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Arkanoid

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Arkanoid is an arcade game developed by Taito in 1986. It is a simplified clone of Sega's earlier arcade game Gigas and Gigas Mark 2 which were in turn based upon Atari's Breakout games of the 1970s.

Contents

Gameplay

The player controls a small pad, known as the "vaus" space vessel, which prevents a ball from falling from the playing field, attempting to bounce it against a number of bricks. The ball striking a brick causes the brick to disappear. When all the bricks are gone, the player goes to the next level, where another pattern of bricks appear. There are a number of variations (bricks that have to be hit multiple times, flying enemy ships, etc.) and power-up capsules to enhance the vaus (expand your vaus, multiply the number of balls, equip a laser cannon, break directly to the next level), but the main gameplay remains the same.

At round 33, the final stage, the player will take on the game's boss, "Doh". Once a player reaches round 33, he must defeat Doh with his remaining number of vauses in reserve; if not: game over. In other words, there are no continues on the final round.

Legacy

Because of the game's popularity, four versions of the game were developed for the coin-op market: Arkanoid, Tournament Arkanoid and Revenge of Doh (Arkanoid II) both in 1987 and Arkanoid Returns in 1997.

Many of the 8-bit computer ports (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC 464, Commodore 64, MSX, Atari 8-bit, Apple II) were very popular in Europe in the 1980s. Console ports on the NES and Game Boy were also popular and the game was also ported for 16-bit computers Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS and IBM PC. A Super NES version called Arkanoid: Doh It Again was released in 1997. Arkanoid Returns and a sequel, Arkanoid Returns 2000, were released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation. 16-bit versions had identical graphics as the arcade game. Commodore 64 conversion of Arkanoid is familiar to be the first game for that system to feature digitized samples used in music (that music was composed by Martin Galway). Computer conversions were published by Imagine.

Depending on machine, conversions used joystick, mouse or keyboard as a controller device. Mouse is generally considered as the best replacement for the original controller since it allows player to move bat at different speeds in a similar manner as the controller of the arcade game. The NES version of Arkanoid also boasted what's considered the rarest of all NES controllers, a small grey controller featuring one button, a small spinner, and the Taito logo, which is required to play of the game. Latter-day Mame cabinet developers have created customized spinner controls to further simulate the arcade experience, although the Arkanoid controller had quirks which have made it difficult to achieve 100% reproduction.

Arkanoid has remained a popular game and is commonly cloned by aspiring game developers in freeware and shareware titles. Many companies have also regularly cloned the game in video arcades. Arkanoids popularity led to it being featured in Rainbow Islands, which has a whole level (4 stages in all) dedicated to the game, including Doh as the level boss. Also, in some areas of ' and its Game Boy Advance remake , there are blocks inspired by Arkanoid which you must break through. However, Arkanoid'' and its sequels have not appeared on any of the recent Taito Memories or Taito Legends compilations – it has been claimed that this was due to legal action from Atari.

Trivia

Series

Arkanoid clones

Many clones of Arkanoid have been produced. The most famous Arkanoid clones are probably Krakout (1987), Traz (1988) and Krypton Egg (1989). Freeware game Bananoid got some attention on IBM PC due to its scrolling VGA graphics. Amegas (1987) on Amiga is historically very important since its music was the first piece of tracker/MOD music ever produced.

Since Arkanoid itself is a clone of Breakout, these games could also be called Breakout clones. However, the flood started with a conversion of Arkanoid, and many players in the late 1980s had not even heard of Breakout. Also, many of these games parodied Arkanoid directly, and thus included many features that appeared only in Arkanoid and not in Breakout.

1987

1988

1989 and later

Games Inspired by Arkanoid

Some game designers developed the game idea further, instead of just making a direct clone. For example, Light Corridor (1990) is a variant using 3-D graphics.

See also

External links

 

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