

Atari Breakout - Google image search - morphics
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=atari+breakout

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JDGM
Am I right in thinking this version allows spin to be put on the ball by
hitting it while the paddle is moving? It seems so, but it could just be my
imagination. I love that, and always wince when trying for a particularly
forceful amount of spin only to miss the ball completely!

A few years ago my cousin and I made a version of Pong crossed with Ikaruga
("Ikapong" - _very_ creative title I don't think) and put a line on the ball
so you could see exactly what spin it had on it as it moved. I got a lot of
satisfaction from that and always find myself wishing other bat and ball games
would implement that way of showing spin. In this case it wouldn't be faithful
to the original, but playing this did remind me of that.

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hkmurakami
You're referring to Ikaruga the vertical scrolling shooting game right? Could
you elaborate on what elements from Ikaruga you merged with Pong? (It's not
entirely clear from the description of the line on the ball that you gave,
since Ikaruga's distinctive feature is the black/white colored shots and
barrier switching)

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JDGM
Sure! Actually the line on the ball had nothing to do with the Ikaruga
element, it was purely to observe spin. I think we probably originally put it
in so that when playtesting we could tell if spin was working properly but it
stayed in because it looked neat and was helpful.

So here's how the Ikaruga element worked: each player had three controls 'up',
'down', and 'change bat colour'. The bats could be either black or white, and
so could the ball. If you tried to return a shot but your bat wasn't the same
colour as the ball then you'd lose the point. The beauty of it was that if you
were holding down the 'change colour' button when you returned the ball then
the colour of the ball would change. So let's say you have two players who are
getting into a heated rally both with white bats and a white ball. They're
concentrating on trying to catch the other one with good shots rather than the
colour when, suddenly, one player presses change colour to change their bat to
black, then again to change it back to white, but they keep it held down. They
return the next shot and now the ball is black. Their opponent has to change
their bat colour quickly in response otherwise they'll lose the point. Pretty
soon the mindgames set in - changing your bat colour twice but _not_ holding
down the button to trick your opponent into thinking the ball is going to
change colour, or my personal favourite _always_ changing the ball colour and
then suddenly not doing so out of the blue. We could have made a fourth button
for the change ball colour instead of doubling up the functionality of the
change bat colour button, but the way it telegraphed possible intention was
kinda cool. That was the Ikaruga dimension of the game.

There was another nifty element I remember too which was that the ball was
returned faster the closer to the centre of the bat it was struck, or slower
nearer the edges, with a few pixels of sweet spot in the exact centre which
would give a mega shot.

It was one of those games you make quickly and then spend hours ahem "testing"
multiplayer in between adding new features. It was really fun because of five
main things to be thinking about while playing: simply returning the ball (!),
having the right colour bat (the most basic Ikaruga element), putting tricky
spin on the ball (made all the more fun by the rotation of red diameter line
showing exactly how much spin you'd put on it), hitting near the centre to
make a fast hard-to-return shot (with a satisfying "whoomph" sound and
particle trail effect for the mega shots), and finally the cheeky ball colour
switch mindgames.

I'll have to dig it up, check it all still works, and put it somewhere for
people to download. Or at the very least make a youtube video to show how it
works (on reflection, that would have probably been less effort than the above
write up!). Cheers :)

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jakerocheleau
I love finding quirky little stuff like this. Google is one of the only
companies which I have seen that does this constantly.

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DanBC
Microsoft had some hidden stuff. They stopped doing it when they started their
"Trustworthy computing" thing.

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pow-tac
See my cheat here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208>

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DanielRibeiro
Previous discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5701553>

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pow-tac
The cheat: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208>

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lazugod
How useful! Now I know what a cruft-free Google Images URL looks like.

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j_s
[http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=atari+breakout](http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=atari+breakout)

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mikegagnon
I'm surprised Google made this game under the name "atari breakout." Atari is
very protective of their trademarks.

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dspillett
Aye, they had the excellent little distraction PlasmaPong
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Pong>) shut down as they own the rights
to Pong, a property they were doing sod all with at the time, thereby adding
themselves to the list of companies that I'll think twice and thrice before
given any money to. I'm guessing they are unlikely to try bully Google though
as they aren't significantly smaller than them.

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mikegagnon
Plasma Pong was actually what I was thinking of when I wrote my comment. :-)
The author of Plasma Pong (Steve Taylor) was my roommate when Atari shut down
his game.

As far as litigation is concerned, I would expect that bigger companies would
tend to get sued over trademark issues. After all, isn't that where the money
is at?

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aaronsnoswell
Anyone notice that after winning a round, the search changes to "Phoenix"?
Wonder what the connection is there...

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austenallred
It changed to "Shih Tzu" when I won a round. Probably just random.

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pikexxn
I am addicted to it now. My boss will be angry about Google.

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emeraldd
And there goes my morning productivity!

