There was a Slashdot story recently with a parody-history of the character Q*Bert. Seeing an opportunity, I asked about Q*Bert clones for the PC (since I know of none).
I also asked whether there were any decent Arkanoid clones for the PC (Arkanoid must be my favorite arcade-style game). I didn’t get an answer about Q*Bert clones, but entrippy pointed to Jardinains as a viable Arkanoid clone.
I had previously discovered DX Ball on my own, but Jardinains is even better. Though DX Ball is also fun (be sure to give it a try if you like the Arkanoid/breakout genre), its chief disadvantage is the scarcity of levels — I think I completed the game within a few days.
Jardinains doesn’t necessarily have more levels (I haven't finished the game, so I can’t be certain), but its levels are more intricate so they last longer anyhow. And, like any good Arkanoid clone, Jardinains has plenty of cool power-ups from laser-gun shooters to 1-Ups and ball-goes-through-everything powers.
As an interesting twist, Jardinains also features gnomes — yes, gnomes. The little guys “live” in some of the blocks and throw flower-pots onto the player’s paddle (these count for negative points if you run into them). However, if your ball hits the block housing a gnome, he falls of his perch — and, at this point, you can bounce him around for some extra points.
I’ve enjoyed Jardinains so far and I’d be rather temped to register it (as it is shareware) if I were properly employed. Its only disadvantage, perhaps, is that there is no save-game functionality nor level-codes; so, even advanced players that may have made it to level 9 in previous games still have to trudge through the easy level at the start of every game :-/.
… just “play” the original ROM …
http://www.mame.dk/gameinfo/arkanoid/
I had considered that — and it’s not a bad suggestion — but I prefer the resolutions that modern operating systems can provide (as opposed to the 512×384 or so that arcades offered back in those days).
it’s not arkanoid, but can i point you towards temptest 2000?
Hmm, sure, I’d give that a try. Back years ago, I had some Tempest pajamas, but I never did play the game ;).
You tried Ricochet?
http://download.com.com/3302-2099-10100873.html
I play Jardinains and made almost 16,000,000 points, reached 122 level and record is 27 lives.
Levels 1-50 are different, then then it is all over again, but the $ bonuses still depend on level number, which is great. The game itself could go on and on – if you are good enough. There are no limits for x2 bonuses, $ bonuses and lives. This is why I think it is one of the best brick/arcanoid games. And you do not have to finish the game in one turn. I usually play some levels, than turn the game off and go back to my arrands, then go back to the game, sometimes even after a few days… and everything is continued where I left off. My whole family plays it;
we would like more power-ups, though :)
You can now upgrade to Ver. 1.1. I’ve gotten to over 40,000,000 points and over 300 lives. (Of course, I use the cheats!)
I played the game and loved it. Only problem is I’ve been getting quite a few “Illegal Memory Access” errors recently…I tried the latest drivers and all but it dont work…Other than this I think it is one of the best free games u can find and it’ll get u addicted
I’m playing Jardinains, current score is about 100.000.000, 250 lives.
I have been playing the same Jardinains game since August 2003. I was over 1.5 billion points, 1250 levels and 400 lives (no cheats). On one level I got the 2X so many times that the $ was worth 500 million points. I was playing the same level for over 45 minutes, and took a break. When I returned, the score had refreshed and read negative 2 billion. I continued playing and paused out again. Upon opening the game again, the score was now negative 700 million. The level finally ended and the score is now descending from about the negative 700 million level. Anybody experienced a similar problem? Does the score descend after a certain point? Thanks.
My wife has been playing this game for almost a year and has gotten past level 155 and over 15,000,000 points…with no cheats. Her game is still active and she plays a litte bit every day.
SHE IS THE QUEEN
i am intrested in game as well as game programming.
There is a Harry Potter clone of Jardinains! available. C:\My Documents\My Websites\junkmailbin\harry_potter\download_game.html – Great Fun. Replace the images, sound, and music folders with fresh files.
BTW, there are cheat codes for Jardinains! which allow you to goto other levels, but if you use them, the score you achieve is not recorded. You can even edit the levels, too, but its time consuming and tedious, so THREE BIG CHEERS to Tom Derby for his work on Jardinains!
That wasn’t very bright was it !! I mean the URL is http://homepage.ntlworld.com/junkmailbin/harry_potter/download_game.html
I have all 4 official add-on boards for DX-Ball 2, as well as 100 fan-made levels you can download here:
http://www.angelfire.com/games4/dxball/dxball.html
Everything you need is there (except for the official boards of course)
we cannot save the score by giving cheatcodes.
if some cheatcodes are there by which we can save the score while playing the game plz do send to me.
I would stay away from DX Ball! I just installed it and during installation Norton popped-up about five times (before I quit the installation) to notify me about a different spyware program that was trying to make a network connection. So, I ran ad-aware and it found 80 objects to be removed including at least 3 or 4 separate spyware programs (this is on a 2-day old laptop).
Besides, Jardinaids is *much* better, and *no* spyware…