Rival Ball

Rival Ball
The logo for Rival Ball, as presented on its website
Developer(s)	Longbow Digital Arts
Publisher(s)	Longbow Digital Arts
Programmer(s)	Tom Hubina Rob McConnell
Composer(s)	SideWinder
Platform(s)	Windows 9x, NT, 2K, XP, Vista, 7 / Mac OS 8.6–9, OS X with CarbonLib 1.4 or later
Release date(s)	March 19, 2001
Genre(s)	Breakout clone
Mode(s)	Single-player, hotseat, online multiplayer
Distribution	Digital distribution, CD-ROM

Rival Ball is the spiritual successor to the PC Breakout-style classic DX-Ball 2, adding a new branch to the series of DX-Ball games on the side of Longbow Digital Arts. Released on March 19, 2001, the game features the new dimensions of square shaped bricks and online split-screen multiplayer for 1-on-1 action.^[1] As an upgrade from DX-Ball 2 it also introduces a cursor-based layout with buttons for navigation; two new power-ups; the ability to save and resume games; and game options for randomising board order, setting timers, repeating board-sets, and choosing between four difficulty levels. As an added bonus, the game will also play all the original DX-Ball 2 boards, offering the experience of a classic game with rectangular bricks. With the addition of a Mac version announced on April 3, 2002,^[2] Rival Ball was eventually succeeded by Rival Ball Tournament in 2004.^[3] Rival Ball was also the first game from Longbow Games to follow the passing of Seumas McNally (1979–2000), the company's founder and lead programmer.

Gameplay

The object of the game is to clear a field of bricks using a paddle and a ball. Most bricks are cleared upon impact with the ball, while some bricks may take multiple hits, be invisible, blast surrounding bricks, or appear unbreakable. Once all breakable bricks on the board have been cleared, the player advances to the next board. As bricks are being cleared, power-ups will frequently launch onto the screen (see Power-ups). The player may choose to catch these with the paddle, which in turn will bring about various effects in the game. For instance, some power-ups may increase the rate of the brick-breaking process by introducing laser guns and fireballs into play, while others may affect the difficulty by shrinking the paddle and speeding up the ball.

Standard game

Standard Game offers the classic brick-busting experience. The player may select a desired set of boards to play, whereas the game initially comes with two freeware board-sets of 4 boards each. As an added bonus, Rival Ball also includes the six demo board-sets from DX-Ball 2, with support for the five respective board packs from the game. Before a game starts, the player may set additional game options, including difficulty, time limits, randomised board order, and board-set repeat. The difficulty levels range from Easy to Medium, Hard and Impossible, and will determine several factors for the game. As the game's default setting, Medium implies a standard game with no specific alterations. On the other hand, Easy lets the player start with a big ball and extended paddle, with the paddle size being fixed to not contract beyond the initial width. Easy also excludes three of the game's Power-Ups, including Death, Tiny Ball and Mega Shrink. If the chosen difficulty is Hard, the game starts with the regular paddle size, but a small ball. While the paddle cannot be extended beyond its initial width in this mode, the ball can only grow to its regular size. Hard is also the only difficulty setting to introduce timed power-ups, where the effects from Blitz Ball, Laser, Fire Ball, Ice Ball and Catch are only temporary. The last difficulty setting is Impossible. While all power-ups are absent in this mode, the game starts with the most narrow paddle size and a tiny ball set at the highest speed. The additional game options are optional and can be used in conjunction with one another. By enabling Time Limit, the player may compete against the clock with settings of 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes to complete a board-set. Random Boards will randomise the order of the boards in the chosen board-set. Lastly, Repeat Board-Set will repeat the total set of boards up to ten times in a row.^[4] When the player has completed a board, a Board Bonus will be added to the total score. Constituted by three elements, the player may get 50 points for each additional ball left on the screen; 500 points if no balls were lost during the board; and 250 points if all bricks were cleared. In addition to the Board Bonus, the completion of a board-set will be summarised by a Set Bonus, awarding the player 250 points for each paddle left; 3000 points if all bricks were cleared across the entire set; and 4,000 points if the board-set was completed without losing a single ball. Aside from single player, Standard Game also features a Hot-Seat multiplayer mode. In this mode, players take turns in clearing the boards, competing to achieve the highest score. Turns are changed either when one player completes a board or loses a life, and the game goes on until all players have either finished the board-set or lost all spare paddles.

Network game

As the core concept of the game, Network Game is what puts the "Rival" in Rival Ball. With a 1-on-1 split-screen multiplayer mode, the majority of the game's board-sets are specifically designed to mirror horizontally at the middle of the screen. While these boards may be played in their entirety in a standard game, a horizontal bar will split the screen in a network game, dividing the boards into two equal parts. The local player will then be busting bricks on the lower part of the board, while the progress of their opponent will be reflected on the upper half of the screen. To get started with the online gaming, the game features a lobby where players may gather to host and join games. Communications can also be conducted via sending messages or creating a chat room.

Screenshot of the online lobby, illustrating a list of players on the left, with player stats and details about hosted games on the right.

Upon the first visit online, the player is automatically connected to the game's default game room. A prompt is then made to create an online profile by defining a username and a password. This is kept on the game's server to record the player's number of wins, losses, quits and their rank. Alternatively, players can create and host their own hidden or public game rooms, operating as a server for other players to join. However, online profiles and their corresponding stats are limited to the specific game rooms they were created within.

Once the player is connected and logged in, a game may be hosted for others to join; or the player may choose to join a game hosted by someone else. Initially, only one of the game's two board-sets can be played online, as Rival Ball Split is the only board-set which features mirrored split-screen boards. On the other hand, owners of the full version and Rival Ball Series 2 will have a variety of board-sets to choose from (see Board packs); although, these can only be joined by players who have the respective boards installed. Once a game has been hosted, a green check mark will appear next to the player's username in the lobby, indicating that a game is ready to be joined. Incidentally, online games do not feature additional game options, aside from setting the difficulty of the hosted game. When playing against an opponent, the object of the game is simply to score the most points. The concept of spare paddles and losing in-game does not apply for online games, so the loss of a paddle will merely result in a short delay and remove the effects of any power-ups. As with standard games, the completion of a board will award the player a Board Bonus, giving a slight advantage to the player who first clears the board. However, the final Set Bonus does not apply for online games. Once the board-set has been completed, the player with the highest score is deemed the winner, and the result is added to the stats of each player respectively. If a player chooses to quit during a game, the forfeit will be added to their quits. However, no win is recorded for the other player.

Power-ups

The game features a total of twenty power-ups, which may cause a variety of effects in the game. While the majority of these are direct clones from DX-Ball 2, Ice Ball and Chain Lightning are two new additions, replacing Falling Bricks and Level Warp.

Development

Initially released on March 19, 2001, Rival Ball was presented as a sequel to DX-Ball 2, adding a new branch to the DX-Ball series as a spiritual successor by Longbow Digital Arts. Based upon the same engine as DX-Ball 2, the game recycles many of the original elements and programming by Seumas McNally (1979-2000).^{[lower-roman 1]} While the gameplay and design essentially remained the same, Rival Ball featured a cursor-based layout with buttons for navigation; new graphics for the power-ups; board designs with square shaped bricks; new sound effects; a new soundtrack; four difficulty settings and options to set timers, randomise board order and repeat board-sets; and most significantly: split-screen network play. The game was also ported to the Mac (requires CarbonLib 1.4 or later on Mac OS 8.6 or later), with the Mac version announced on April 3, 2002. Notably, while the Mac version is known as Rival Ball version 2.0, the port is identical to the outdated version 1.3 for the PC, and does not feature the online lobby.^[5]

Compatibility updates

To ensure compatibility with Windows Vista, version 1.5.5 was released on May 28, 2007. The update also installs MCEWrapper.exe for support under Windows XP Media Center Edition, and renewed the game's icon with a glowing blue ball. Inconspicuously, the software installer had also been changed to NSIS.^[6] However, this update was later discovered to cause a compatibility issue with Windows 9x systems; hence a second update, version 1.5.6, was provided in December 2007, which solved the problem by installing ShFolder.dll with the game.^{[lower-roman 1]}

Board packs

Screenshot from an online split-screen game, illustrating the mirrored design of the first board from the board-set Captive.^{[lower-roman 2]}

While Rival Ball comes with two freeware board-sets of four boards each, the full version of the game, also known as Rival Ball Series 1, adds eleven new board-sets with a total of 150 boards. With board designs by Jim and Wendy McNally, the base board pack features four board-sets of 20 boards for standard games, and seven board-sets of 10 boards with mirrored designs for compatibility online. In addition, the complementing Rival Ball Series 2 features 150 boards designed by Wendy McNally, with eleven new board-sets of which ten were designed for online action.^[7] While most of the board-sets from the full version of Rival Ball seek to explore the vast variety of designs made possible with the new dimension of square bricks, Rival Ball Series 2 sees a more steadfast collection of board-sets. In tradition with Wendy's style of board design as seen in the board packs for DX-Ball 2, most of the board-sets play about artistic renditions of specific themes. For instance, the 20 boards of Villa feature a variety of decorative plants and flowers for standard games, while Fireflies takes the player through 10 boards of mirrored animal-oriented designs. Further, sporting the pun of allowing network play, Alpha-Net takes the player through the 26 letters of the alphabet, with correlating words spelling out. And to even out the number of total boards, Belts and Bucklets comes with 14 colourful split-screen waistbands. Notably, while some of the backgrounds presented with the board-sets can be very bright, the player may toggle the brightness in-game by pressing F1, ranging from bright to dimmed and off.

As an added bonus to the game, Rival Ball will also play all five DX Ball 2 board packs, if the player has any of these installed.^[7]

Soundtrack

As the same artist who wrote the songs featured in DX-Ball 2, Eric Gieseke provided seven tracks for Rival Ball under his handle SideWinder. The soundtrack spans an overall euro-techno sound, featuring melodic tunes with a notable influence of house and trance music.^{[8][lower-roman 1]}

The game's music can be located in the game's Mods subdirectory. While the game supports modules of the .mod, .xm and .s3m formats, the player may customise the soundtrack by adding or removing tracks; however, only modules with up to 24 channels are supported. While the game is running, the player can easily skip between tracks or turn the music off by pressing F5 – the first press unloading the music, and the next press loading a new song. Incidentally, F6 can be pressed to adjust the game's volume, while pressing F8 will swap the stereo of all sound effects.^{[lower-roman 1]}

Sequel

Released on April 29, 2004, Rival Ball was succeeded by Rival Ball Tournament as its direct sequel.^[3] With true head-to-head gameplay, Rival Ball Tournament took the prequel to a new level of brick-breaking action with the concept of AI opponents. The boards, here termed arenas, feature a more free-form design with bricks of various shapes and sizes, as well as unbreakable obstacles like torches and towers. While each arena has a horizontally mirrored design, Rival Ball Tournament omits the split-screen concept for a more competitive way of playing, with the goal of hitting and breaking the most bricks for more points. In addition, match bonuses at the end of a round may determine the winner by goals scored, balls lost, and who broke the last brick.^[9]

Notes

References

External links

• Official Rival Ball website
• Official SideWinder website