Do you see what I did there? 😉
It’s game time again, with another title from Code the Classics Volume II converted to run on RISC OS by Jeroen Vermeulen – this time a Breakout clone called Kinetix, which is now available to download from !Store.
The aim of the game is simple – using your bat at the bottom of the screen, bounce a ball against a wall of colourful bricks above you in order to gradually knock them out. You need to move the bat left and right to keep the ball bouncing up, rather than leaving the play area at the bottom.
When some blocks are destroyed, they release power-ups that descend the screen – if you catch these with the bat, you’ll gain from that power-up, but at the risk of not reaching the ball in time to keep it in play. Power-ups include increasing the length of your bat, spawning additional balls (which can more rapidly wipe out the wall, but become harder to track – though, ultimately, only one has to be kept in play), or even adding cannons to your bat!
Other blocks, however, may be more problematic – some take multiple hits before they are cleared, and some are indestructable.
Once all the bricks that can be removed are gone, you move on to the next level – a new wall, in a new formation. There are six levels, and once you’ve cleared the last the game carries on from the first; just keep going to rack up as high a score as you can.
The game can be played using the keyboard or, if you have one, a simple SNES-like controller can be used.
Jeroen expects that Kintetix will run on most RISC OS 5 computer platforms, having tested it on a number running RISC OS 5.30/5.31, and recommends at least a Raspberry Pi 4 or equivalent for best performance.
