don't know what brought me back to this little Breakout clone times and times again. There's nothing outstanding in it. Repetitive ingame music, nothing original in the gameplay department, and the graphics look a bit bland, but it's rather fun nevertheless. Actually, my main criticism is the heavy use of gray colors. This ends up in an overall lack of color.

First, let's talk about the surrounding metal pipes. The vertical ones really look neat (and you can notice I haven't changed a lot there), but it's a shame horizontal pipes don't have a similar shiny look. And the 4 bends are really weak. In my version I tried to make the most of the golden shiny look, which I find particularly pleasing on the bends.

Then there's that blue background. Well at least I think it looks better in blue than in gray. I also tried to add a 3D look to it. It's all about 3D, isn't it? That makes you feel you could almost touch what's on the screen. I added a shadow for the same reason. Good Breakout games always include shadow effects on borders and bricks. I suppose it's a bit more tricky for the programmer, but isn't it worth it?

The gray title text looks a bit too flat, and the pixelized ball-like "O" just doesn't work. I prefer to rely once again on the golden look for maximum impact.

The final touch comes from the credits. Technically, they just can't mix with the background pattern, and that's far too visible for my taste. In that case, I prefer to pretend there's a black box around the text, so no-one notices. Cheap and efficient.

n the left the original C64 screen, and on the right my own version.

ost of this picture is made of color characters. Colors 2 and 3 are middle and dark gray. Credits use hi-res monochrome characters. Title uses color sprites.

I have changed a few things: I have altered one of the colors in the title sprites. The shadows use 2 new characters. I have also used them under the title to enhance its contrast.