DX-Ball 2

DX-Ball 2 is a brick buster game for Microsoft Windows, developed by Longbow Games. As a follow up to DX-Ball by Michael P. Welch, the sequel is foremost remarked by the introduction of its 16-bit high-colour engine, presenting textured bricks and background graphics in vivid colours. The game also features two new Power-Ups, an easy to play "Kid-Mode", and a hotseat multiplayer mode, alongside an original soundtrack by SideWinder. DX-Ball 2 also introduces the feature of board-set selection, allowing the player to select between different sets of boards to play. The free demo thereby comes packed with a total of 24 boards divided into 6 board-sets of 4 boards search. Additional board packs can then be installed for more boards, whereas Board Pack 1 will expand the demo board-sets to 25 boards each, for a total of 150 boards. While a total of five board packs were released for the game, DX-Ball 2 was eventually succeeded by Rival Ball in 2001.

Gameplay

DX-Ball

DX-Ball (stylized as DX • BΔLL, sometimes also written as DXBALL) is a freeware computer game for the PC first released in 1996 by Michael P. Welch and Seumas McNally. The game, originally inspired of an earlier series of Amiga games known as MegaBall, is patterned after classic ball-and-paddle arcade games such as Breakout and Arkanoid. It became a massive cult classic in the Windows freeware and arcade gaming community during the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. A level editor was also made available as well.

Gameplay

The game is basically a Breakout clone: you bounce a ball off a paddle at the bottom hitting different colored blocks on the top of the screen without having the ball fall below the screen. Clearing all the blocks results in completing the level and going to the next. There are 50 levels to complete. Similarly as Arkanoid and MegaBall, there is an inclusion of power-ups other than extra balls. When you hit a block, there is a chance that a power-up will appear (signaled by a high-pitched explosion sound) and float downwards towards the paddle, and can be picked up by touching it with the paddle. If only a single breakable block remains on a level and it continues to be untouched by the bouncing ball for a minute or so, an electricity sound begins to build and eventually the block is blasted away by a sudden bolt of lightning.