Fugdale’s Funhouse

Object: Break all the bricks on each level with your bouncing ball.

Review: This game uses the same concept of games such as Break-out, Arkanoid and Colibricks. You control a paddle and bounce a ball on it to break the bricks laid out in the course. The bricks in turn will spit out objects which, if caught by your paddle, give you special abilities like super speed, invincibility or multiple balls.

This game provides a lot of new twists on the layout, the paddle and the items you get. First off, the paddle has a curved shape, like a bow pulled back ready to shoot an arrow. Your ball seems to bounce in the direction of the curve where ever it makes contact with the paddle.

The game also provides inventive brick layouts on each level. Sometimes you get a pyramid of stacked bricks, other time you get bricks that move around. Many times you will have white bricks which you can’t break with your normal ball. You must break a few non-white bricks to get special items in order to break the white bricks, otherwise they just serve as obstacles. One of the early courses features just two yellow bricks you must break, but they constantly move and have white bricks surrounding them, making them almost impossible to get to. Some bricks must get hit several times in order to break them, other bricks will fade in and out and can only be removed when visible.

The courses have extra features, such as rounded bumpers on the sides and top of the screen which periodically emerge and send your ball careening in various directions and some screens feature magic tele-porters which warp your ball to other areas of the screen. You have to think fast to see where your ball will end up.

Numerous special items fall from the broken bricks. These include items which allow you to fire bullets that break any brick (even the white ones) or items which change the size of your paddle or the speed and size of the ball. One item causes your ball to shoot bullets out in all directions. You also have a bomb item which allows you to blow up large chunks of bricks at once. Special dragon items allow you to shoot lighting or fire. Other items make your ball burn a straight path through the bricks without bouncing. The game seems to have about 15 different items and they fall so rapidly you can’t possibly catch them all.

These features make the game a lot of fun to explore, especially if you love the ball and paddle genre of games. But the game has a few minor annoyances. The cursor arrow stays visible. This diminishes the illusion that you are controlling the paddle as opposed to the cursor. Additionally, the game has a little bit of a lag or stutter, so sometimes the paddle skips over a bit and you miss the ball. Luckily, if you lose all three available lives, the game allows you to continue from the current level, so these stutters don’t ruin the game.

If you enjoy this game, leave a comment and tell everyone how you did. Also check out these previous posts for other ball and paddle games:

7 Ball and Paddle Games You Won’t Want to Miss
Mmeoww - Game Review

Object: Bounce your ball to the exit.

Review: Amberial, created by OddGoo, has a really fun and interesting interface. You only use two keys A & D (or the right/left arrow keys) to move your ball across a series of platforms, springs and other devices, while avoiding obstacles or falling into the pit below each level. Most of the dangerous items are red, but often you have to touch red platforms so you can’t always use color as an indicator.

The ball’s physics cause it to move downward with gravity into a state of rest. You are not able to bounce it or float it using the keyboard, so you have to propel yourself off the edge onto other platforms to bounce higher. Sometimes you need to drop off the screen entirely to a different section to find the platforms or springs you need to get higher. The general physics of the ball feel fairly realistic, but not as strict as real gravity. You are able to change the direction of the bounces in mid-air, which allows you to target where you land a bit better than an actual ball bouncing down a track. This provides enough control that you won’t be frustrated with too many restarts.

The game consists of a series of levels mapped out on a master track. Along the way, you will have choices as to which level to play next, so if you get frustrated with one level you can often take an alternate route. In each level, you will find a letter ‘A’. If you can navigate your ball to hit the ‘A’ you will collect it (you only need to do this once regardless of how many times it takes to reach the exit). Collect enough ‘A’s and you will be able to access three bonus levels at the end of the map. As you play each level you will see a check-mark appear or an ‘A’ appear indicating that you’ve either completed the level or found the ‘A’ or both.

One slightly frustrating thing is when you die, you get booted out to the map screen and have to click to get back to the course. But, this is a minor gripe and being booted allows you to change levels if you so choose. Other than that, this game rocks with its smooth game-play, challenging (but not impossible) levels, atmospheric music and sound effects and its original graphics design and physics implementation. Most people will be able to complete all levels with a little persistance.