Digital Ball looked even better than some Breakouts I played on the Amiga, but the problem had always been, that Breakouts are so much more fun to be played with a proportional mouse.
I thought Kichy had suspended the work on Arkanoid and I have all the time of the world to build (with much help from some friends) a prototype-serial-mouse to use with the plus/4-userport as described in some drafts:
https://www.forum64.de/index.php?thread/103289-anschluss-einer-serial-maus-am-plus-4-user-port-umsetzung-einer-bisher-nur-theor/
I always wanted to send some of them to him for reasons of re-motivation. Might be to late now ... well, but what about supporting a 1351 connected to the NST-Sound-Adapter (or the new batch of CSA comming soon)? That would even be a great gaming experience!
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Posted By
retroscener
on 2021-10-11
03:59:04
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
@GeTE
I don't see why it would be too late. It could just be added as an extra download for mouse support if he's still willing to work with you on it. Is there another way it could be added for C16 owners? Maybe through a special adapter through the joy port? Same for paddles, unless paddles are already ok to use.
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Posted By
Orion70
on 2021-10-11
08:34:01
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
No direct link to the game in this thread, please modify the one pointing to the Wikipedia entry in the first post and in homepage
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Posted By
Luca
on 2021-10-11
09:29:16
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
Orion70, click on the picture and get used to check deeper the new articles (joking, of course, thank you for the comment ).
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Posted By
Mad
on 2021-10-11
12:28:37
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
Not 100% sure of my memories on that topic.. But I remember playing Arkanoid in the Arcade via some sort of Trackball? So maybe this mouse approach would be awesome for the game.. And if you turn the mouse.. then..
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Posted By
MIK
on 2021-10-13
16:07:26
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
The lack of an obvious direct link is for a reason..., if Taito come looking there is nothing to find.
@Mad Arcade had a tracker ball yes. My memory is bad these days but for Ted machines I believe it's a no go via the joyports as the C64 uses some analog line that the paddles use and that's something we don't have.
In my opinion there are not enough pixels on screen for 8bit machines to make overall worthy use of the mouse in games like Arkanoid as Arthur Noid proved, and ZX Spectrum is maybe the best 8bit computer for Breakout games when it comes to speed & smoothness yet that never needed a mouse. C64 Arkanoid isn't as good as it should of been when it comes to the way it plays via joystick and could of been miles better when you start looking at other similar games. That's my take any way.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2021-10-11
15:33:29
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
OFF: (topic: a mouse controlled Arkanoid +4)
Paddle is really the best for it, but certainly mouse is great too.
The RS232 mouse project was mentioned on the German forum. It is BSZGG's project, I just tried to document it, including the missing schematics (kind of). The original prototype is still there at BSZGG, and I think it is a great project from him.
Colaholiker mentioned, that the Rx and Tx signals should be swapped for the mouse.
Actually I do not have any problem with a fact, that I could make a mistake (and the documentation need correction), but I do not see the problem with the logic on the schematics.
Actually as seen on the Max232 circuit diagram, the Tx in an TTL level output signal from the MAX232 board, even the arrow shows it. So, it should be sent to the User port's pin, that is expecting to receive some TTL level data, so it should be an INPUT line.
RxD of the User Port (Pin C) means Receive Data.
I think this is the way the RS232 incoming coordinate could be translated. Max 232 converts it to TTL level, sends it out via Tx from the board, and C+4 receives it via the RxD data input line.
Maybe a HW guru could tell me, where is the bad logic with this setup. If I am wrong, then certainly I will swap the Rx and Tx usage on the MAX232 board in the documentation, it is easy just swap the Dupont cables. I found it illogical to connect two output line to each other, then they will send data to each other without listening by anyone. But maybe I was wrong.
In fact there is no need to use the Plus/4 output port (TxD=Transmit data) in this setup but for the sake of completeness I connected the User Port TxD to the input line of the Max232 board (Rx), as shown on the schematics, it is an input line of the board.
I think as a scene activity could be an optimized driver, but at least (for compatibility) to agree on the RAM address is should put the coordinates and the mouse button position (a zero page unused location).
I could upload BSZGG's resident driver and his BASIC code. It should work, but do not respect any othe rpogram, and it load the coordintaes to an address at the middle of the memory. I tryied to make an optimized version that may fit into the zero page, but I failed.
About coordinates:
It should be easy to decode and use them. I think a lot about that, and I think 8 bit (0-255) for the X coordinates could be enough, I mean 1 byte is enough for 0-159 position, X coordinate (in multicolor all the pixel positions). Certainly 200 vertical position will fir into 1 byte too.
It sounds a little unconvenient on Hires screen that it may jump with this approach two pixels at the same time, but I think higher precision is not really required, especially if you use it for a GUI surface handling, or playing a game. Only hires drawing progarm and GEOS Paint could use higher resolution X coordinate.
The 9th bit could make all possible horizontal positions to be covered, but could make the program reading and using these coordinates more complex.
I mean reading out 1 byte for X, and 1 byte for Y position is easy. Software sprites typically used in multicolor modes.
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Posted By
Lavina
on 2021-10-13
04:30:38
 | Re: Arkanoid +4!
Just wow! Very polished experience.
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2021-10-13
06:41:55
 | Re: Arkanoid +4!
Calm down, we're already testing a paddle connected to the NST Sid Card
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Posted By
carrion
on 2021-10-13
09:56:35
 | Re: Arkanoid +4!
Congratulations guys! This looks and sounds so good!
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Posted By
Luca
on 2021-10-13
11:09:43
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
I second carrion's words: it's the kind of cool job we like to, keep the great work Chronos!
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Posted By
MIK
on 2022-11-01
16:51:41
| Re: Arkanoid +4!
It's the season for Arkanoid, not that you would know it was... :D
The Arcade version has been on the Egret ii mini for a while costing around 300-400 pounds for those crazy enough to buy it.
That said, this weekend (Oct 2022) saw the release of Arkanoid Eternal Battle on Nintendo Switch. It also has the classic arcade as an option to play which by my reckoning makes it officially the first time it's come home in arcade form, (on something not made by Taito)!
For me this is the first time I have ever played the arcade version. Sadly your forced to play it in some fake looking arcade machine and the screen has been curved to make it look more like an old CRT, no sodding options for full screen. And it's not so easy to play with a twitching thumbstick as it's fast and gets faster quick lol. It's cool of course but frustrating as you want to do better, 50k so far.
One thing I will say, the gate that allows you to skip to the next level doesn't come up that often in this version so maybe the Plus/4 version is a bit too friendly handing them out. ;)
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