Features
Quaddle Smatch is a new take on the old Breakout / Arkonoid formula. Control four paddles with your finger and use them to bounce the ball toward the blocks in the middle of the screen.
Download the APK
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Five unique game modes with different goals and scoring systems.
Four different skill levels--including a custom user setting--for each mode.
Uses SQLlite for custom setting and Hi-Score persistence.
Stores separate Hi-Scores for each game mode and skill level combinations, with custom scores clearing when the settings change.
Simple, one touch controls that move all four paddles with one finger. May touch anywhere on the screen to play.
Options to change the acceleration and the degree of deflection for your paddles, which persist between games.
Match - This is the original mode from my yBasic version for PalmOS devices. The ball changes colors to match the blocks when it hits one. Hit a block that matches the ball's current color to destroy it and chain hits to activate the superball.
Smash - This mode spreads out the block grid and tasks you with smashing the blocks one by one. The common yellow blocks break in one hit, but the others change colors until they are yellow and finally destroyed. Hit multiple non-yellow blocks in a row to activate the superball.
Race - The ball rapidly accelerates, with only a few scattered, unbreakable blocks as obstacles. Earn points and extra balls by avoiding them.
Juggle - Multiple balls bounce around an otherwise empty screen. Missing one speeds up all the others, and if you miss the last one, you lose.
Squash - Nests hatch bugs at regular intervals. Squash them with the ball before they reach an edge of the screen.
Quaddle Smatch began as a game demo called bounce that I developed using yBasic for PalmOS devices. When considering what sort of games I could produce for the platform, and its limitations, Arkonoid soon came to mind. Of course I had no desire to make yet another copy of a game that had already been ported to every imaginable platform, deciding instead to make something new that might revitalize the genre.
The thought of using a stylus to control four different paddles and putting the blocks in the center soon came to mind. I had already thought of recreating an old 16-bit Tetris competitor called Zoop, a game where you destroyed blobs by bumping into the ones that matched the color of your cursor. In that game your cursor could rotate and move around the center while the blobs swarmed from all four sides. I reversed that formula and combined it with my idea of a four paddle breakout clone.
While porting bounce to Android I realized how nicely the touch screen controls worked and decided to expand on the project by adding multiple game modes. The original match mode was first accompanied by smash, my four-directional take on the classic brick breaking games. More and more ideas came to me but I decided to stop at 7 and then filtered it down to the five best.
The name bounce was too generic to keep so I brainstormed for possible replacements. Four Paddle Smash was one of the first of many stupid ideas that eventually turned into the Quaddle Smatch, a shortened version of "four paddle match and smash."
The development was performed on an RCA Viking Pro 10.1" 2-in-1 Android laptop using the following apps.
RFO Basic! - Source code edited and tested in this free basic interpreter for Android
Basic! Compiler - APK compiled by this 3$ app
Ivy Draw - All graphics were designed in this great vector graphics app that costs 6$ to register
Pixly - minor graphical touchups performed in this free pixel editor
SFXR - the few retro style sound effects were generated by this opensource app available for most platforms
OmniNotes - this opensource note taking app was used to document agendas and to track bugs
DroidEdit - associated text files edited in this free app
Quaddle Smatch is public domain and may be freely used, distributed, and modified with the following exceptions. One, I reserve the exclusive right to distribute it where software is bought or sold. Two, derivative work may not use the name of Quaddle Smatch.
Questions and comments welcome in my mailbox, MichaelCPalmer1980@gmail.com
Best regards