Breakout: The Rescue

Breakout: The Rescue v1.2

Release type: Shareware
Release date: ~1994-1995
Levels: 5
Author: Kevin Vance
Website: KVance.com
Registration bonus: Two more episodes
Registration price: $15.00
Related games: none

Produced maybe a year after Kirk Voodia and Hi-Tech Demo, Breakout is a distinct advance in design, concept, and playability. There are several cute or interesting techniques at work, and the game has a very clean presentation.

As in Kevin Vance's earlier games, Breakout has a stripped-down appearance that evokes a doodle brought to life. Here the doodle is composed more deliberately, with consistent geometry and several neat visual cues. Deaths are bloody, gun installations animate, and enemies cycle colors when injured, to show how close they are to death.

An especially fun detail is Vance's chosen Shareware bug; a little tile that floats around after the protagonist and animates to implore the player to register. It's sort of like Navi, from Ocarina of Time, if her whole purpose was to talk up Nintendo Power Magazine.

There may be a way to go yet, but with Breakout you can see the clear and rapid development of Vance's design sensibilities. This is a solid, if simple, game, reminiscent of Matthew Groves' work from about the same timeframe.

Forging an escape in Breakout

Story

You are a prisoner in a jail of the future. After three months, you manage to steal two hyper-pills. You take them, break out of your cell, and steal a weapon in the prison's secret R&D labs. It is able to rearrange the molecular structure of walls and burn through enemies. With this weapon in hand, you need to fight your way to the fifth floor to rescue John. With him, you can escape!

Instructions

Level 1 of Breakout

Here's what to do:

Enemies

Purple rank is the highest shareware enemy. When they are shot, they become Red rank. When Red ranks are shot, they become white rank. When white ranks are shot, they are killed for good.

Laser Defense Mechanisms (LDMs) are your main worry because they project a high powered beam at you that your enemies are immune to.

Poison Gas chutes will be introduced to you in the last level. They spray a poisonous cloud up into the air. The bigger the cloud, the more dangerous it is.

Jumping

Left - HOME

Right - PG UP

Up - UP ARROW

Walking

Left - LEFT ARROW

Right - RIGHT ARROW

Attacking

Gun - SPACE BAR

Items

Hyper-pill - HITPOINTS

Sonic-Pretzel - XTRA LIFE

Grenades are available only in episodes OUTTA HERE and HUNTED

Credits

I, Kevin Vance did all of this game except for the music and a few sound FX. This version is much cooler than the other one.

Music - all unknown

Sound - Scream by id Software; Laser unknown; "Excellent" by RSD

Buy the next two episodes for $15.00 and support the shareware concept.

Background

Kevin Vance:

I doubt I had any interaction with the Game-Maker community. I uploaded another Game-Maker game to AOL later called Breakout (about a prison breakout, not hitting blocks with a ball), but I don't think I ran into any other GM users on AOL either.

Breakout is about a guy busting out of a prison guarded by laser turrets and sword-wielding guards.

I remember uploading this one to AOL, and getting hundreds of downloads! Probably most of those were disappointed that it had nothing to do with batting a ball into bricks.

This isn't the original distribution format; I just zipped up an old directory called brkout12 that contained the game. It also may be a work in progress: it's version 1.2, and the title screens are pretty incongruous with the rest.

I'm also not sure when exactly I made this. Given the 1.2 version number, it looks like I may have made some new title screens for a game I finished earlier using some 3D rendering software. Maybe 1994-1995?

It's also another "shareware" game with more episodes that were never made. Luckily, no one ever sent in the registration form!

Availability

Available for a time on the AOL game board. According to author Vance, it received "hundreds of downloads!"

Archive history

Kevin Vance contributed this game to the archive on March 26, 2011, after extensive email contact initiated through his blog and social media.

Links

• Play Breakout: The Rescue online

Downloads

• Breakout (192.6 kB)
• Level 1 map (12 kB)
• Level 2 map (12 kB)
• Level 3 map (12 kB)
• Level 4 map (11 kB)
• Level 5 map (11 kB)