
Powernoid V4e - Art 2009!


Hi Guys,

Powernoid is my homage to the Amiga family of comuters. It's a Breakout clone with powerup features.
This game was inspired by MegaBall, a game I use to play on the Amiga CD32 which also 
inspired DX-Ball for Windows.

Powernoid is coded from scratch. The program itself is entirely my original work with the exception
of the Intrafont library by BenHur used for printing text to the screen, and sounds that were
scavenged from various free sources on the internet, and In game music by Drax.

The idea is to destroy all bricks on each level by hitting the ball toward them with the paddle.
As the player progresses through the levels, some powerups are available to make this job easier.
Some bad powerups also make the game harder! 100 points is also awarded for hitting a powerup brick.

Unlike the games mentioned above, powerups in this game remain active as the player progresses through
stages, and can accumulate, but all powerups are reset when a life is lost.

The player begins the game with three lives, each of which is lost when a ball is missed.
The game is over when all three lives are lost. An extra life can be gained by hitting an extra life
powerup brick. One will randomly appear in any 1 of the 15 stages, and another will appear in one of
the first five stages. Both appear in a random position on the third row of bricks.

In any stage when only one brick is left on the screen, a timer begins. If the timer reaches a set
time before the last brick is hit (approximately 10 seconds), the brick will explode, and 100 points
will be awarded. You may like to avoid hitting the last brick in any stage to achieve this goal.

Powernoid was tested with 3.52 M33 firmware, but is expected to work with any homebrew firmware.

Controls are simle.
Move the paddle left or right with either the analogue stick or the D pad.
You can fire missiles with the Cross button if the missile powerup is active.
You can pause the game and see the score at any time by pressing the HOME button.
This actually pauses the game for a little even after you select "No" and return to the game,
so you are not unfairly caught off guard when the game restarts.

Cheats!!!
There are a couple of cheats used for development have been left in the released version of the game.
If you press Up and Triangle at the same time, every good powerup will be activated at once.
If you press Up and Circle at the same time, both bad powerups will be activated at once.
Any high scores achieved with these cheats will not be saved to the Memory Stick.

Tip!!
If you hold left just before stage 6 or 15 start, you will avoid the ball hitting red bricks right away.
YOu still need to avoid them for the rest of the stage though!


Cheers, Art.

bmar8190@bigpond.net.au

Powernoid V4e (07/02/09):
Black and white death screen implemented to fall in line with the Windows DX-Ball game.
Last brick blows up if it is in play for too long to fall in line with Windows DX-Ball game.
Some code optimisation.

Powernoid V4d (11/01/09):
Fixed bug that prevented stages from repeating after stage 15.
Added option to toggle in game music with up and down buttons.

Powernoid V4c (01/01/09):
Implemented Mikmod player for in game music.
One more extra life powerup brick added to game.
Improvement to sound routine so powerup samples are always played.
Increased pause duration between stages, new ball in play, and game pause with Home button.
Small display bug fix for game over where extra life powerup brick is displayed.
Change to high score encryption so the save file is incompatible with previous versions.

Powernoid V4b (01/01/09):
Bullets on either side of paddle now operate independently.
Fixed collision detection for powerup bricks that have multiple colours.
Moving barriers implemented in some stages.
Moving bricks implemented in stage 2.
Added Megaball style powerup description screen to intro.
Added powerup brick for extra life.
Change to high score encryption so the save file is incompatible with previous versions.

Powernoid V4 (31/12/08):
Fixed two bugs in stage 15.
Fixed screen flicker on intro and game over screens.
The second ball can now activate powerup bricks if it is in play.
Change to high score encryption so the save file is incompatible with previous versions.
New original wobbly ball bad powerup introduced in stage 6.

Powernoid V3b (04/12/08):
Fixed control of ball direction with the paddle which was broken in a previous release.

Powernoid V3 (03/12/08):
Improved collision detection by checking the edge of the ball in the direction it is travelling.
Paddle movement made slightly faster, and ball turns red when fireball powerup is active.
Added powerups to two more stages so every odd stage now has a powerup available.
Change made to second ball behaviour in multiball mode.
Change to high score encryption so the save file is incompatible with previous version.

Powernoid V2 (27/11/08):
Change to multiball powerup behaviour, the ball now splits in two when a player gets this powerup.
Player no longer loses a life if the multiball powerup is active, and one of the two balls is lost.
Difficulty is increased by slightly speeding up the ball movement compared with the first version.
Program keeps track of highest score with an encrypted save file.
Added extra type of brick that causes bricks to move down every time the ball is hit with the paddle.
Extra life can now be gained by passing stage 15, and any other 15 stages after that.
Changed some characteristics to give the paddle some control of ball direction as in Windows DX_Ball.

Powernoid V1 (19/11/08):
First release written from scratch in two days.

