Arkanoid

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Arkanoid

Promotional Flyer
Katakana アルカノイド
Rōmaji Arukanoido
Developer Taito
Publisher Romstar
Designer Akira Fujita
Series Arkanoid
Release date 1986
Genre Breakout
Control Spinner, 1 Button
Orientation Vertical
CPU Z80
Sound AY8910
Display 15KHz

Arkanoid is an arcade game developed by Taito in 1986. It is based upon Atari's Breakout games of the 1970s. It is the first game in the Arkanoid series. The title refers to a doomed "mothership" from which the player's ship, the Vaus, escapes.

The Japanese version supports cocktail mode whereas the others don't.

Tips and Tricks

  • During gameplay, pills fall from destroyed bricks. When collected, these pills have various effects on the bat, Vaus.
Pill Description
S - Slow Slows down the energy ball.
L - Laser Enables the vaus to fire laser beams.
C - Catch Catches the energy ball and shoots it when you want it.
B - Break Allow player to move to next playfield.
E - Expand Expands the vaus.
P - Player Gains an additional vaus.
D - Disrupt Splits the energy ball into three particles.
  • The power pills are completely random except that the extra life and warp pills are twice as unlikely to occur. Only one extra life pill is possible per "vaus". If the pill randomizer selects a duplicate pill based on the last pill dropped, a multi-ball pill is substituted. Thus, the multi-ball pill is the only one you can get twice in a row. The randomizer uses player score as the seed, so it is possible to control which pill is dispensed by purposely breaking pill dispensing blocks with specific scores displayed.
  • On each level, the ball will not speed up completely until it hits the back wall, so :
1) Try to remove bricks from the bottom up, or punch a hole through thicker areas of bricks rather than go straight through (e.g. take out the left side of level 2 rather than the single block at the right as you will catch far more pills).
2) If you have collected a lot of S pills and the ball has been in play for a bit of time, be prepared for a sudden speedup.
  • Also, the D token speeds up the balls and is pretty useless on most levels (the one with the enclosed diamond is the only good example I can think of).
  • As only one pill can fall at a time, multiple balls can reduce your potential score quite drastically. Every pill is worth 1000 points. For the first few levels, get every pill you can, but do not use the special powers. You will get a lot of extra ships and should get a gray P or two - thereby starting early with 6 or 7 ships.
  • In the final level, where you face DOH himself, you should get 15 hits (1000 points per hit) on DOH/per man until you defeat DOH with the 16th hit on your last man to end the game.

External Links