Talk:Breakout clone

Untitled
I suggest breaking down the 'Breakout fundamental elements' by citing specific games, or even just reduce to a list of games that have been described as breakout clones in reliable sources. Marasmusine 20:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. I had pruned some of the listing by the basic qualifications of notability (lack thereof) and copyright violation.  Truthfully, I think the fundamentals should be stripped as you mention.  A list of notable clone games is all you really need, similar to some of the other clone pages for games such as List_of_Pac-Man_clones. --Marty Goldberg 20:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Also found a bunch of games listed on Arkanoid as 'Arkanoid clones' which would be more at home here. Again, references required to see exactly if journalists have called them Breakout clones or Arkanoid clones rather than delving into original research. List requires cleanup! Marasmusine 21:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Possible future references:


 * Roundup of breakout clones on super famicom]
 * Research paper which mentions Bionic Breakthrough, which used the Atari MindLInk
 * Marasmusine 16:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Confusion
Here's the original text of Block kuzushi (merged with this article): Block kuzushi (ブロック崩し burokkukuzushi, literally block destruction) is the name given in Japan to the genre of computer and video games in which blocks are destroyed by a bouncing ball, and the player controls a paddle at the bottom of the screen to keep the ball in play. The first example of such a game was Breakout, although Arkanoid is arguably more popular. Since this is a fairly narrow definition of a genre, it is often not considered as such (especially outside of Japan), and games of this type are usually simply referred to as "Breakout clones". A number of block kuzushi games were released in Japan under the title Block Kuzushi, including members of D3 Publisher's Simple series and a Color TV Game system by Nintendo. However, this is a generic name referring to the genre (similar to a tennis game being called Tennis). The games titled Block Kuzushi are all distinct games and should not be considered as a series.

I'm confused by what is meant by this statement: "...it is often not considered [a genre] (especially outside of Japan), and games of this type are usually simply referred to as "Breakout clones"."

Does this mean there's a second, different term (separate from "block kuzushi") that means "Breakout clone"? Compare these translations of the same Yahoo! Japan search result:,. The first one translates ブロック崩し to "breakout"; the second translates it to "blockdestroying" (a variation of the "literal" translation cited in the article). SharkD (talk) 06:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * You'd likely have to ask the original author of that bit, but I suspect there's nothing more to it than poor sentence construction. My guess is that the latter ("Breakout clone") portion refers to how such games are viewed outside Japan ("especially outside Japan") rather than suggesting that within Japan "Block Kuzushi" games are somehow set apart from a class a games known there as "Breakout clones". It's poor writing on its face, so I'm not sure you should read too much into it. D. Brodale (talk) 07:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * To clear up any mistaken understandings, I was not suggesting that the block kuzushi games were classified into different categories. I meant that there exist two different terms, block kuzushi and "breakout clone", that were being applied to the same category. SharkD (talk) 22:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * And even then, Breakout Clones aren't really a genre in itself. They're a subclass of what's termed the "bat and ball" genre.  The rewrite of the opening makes that a bit misleading. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 15:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Block kuzushi
Here's some (preliminary) research on block kuzushi, copied from Articles for deletion/Block kuzushi. SharkD (talk) 02:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * "If you're curious (and wish to establish notability), Here is a machine translation of the Japanese Wikipedia article on the subject. Here is a machine translation of the Amazon.com page for one of the sources cited in the article. Here is the homepage for the author of the second source (I'm not sure exactly which book is being referenced). Here and here are search results for ブロック崩し (about 857,000 hits). Note, the latter link, a poorer translation, returns the "literal" meaning cited in the article. (...)" SharkD (talk) 03:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Differences?
What's the difference between a Breakout clone and an Arkanoid clone? I read the Arkanoid article, but wasn't able to see how they differed. SharkD (talk) 05:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Arkanoid was the first Breakout clone to introduce dropped power-ups (multi-ball, laser, etc), so I assume all the "Arkanoid clones" have power-ups. To be honest, I think the list should be scrapped and started again with citations explicitly stating "breakout clone" or "arkanoid clone". Marasmusine (talk) 09:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The reason I ask is because there are some articles in the category [edit: Category:Breakout clones] which call the games "breakout clones". I wasn't sure where to add them to the list, as the list of Breakout clones is for "notable" games only, yet the list of Arkanoid clones doesn't seem to have these reservations. SharkD (talk) 21:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In addition to what Marasmusine said (about the "Arkanoid Style" games), the history in regards to this article was that section was a separate article that was merged in. As far as notability, generally if its of historic value (i.e. was a well known clone for a historic platform - commodore, acorn, atari, etc.)) it was kept.  If it was a modern homebrew or a modern pc-clone, it was not. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 21:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Block kuzushi
The Block kuzushi article has been merged here per Articles for deletion/Block kuzushi. Neil  ☎  11:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Common game mechanics
If you look at early revisions of this article, you'll find that the common game mechanics found in the genre were listed. This content was removed, ostensibly because there weren't any sources to back it up. However, the Gamasutra article seems to cover many of these points. Maybe the deleted content can be resurrected? SharkD (talk) 21:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Another 1988 clone
Popcorn was a moderately popular clone that included a level-builder. 1 64.122.15.114 (talk) 19:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Bogus Notable Clones
This looks suspicious to me

Bodkins Johnson! (Boothies Revenge) (1987 Blitkrieg Software) (1987, Amiga)

Can't find any other references to it online, should it be removed? If not it's in the wrong section. --79.76.181.254 (talk) 23:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, yeah. You can contest and remove any information that does not cite a reliable source (although it's courtesy to at least have a look for a citation, which you did do :> ) I think some of these are homebrew / PD games. They shouldn't be here unless they are noteworthy. Marasmusine (talk) 10:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Little Brick Out
This Apple clone should be included in the chart because it was included in the early system software disks for the Apple II, plus the main article already reveals a connection between the original Breakout and Jobs/Wozniak. 70.72.211.35 (talk) 14:48, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

More clones
These games probably aren't notable but it might worth to check them in the future, maybe they will become notable: —  Ark25  (talk) 06:25, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
 * BRIQUOLO - http://briquolo.free.fr/en/index.html
 * Block Fortress - http://sourceforge.net/projects/blockfortress/
 * Brickcore - http://sourceforge.net/projects/brickcore/
 * ExploderBall - http://sourceforge.net/projects/exploderball/
 * Sbreakout - http://sourceforge.net/projects/sbreakout/
 * javabreak game - http://sourceforge.net/projects/javabreakgame/
 * Brickbreaker 2 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/brickbreaker2/
 * Chocobreak - http://sourceforge.net/projects/chocobreak/
 * Breakout Clone - http://sourceforge.net/projects/breakoutclone/
 * Water Breakout - http://sourceforge.net/projects/waterbreakout/
 * Breakout - http://sourceforge.net/projects/breakout1/
 * Breakout - Classic Games - http://sourceforge.net/projects/dujekcgames/

On mobile some other clones are available for example:
 * Bricks Breaker puzzle: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobirix.swipebrick
 * Brick Breaker Arcade: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.elbylabs.brickbreakerrestructured
 * Brick breaker ball quest:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SuperBall.unique.brick.breaker

Reference issues
"is a sub-class of the "bat-and-ball" genre[3][4][5] introduced with the Magnavox Odyssey's Tennis and Atari's Pong.[6][7][8][9]"

Only two of those links are still working, the rest are dead, making it really hard to verify what's on there. However, if you want to describe the relationship between Break-out clones and Pong, may I suggest Chris Crawford's "The Art of Computer Game Design", which defines "Paddle games" as Pong-based games and cited Breakout as an example: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~stewart/cs583/ACGD_ArtComputerGameDesign_ChrisCrawford_1982.pdf

I'm really not sure what the Gamasutra reference is even doing there. It talks about Pong, but doesn't mention Breakout, nor does it define the genre that Pong started. It seems completely irrelevant, unless I am missing something?

Lastly, this article really needs to mention Arkanoid outside of the list; it's basically become a sub-class of the sub-class that is breakout clones (which, now I think about it, I always refered to as "Brickbreakers"...) Anyway, I have absolutely no idea how to handle this article. It's like it has a complicated history of edits and I don't want to make it even worse... Maplestrip (talk) 14:11, 6 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Seeing as nobody seems to know what to do with all of those dead links, I went ahead and removed them entirely. Same with the completely irrelevant Gamasutra reference. This way, not much is left of the article, but at least now we have something to work from... ~ Mable ( chat ) 10:59, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

This is a list!
Perhaps a name change should happen to List of notable Breakout clones? Hmm, and then we should also create some inclusion requirements such as sales numbers.

You know, that, or we remove that list and actually turn this into an encyclopedic article? ~Maplestrip (chat) 15:19, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

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