5 ms·

Atari Breakout - Google image search

87 points by morphics 13y ago

jakerocheleau 13y ago
I love finding quirky little stuff like this. Google is one of the only companies which I have seen that does this constantly.
- j_col 13y ago
  Good for creating a positive brand.
- coob 13y ago
  The original iPod had a breakout game that used the scroll wheel as a hidden easter egg in the About menu.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Microsoft had some hidden stuff. They stopped doing it when they started their "Trustworthy computing" thing.
JDGM 13y ago
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.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  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)
  - JDGM 13y ago
    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 :)
pow-tac 13y ago
See my cheat here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208
lazugod 13y ago
How useful! Now I know what a cruft-free Google Images URL looks like.
- j_s 13y ago
  http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=atari+breakout http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=atari+breakout
DanielRibeiro 13y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5701553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5701553
mikegagnon 13y ago
I'm surprised Google made this game under the name "atari breakout." Atari is very protective of their trademarks.
- dspillett 13y ago
  Aye, they had the excellent little distraction PlasmaPong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Pong 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.
  - mikegagnon 13y ago
    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?
aaronsnoswell 13y ago
Anyone notice that after winning a round, the search changes to "Phoenix"? Wonder what the connection is there...
- austenallred 13y ago
  It changed to "Shih Tzu" when I won a round. Probably just random.
pow-tac 13y ago
The cheat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208
emeraldd 13y ago
And there goes my morning productivity!
pikexxn 13y ago
I am addicted to it now. My boss will be angry about Google.

87 points by morphics 13y ago

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

j_col 13y ago
Good for creating a positive brand.
coob 13y ago
The original iPod had a breakout game that used the scroll wheel as a hidden easter egg in the About menu.
DanBC 13y ago
Microsoft had some hidden stuff. They stopped doing it when they started their "Trustworthy computing" thing.

JDGM 13y ago

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.

hkmurakami 13y ago
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)
- JDGM 13y ago
  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 :)

pow-tac 13y ago

See my cheat here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208

lazugod 13y ago

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

j_s 13y ago
http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=atari+breakout http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=atari+breakout

DanielRibeiro 13y ago

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

mikegagnon 13y ago

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

dspillett 13y ago
Aye, they had the excellent little distraction PlasmaPong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Pong 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.
- mikegagnon 13y ago
  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?

aaronsnoswell 13y ago

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

austenallred 13y ago
It changed to "Shih Tzu" when I won a round. Probably just random.

pow-tac 13y ago

The cheat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702208

emeraldd 13y ago

And there goes my morning productivity!

pikexxn 13y ago

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