(played as part of ATARI 50)
A real stroke of genius from the Apple Steves - they figured out one-player PONG! That was the idea, and that's what it is. Conceptually, it's a simple, but pretty brilliant solution to that little conundrum, nonetheless.
As a game, it could be tuned better to be more fun. The paddle should probably be a little bit wider and the speed of the ball shouldn't get so severe so fast - the difficulty curve is too steep to really get into it. But this is said without much understanding of the limitations of designing these early games, and more importantly, not knowing whether being "more fun" was really the goal (as opposed to "eat quarters"). Also, as with PONG, I'm sure this is a much different experience on real hardware with the real dial controller. Incidentally, the PS5 touch pad controls for this are actually really good and easily the best way to play it.
Fun fact: all these years of knowing Breakout and I never made the connection that it was about breaking out of jail. Duh!
A real stroke of genius from the Apple Steves - they figured out one-player PONG! That was the idea, and that's what it is. Conceptually, it's a simple, but pretty brilliant solution to that little conundrum, nonetheless.
As a game, it could be tuned better to be more fun. The paddle should probably be a little bit wider and the speed of the ball shouldn't get so severe so fast - the difficulty curve is too steep to really get into it. But this is said without much understanding of the limitations of designing these early games, and more importantly, not knowing whether being "more fun" was really the goal (as opposed to "eat quarters"). Also, as with PONG, I'm sure this is a much different experience on real hardware with the real dial controller. Incidentally, the PS5 touch pad controls for this are actually really good and easily the best way to play it.
Fun fact: all these years of knowing Breakout and I never made the connection that it was about breaking out of jail. Duh!