Krakout

Krakout

Game No.	51
Voting	8.18 points, 45 votes
Developer	Andy Green, Terry Lloyd (gfx), Rob Toone
Publisher	Prism Leisure Corporation
Musician	Ben Daglish, Lodger Shriggzy
HVSC-File	MUSICIANS/D/Daglish_Ben/Krakout.sid
Release	1987
Platform	C64
Genre	Arcade - Breakout/Pong
Gamemode	Single player
Operation
Media
Language

Description[edit | edit source]

An animation from the game.

In contrast to Arkanoid or Breakout, the bat in Krakout is not at the lower, but optionally at the left or the right border of the screen. Next to the preferred side, you can also set other details in the menu. Music, sound, effects and a scrolling background graphic can be switched on and off. The starting speed of the ball is fixed by a number between 1 (slow-motion) and 6 (suicide). By pressing the fire button you can also switch to a second speed for the bat during the game. In a game mode menu, you can change the colours for all the sprites and call up special effects. E.g. the full screen shakes with each bounce of the ball or to the beat of the music. There are exactly 100 screens in krakout (you find 2200 on C64-Games.de). You cannot pick each single screen, but you can play yourself easily to the further screens, when setting an easy difficulty level. Next to the ball, bat and bricks some strange sprites appear, that can have different effects. Some of the friendly ones create a second ball into the game, destroy all stones or let you jump a few screens. The less friendly ones freeze your bat or even swallow the ball.

For additional diversification there are special stones, that are marked by a letter. These special stones need to be hit with the ball and the effect stays until you shoot another special stone.

Design[edit | edit source]

Krakout is, like Arkanoid, a Breakout-clone, so the aim in each of the 100 levels is to hit all the stones with a ball, which has to be kept in the game with the help of a bat. The strengths of Krakout are the tunes, the options and the well-done joystick operation. As usual, there are three outer walls, various aliens and of course different stones.

The game area is rather inconspicuous, but the animations are affectionate and the tunes sweeping. The different aliens have a significantly higher influence on the game as in Arkanoid.

... Level 1 ...

... level 5 (make Love not War *g*) ...

At the beginning the aliens are harmless and the level design is friendly...

Hints[edit | edit source]

After loading and starting the game you find yourself on the title screen. Here the highscore list and the greetings are shown in turns. You also find yourself on the title screen after every game. By pressing fire button you get into the main menu.

Main menu[edit | edit source]

Controls

Set the cursor (flashes) by joystick forwards/backwards to the menu point that you want to change. You then change it by pressing fire and at the same time pulling the joystick forwards/backwards. When you have set everything as you wanted, you press the "SPACE" key to start.

Menu points

1)	Bat is on the	right / left	when setting menu points
2)	Sound FX	on / off	1-3 it only needs a press on the fire button
3)	Musik	on / off	to change them
4)	Scrolling	none / Random / follow
5)	Ball Speed	1 - 6
6)	Mode	0 - 9
7)	Reset Computer	Press fire for 10 seconds
8)	Bat Control Type	Dual Speed	Inertia
		1-8 norm, 2-9 by fire	0-9

Explanations

4) Scrolling:
None = no scrolling of the background.
Random = continuous scrolling in one direction.
Follow = scrolling follows the moving direction of the ball.

6) Mode:
0 = grey (colour of the bat)
1 = brown (colour of the bat)
2 = red (colour of the bat)
3 = green (colour of the bat)
4 = blue (colour of the bat)
5 = Krakscreen 0-9 load levels from disk. (SPACE, fire button + joystick forwards/backward)
6 = load lebels from cassette
7 = screen changes colour to the beat of the music
8 = screen moves right / left to the beat
9 = screen flashes to the beat of the music

8) Bat Control Type:
Dual Speed = constant bat speed
- slow 0-8 / in the game without fire button only joystick left/right
- faster 1-9 / in the game with fire button and joystick left/right
Inertia = bat speed rises while you move the bat.

Number of Bats
Total Number of Bats
Number of lost Bats
The number of the rest of the bats (that you still have) is calculated from the "Total number of bats" minus "number of lost bats".

Controls in the game[edit | edit source]

/ to steer the bat into the desired direction
/ to steer the bat fast during "Dual Speed"
to shoot the ball (at the start or with sticking ball) or to fire a rocket
CTRL Pause (continue with fire button)
SPACE after cleaning the screen the main menu appears in between

Aliens[edit | edit source]

There are many types of enemies appearing in this game. Some of them have no effect but most of them have a certain function. The funniest is probably the ball eater (Cannibal), which appears as an inconspicuous blue ball, then enlarges and grabs your ball, eats it with pleasure and spits out the crumpled rest.

	Astronaut	harmless
	Bee hive	lets loose some bees
	Bee	Makes the bat stick
	Cannibal	eats the ball
	Cannibal	during digestion...
	Lightning	strikes through stones after hit of ball
	Bonus ship	when it hits the bat you get 10.000 points, a protective wall, transformation to stone or reduction of stones
	Egg	damages stones when touched
	Exit	allows level jump
	Time Out	all aliens stay where they are for approx. 30 seconds
	Twin Ball	hitting this with a ball activates a second ball

Bonuses[edit | edit source]

Special stones can hide behind every block. They get visible after the first hit with the ball. To unfold their effect, they need to be hit with the ball, the effect stays until you shoot another special stone.

	Bomb	destroys surrounding blocks
	Double	second bat
	Expand	bigger bat
	Glue	ball sticks to the bat
	Missile	bat can release a missile
	Shield	wall behind the bat
	Twice	doubles the points
	eXtra Life	gives an extra life
		slows down the ball

Solution[edit | edit source]

Cheats[edit | edit source]

You can reach a lot of points, when you make it to trap the ball in corners and between edges of undestroyable areas, (Krakout III, the square, where inside only the "egg" gets active and outside are only a few fields). Even though the ball seems to be trapped forever, it will escape after minutes or some hours (!!!!) and it is usually too late when you notice it.

If you enter "(C)" into the highscore list and then directly afterwards start a new round, you get an endless number of bats. It works 100%, but I can't remember how many points you need for a highscore entry. The cheat was in some magazine at that time...Mfg Durango72

Voting[edit | edit source]

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
8.18 points at 45 votes (rank 68). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64Games	9	19th November 2006 - "top" - 6516 downs
Lemon64	7,96	19th November 2006 - 74 votes
Happy Computer	85%	Games special 3/86
Kultboy.com	8,94	27th November 2009 - 22 votes
ASM	12/12	Edition 4/87
ZZap64	55%	Edition 87/04

Reviews[edit | edit source]

FXXS: "In my opinion it is the best Breakout version for joystick players. Especially the different patterns of behaviour of the aliens and the groovy sound give this game its character. 9 points."

Anonymous author: "The game should be named more ORIGINAL than anything else which was created until now (2007) in this direction. Dozens of enemies with dozens of options, luscious 100 levels, always new challenges instead of tediously smashing only 150 stones. The hardest thing is not only -as in the "competitor games"- to keep the ball "in", but to properly control it. More fun is not available in a Breakout game!!!!!!"

Shakermaker303: "Yes, I can well remember it. The bees, which flew endlessly onto you like a squadron, were rather nerve-wracking. I was always curious, what the next level was going to be built like, as they looked rather nice and partly very coloured. It was very difficult to play the ball controlled and precisely timed onto certain points. 9 out of 10 points for this entertaining game, at least as good as Arkanoid and much better as other clones."

TheRyk: "Killer bees and other creatures from a madman's dream attack you while you have essentially little control about which upgrades you activate or not. Daglish at his craziest composed the huge, crazy and awesome music. In case you are still not convinced, you can choose a bunch of gameplay options. I don't know any crazier Breakout than Krakout and cannot vote less than 9!"