[martneumann]

Loved it! The fun parts of breakout (getting shots trapped behind blocks) without the stressful controls!

It's really hard, though. I only survive like 5 shots. If theres a wall of 5s coming at me, what can I do?

Still, really cool.

[thom]

There are ‘laser’ powerups and bullet powerups. You can use the laser to blast through big columns of blocks, and or at least weaken them until your shots kill them with bounces. It introduces an interesting tension between wanting nice horizontal bounces versus wanting to hit as many blocks as possible with the laser. Fun stuff.

[fm2606]

Is this mentioned somewhere on the page? I was wondering what they do.

I commented yesterday but I'll say it again, this is awesome.

This entire thread is great and a true inspiration.

[thom]

I just vaguely worked it out after getting addicted.

[martneumann]

Haha, I had an addiction phase as well. It drives me crazy how the beginning is hard, then it gets very easy, and suddenly, you lose.

[thom]

I think you have to accept that some starts are better than others. If you get no powerups on the first screen you're going to struggle. I think you're right that the middle game is quite easy (i.e. you can just bounce off a wall and clear the screen pretty easily). At higher levels you have to plan a bit more, and get really good at hitting corners to achieve horizontal bounces, which is hard to do reliably. It was certainly worth a weekend of my life, anyway. :)