[WiP] Breakout for PSX

[Kyoril]

Greetings!

Today, I wanted to start the dev log of my very first game developed for the Sony PlayStation. I chose to build a clone of the popular game Breakout by Atari.

The game will be a 2.5D game, meaning that you control the game 2D but it is actually rendered using 3D models.

A licensed ISO of the current state of the game can be downloaded HERE (Last updated May 27th, 2022).

Please note that the game is currently developed for PAL mode, and targets 50 FPS and a screen resolution of 320x256. The game is developed using in C using the PSY-Q SDK and LibGS.

Feature list:

• Support for Control Pad, Analog Controller and the DualShock
• Title screen
• 3D models
• Custom font rendering
• 8 different levels
• Support to pause the game

Things still to do:

• Support for high score list using the MEMORY CARD
• Support for Sound Effects and Audio
• Option to enable vibration on the Dual Shock
• Lots of polishing and optimizations as well as code refactoring (adding animations, optimizing file formats, etc.)
• Add credits and gameplay options
• Add support for NTSC
• Apply feedback from the community (YOU)

Credits: Credits go out so far to LameGuy64 for his amazing code snippets and tutorials which helped me out a lot so far as well as his PCKLIB which I use in this game for file storage and loading.


Title screen

Menu

Gameplay 1

Gameplay 2

Running on real hardware

I would really love to hear your feedback!

[Shadow]

Really good potential and very impressive! Needs better physics though and the camera movement is too rough. Try to make the camera smoother, maybe by adding a delay and 'speed ramp' algorithm to it so it's more fluid

The paddle shape is weird too. Not sure why it's got a cut-out on it. You can also try adding XA music playback and SPU sound effects.

[Kyoril]

Really good potential and very impressive! Needs better physics though and the camera movement is too rough. Try to make the camera smoother, maybe by adding a delay and 'speed ramp' algorithm to it so it's more fluid

The paddle shape is weird too. Not sure why it's got a cut-out on it. You can also try adding XA music playback and SPU sound effects.

Thank you very much for the feedback. I will try to incorporate it.

[Kyoril]

I just updated the game. Doesn't look like much, but was actually a lot of work today. I hope you enjoy the changes! I also updated the screenshots and the download link for the ISO file in the original post.

Here's what changed:

• Completely revamped the controls. The paddle now accelerates and slides once you no longer add any input to it. This makes the digital pad controls much more enjoyable (IMHO) and also works for the analog sticks. It also ensures that the ball is more likely to be moved horizontally as it has friction with the paddle (when you move the paddle to the left while hitting the ball, the ball is redirected to the right depending on the paddle velocity).
• Completely revamped the camera. Instead of focusing the ball and the paddle, the camera is now more focused to the center of the map and follows the paddle in position.
• Added camera interpolation, which makes fast look-at-target changes a lot smoother (for example when you loose a ball at the other side of the level)
• Added animation to the score. instead of just updating the number, it get's counted up.
• Added animation to blocks when a new level is loaded. Blocks should now fall from above instead of simply spawning
• Adjusted lighting to follow the camera so the level is lit from the camera's perspective. Also updated the ambient light a bit to make stuff more visible which was previously in the dark.
• Fixed a crash when reaching level 8. All levels should now be playable (tested myself Personal highscore of ~520.000)
• SELECT no longer returns to the title screen. Instead, it only happens when you hit SELECT while the game is PAUSE or while in the game over screen.
• Revamped the game over screen. It looks a lot cleaner now and offers you a menu where you can choose to restart or return to the title screen instead.
• Revamped the title screen a little bit to include the version number (0.2 i call it) and also added a new feature to my engine which allows me to center text horizontally a lot easier.

There are still known issues with sorting the blocks and the ball, and still some features are missing, which is why I don't call the game version an alpha yet.

As always, your feedback on this new version would be amazing! Have fun

Edit: Next on my list is sound btw.

[mzxtuelkl]

I'd personally prefer a more subtle camera that didn't move as much, but the smoothness of the camera itself is nice. The game's fine so far!