Great mix of games Dan! Was a lot to wrap my mind around while playing. I think this is the best use of theme of come across :)

Love the concept of this game, dude. Would honestly love an android version of this for my phone. Gameplay is smooth, haven't ran into any bugs minus the leaderboard not showing up in GL, it's very addictive. I've spent a good 15 minutes playing and have no intention of stopping. I really like the art style, you've obviously spent a lot of time to give each piece of the UI it's own identity and it shows. In terms of audio I like the sounds and think they're non invasive which is great as I can listen without getting annoyed hearing them on repeat.
I'm not sure I actually have any criticism. It's simplicity is kind of its strength. Perhaps in the future it might be a good idea to occasionally add a random power up to drop? at the same time I don't think it needs anything like that though.
Anyway, Good job, dude. It was a stressful weekend but you should definitely be proud of what you got done.

Damn, this is awesome! I really love the retro look of it, and breaking blocks is such a smart idea! 10/10 theme fit! Great job!

A smart blend between two classic games... though not necessarily 'incompatible'. Bugs aside, I really liked the 1-bit graphics style (I did the same 80s palette for my own - very different - game). I wonder if different control layouts would work, such as controlling both paddle and piece rotation with the mouse simultaneously, to make it a bit tougher. Either way, very impressed with this. Makes you wonder why no one came up with it before. Great work!

Wow, that was really something new. Very fresh and related to the theme. Well done!

It can be a bit challenging. Perhaps there could be a difficulty setting.

This was really a great idea for the theme. It works surprisingly well, and adds an interesting dynamic to the tetris game, since the ball can destroy the pieces. Perhaps the blocks could fall a little bit faster, since I never felt in danger of losing due to the screen getting filled. Anyway, great job, I think I'm going to try and beat my high score :)

That was awesome! Great use of the theme :smile: One of the most polished games i've seen so far. Great work! Love the music btw!! check out my submission if you want https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/gun-hockey

This amazing, i didnt think i would be able to play this, because im too stupid to do more than one thing at a time, but i found that this was pretty nice to control!

This game is great and challenging!

This is actually a great game. Good job! The idea fits really well and you made such an awesome game that people are actually willing to play for 2 incompatible game genres.

Thank you all @Akusan @SuperTibbles @zeMenno @isopoly @Vasco Freitas @Peter Jonsson @Darby Costello @egordorichev @waterytart @theArtifacts for your useful and kind feedback! It is much appreciated and I'm looking forward to getting into play LD games over the coming days.

With regards to the incompatibility - my definition of compatible is ability to co-exist without any problems or conflict. From my perspective, both of these games-types cause problems and conflict for the other. You struggle to make lines because the ball destroys your existing lines and pieces as they drop. The dropping pieces also interfere unexpectedly with the movement of the ball. Also you are not able to simply clear the blocks and win like in breakout, instead the high-score approach of tetris forces you to try and keep tiles and you need to make lines to extend your remaining time - thus increasing your potential high score.

This is simply LIT! Everything 5 dude!

Very solid game. It combines two classic games and it works reasonably well. The game feels quite complete with nice sound effects and distinct graphics style.

Nice game! This is a really smart combination of games that work surprisingly well.

Man this was an intense experience, I really like how the graphics are simple and yet so elegant, reminiscent of old GBC titles. The game is quite complicated/difficult to play, but really fun. Really fantastic execution of the theme. Only got to ~500 so far.

Such a hard game again — the theme has encouraged a lot of games where you need to focus on two things at once. It's good fun tho, I don't have anything really to complain about. :) Great levels of polish!

-Rao

Great mixup of two retro games! Love the graphics

Really nice concept. Quite hard challange to manage 2 games at the same time, very well execution on the theme Good job

@Zukureneno @SupremeKurt @Team Luminous @Reizo @bar0net @Ruoyu @Velocity7
Thanks for your feedback! I'm hoping to stream playing LD games Wed eve and Friday eve - so I'll go through and try out games of those who gave feedback when my queue is empty!

Challenging is the word to describee this game. Fun as well. Great job.

How can this even exists? And why can I give only 5 stars? :) This is JUST AMAZING. Can't stop playing...

@mintarcade So kind! thank you good sir! @MZA Glad to hear, seems the genre mix is indeed posing some challenges ;)

I love the graphics.

This game is hard. Only can use left hand to play Tetris. It could be nice if we can also use "space bar" as rotate, so I don't need to keep moving my finger to rotate.(But I also think that's why this game is challenging. It want you to do lot's of things at the same time.)

I played so many times and only cleared 3~5 lines. That ball destroyed everything!

@Crsrc You end up resenting that ball and the path of chaos it leaves behind it!! Good suggestion, I guess space could be rotate clockwise, I just felt I needed to offer both rotation directions - but indeed no harm to add one of them to space! Won't add now as after deadline, but will take it on board. Thanks!

Wow, damn near perfect realisation here! I did 4800 on my first try, and I'm now too exhausted to try again... That was pretty challenging, loved every moment of it!

I popped into stream few times when you had your array issues at sunday/monday haha. Glad it worked out into great game.

Addictive! I could feel my brain straining trying to control it all properly at once, but very well implemented. Nice audio too!

Nice job! Really love the graphics, reminds me of a good old times!

Glad this came together! It'd be neat if the leaderboard was accessible from a web browser, more convenient for me to defend my 2nd place title :smile:

Thanks @Colisan , @kamtar and @HS_Dave for feedback and kind words!

@TSK those were the days.... where if a game didn't load you'd blow into the underside of the cartridge rather than check twitter for announcements from the devs!

@MarkoPoloDev Grats on 2nd place, and thanks for playing bud! Yeah annoyingly its not a code issue, I think its itch io blocking access from their site to the leaderboard site (dreamlo). Think its cause its http rather than https, so not much I can do now.

@Honest Dan Sorry, I don't mean the web version of the game, I just want to see the leaderboards without starting up the game and losing a round. Looking at dreamlo, seems like there's a public version you can post a link to, something like http://dreamlo.com/lb/public_url_thingy/json-asc ? Not sure that's possible, just a hope :thumbsup:

@MarkoPoloDev http://dreamlo.com/lb/5ade3f54d6024519e0ef5ea3/pipe

Great game. Really clever combination.

The between the monochrome color palette reminding me of the gameboy version of tetris and the arcade style frame of break out, I definitely felt like I jumped back a few decades. After watching your game on stream I played it myself and tried to use the tetris blocks and the paddle as a sandwich for the ball. Great work!

Nice combo. Took a lot of concentration but worth it!

Yeah, I just had to keep playing this game until I got on the scoreboard. 5's all around. Instant winner.

@Anne Ogborn @stardynamic @RamiaD @David Boeger Really appreciate you guys taking the time to play, and that you got some enjoyment out of it! In previous jams I've tried big ideas with deeper content, but this time I've learned that concentrating on a single mechanic and style allows people to engage with the game easier <3

Woah this took way more brainspace than i thought I had X)
I ended up not really looking at the bar, and just playing the tetris part.

@Adrien Dittrick that's the way to do it - focus on the tetris part to get more points and time, and just "manage" the ball, and stop it from ruining your beautiful tetris rows! :D glad to hear you struggled - it was intended to be that way <3

One of the most original concepts I've seen So far! So cool and Fun. Great job.

​I scored 250 points : ( good game and good job, i loved. Its has a comercial game potential! congrats

Nice job !

This mix is insane!
I really like it, and the graphics are just so clean.
One of the best games I've seen so far.

Great works guys ! I really appreciate how you designed the mix between Tetris and Breakout. The game is super polish, is really fluid on WebGL builds, and i'm jealous you have a leaderboard : d

The binds for move/rotate are a bit hard to learn though. You should keep ASWD for move, but maybe rotate blocks with right mouse. I really think having the ability to rotate both sides isn't necessary, as it's really handable on one-side rotation

I rated 4.5 / 5. I think the music can be more polished


Here's our game, which is also a Tetris mixed with another genre : D
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/blocksnblaster-1

Hard to coordinate the arkanoid gameplay with a tetris 😆 Nice game!

Loved the retro graphics and audio. Game feels polished!

Very polished. Can hardly spot anything that looks unfinished, good job on that. The game is as annoying as promised, with the ball constantly interfering, creation and destruction are locked in a struggle. If it had some more stuff to my advantage, like a chance to pick up extra ball (life) I'd definitely spend more time playing it. I went for an annoying tetris game as well, check it out when you get to.

Easily one of my favorites this jam! Good job!

Very polished and it feels good to play.

I personally don't think those two themes are too "imcompatible" - other than the fact that the game has a lot going on which is not certainly everyone's cup of tea.

But overall, it is still a very good game as a marathon game and extra props for all the polish that has gone to this!

@Nash - thanks for feedback, glad you found it good to play!

Regarding incompatibility, you're entitled to your opinion - though I'd ask you to consider my perspective that I listed at the end of my entry description. For convenience, here it is: "The Theme: With regards to the incompatibility - my definition of compatible is ability to co-exist without any problems or conflict. From my perspective, both of these games-types cause problems and conflict for the other. You struggle to make lines because the ball destroys your existing lines and pieces as they drop. The dropping pieces also interfere unexpectedly with the movement of the ball. Also you are not able to simply clear the blocks and win like in breakout, instead the high-score approach of tetris forces you to try and keep blocks. You need to make rows of blocks to extend your remaining time - thus increasing your potential high score."

I think this is perfect, I wish the leaderboards were working on the web version. Perfect Job. Well Done.

@honest-dan I can see your point and where you are coming from. Most likely it is just me being stubborn here. The reason these two genres did not feel too incompatible was most likely the reason I have seen same kind of games before. Maybe that is more like the surprise aspect that I was missing here and the theme itself is fitting! :)

@kr4ft3r Appreciate your words man. Regarding the extra ball, you do get an extra ball every 1000 points you score. I however seem to have not mentioned this in the instructions - sorry! I had also considered powerups every time you get a line - such as speed up / increase size of ball / paddle, as some of those would make the games even less compatible! but ran out of time :)

@Nash thanks for taking time to reply. Regardless, you're entitled to your opinion on it - a game is often about the individual players' experience!

@tigerj thanks for giving it a go! I wish leaderboards worked too, but as mentioned - dreamlo leaderboards require payment for SSL leaderboards, and itch.io don't allow access to not HTTPS things via WebGL.

Thanks all: @Adam Wallberg, @BauBau, @Dragojt (glad you found it hard :D!), @Yozamu @Richnou @folex70 (It would be hard to port to mobile due to many controls needed, and also I'm not sure how licencing works since this plays similar to tetris), @Iluvatar!

@HPMNK interesting feedback, cheers. I thought about the controls for some time. I considered right click, but this posed two problems: 1) the mouse is no longer just for the paddle control, and 2) right clicking in browser I was concerned would bring up a context menu. Regarding the rotations, I almost went with R or Space for rotate, but was concerned proper tetris fans would not enjoy one way rotation only. I should have made space / r do a rotation regardless, but it's too late now! I'll be playing games this evening on stream so I'll try give yours a go then <3

@Honest Dan About the right mouse you probably right ! We were quite affraid of that too when designing our game !

When do you plan to stream ? I would definitely look at that, to catch some pictures for my game : )

@HPMNK in about an hour. I'll have a queue, but its my first "open queue" night, so at the moment it's empty at least!

I think you could still use the mouse for the rotation as another option. I mean if I dont play it in browser, I might (and I would) find it a lot easier to do it with the mouse. Also Holding down 'S' should bring it down continously, not smashing the button :P Cramped my hand for your game, since its a lot of fun. Gets tedious to get a row with that god damm ball ruining my every single move. But definetly fun!

Cheers

Fun game. Everything is pretty well executed/implemented in this. The only downside is that it's just a simple Tetris + Breakout mix which are games of the puzzle genre and you didn't do anything different on top of that (like power ups that freezes the ball, or add multiple balls, etc).

Awesome job.

That is one original combo. This dish of Honest Dan's Trout is expertly blended and garnished with tasteful artwork and audio. A true classic.

This is a nicely done combination of two game genres. The breakout part totally messes with my Tetris strategy which is great. It takes some mental discipline to keep both aspects in hand.

Great concept, messed with my head so badly! Loving the old school GBA vibe with the graphics.

Really cool concept. Two very well game mechanics put together and working nicely. The graphics are very simple yet very good and the sounds and music do the job. Great work!

Hey man, you seemed pretty upset about your game when you were finishing it up, but I honestly think it's pretty good! The only problem I got with it is the leaderboards don't seem to be working for me. Other than that it is awesome!

@BlueMirror Fair enough about the control scheme. With dropping tetris tiles however, it IS implemented. Hold it down, and it falls pretty fast (i didn't want it to teleport to the bottom, but it'll get there fast). I coded it so that it wouldnt start the next piece falling fast though, as that can be frustrating that you making one piece fall fast then makes the next piece start fast. You have to re-press down again and hold to make the next piece go down faster. Glad you felt the frustrations of the ball. It's a swine.

@Cassio Eduardo fair enough bud, I did fear they were two simple things to try - but when I scrapped my jam entry after 1 day and started again, I opted for something with a decent scope... yet still only just managed to finish it. I did have plans for powerups too, but not the time. THanks for feedback.

@Blinkenlights don't forget a wedge of lemon. Belissimo!

@recursor @Hi Im Greg @acoto87 thank you for feedback :)

@joltjab I've written a few times in info etc, unfortunately the highscores only work on PC version! sorry <3

Two genres that seem like they shouldn't work but fit together really nicely. It was a real challenge trying to keep both game types in mind when playing but it was fun keeping track of it all. Another Dan classic!

@Honest Dan ah I see. Missed that part. Thanks for explaining!

Wow, this was a very fantastic implementation of the theme!! Well done!

Really good visual/auditory design; no strict flaws. The gameplay worked surprisingly well and was pretty fun, even though I suck ass through a straw. Awesome submission

It always surprise me how creative people can be! Visually it looks pretty cool. I always realized that I have forgotten about the ball :D I always haven't been so good at Tetris, but now, when shape changes when it falls, it is even harder! :D It was pleasure to play!

Good job Dan Im glad tha plan C worked out for you!

I really liked the game,simple, fun and addictive! Nice combination of cool arcade games! God I got frustrated after a while when my perfect lovely lane got rekt by the ball.

Great fun game Dan, would be nice to be able to customize parameters like nr of balls or tetris difficulty!

Hey Dan,

I watched some bits of the stream while you were jamming for Ludum Dare 41.

At the beginning you were unsure about how it was going to turn out, but you kept going and working on it.
And I must say it turned out to be amazing!


### The things I loved
I really liked the multitasking aspect of the game, having to keep an eye on the ball and the tetris blocks! After a few runs I could keep the ball alive while still focussing on the playfield. It felt rewarding mastering this skill! Not many LD games make me replay them several times, but yours did! I even tried different play styles (focussing on making rows one time and destroying blocks the other time). It turned out to be more rewarding to make rows instead of breaking blocks (which the score table already indicates), but hey I had to try.

Getting to compare your score to other via the leaderboard was really fun and encouraged me to get a better score.

The game was not only fun and challenging to play but I also really loved the art. Everything looks clean and fits in the theme. Furthermore, it is also really easy on the eyes!

### The things I would have liked (if I had to name some ...)
It may be just me, but when I was playing the game for the first time I didn't notice the time at all; all of the sudden I died. A warning sound or the background music speeding up at 30 seconds would have given me a great rush to try and stay in the game!

Next to this there could have been some extra buttons in the UI, like a 'play again' in the game over screen or 'leaderboard' button in the main menu. But who cares in a 72 hour game jam.

I am also quite sure I lost 2 lives in 1 go once, the ball seemed to bounce on the bottom of my paddle somehow. Wasn't able to reproduce this though, so it probably won't have happend that much.


### End note
Loved it. These 2 arcade genres together make for a really fun and challenging game. Graphics are clean and fit together. The game overall gives a really polished impression.
Great job man!



Keep up the great work,

InsertCoffeePls

@TwinGhosts thanks bud <3 plan c reverted to plan B - glad I stuck with it!

@Swen thanks so much for such a detailed bit of feedback. I agree with all your points. Regarding the double ball loss, it surprises me because as soon as it hits the "death zone", its velocity should be set to 0. Could be something to do with a speed enforcer I put in to try stop the ball from rarely stopping / slowing right down during a game. Thanks for the headsup! <3 appreciate your words!

Very nice entry! Possibly the smartest combination in the jam :D Well executed too!

Keep up the good work dan!

@honest-dan This game is so dang fun, I had to come back and absolutely slaughter the high score. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!

@David Boeger genuinely makes me feel great knowing people are getting enjoyment out of something I made :) Thanks

Took a while to get the hang of it, im a bit of a tetris fiend so i kept focusing on setting pieces up and then having my plans ruined by the ball :P

What if the tetris pieces fell upward? Just to make it look more like a breakout level.
Either way i had fun :D

Very solid game with two succesful genre. Love tetris combined with breaker.
At first I didn't know you could move your tetris because I jumped straight into the game.
But once in, I enjoyed both of genre mixing together and trying to score as much. I still need to play it more to register a decent score :)

Well done.

Really great fuse of two great genres! And, very fun game.

I got 16240 on my second try in the web version, but the fact that it didn't save to online leaderboards was not really nice.

On my third run on the PC build, I managed to hit the infinite state.


I could have gone forever (until my hands started to hurt REALLY bad), but I have other things to do today and other games to rate so I stopped at 40k :smile: (not at all Warhammer reference). Maybe if a challenger arises (@david-boeger?), I will give it another go to confirm my title (ping me in that case :smile:).

I admit I used to be a somewhat competitive Tetris player, so the game was pretty easy after I got the hang of the ball.

I never managed to score a trout, not even a triple.

I find it beautiful how it all just worked. The way I had to make the ball not hit the lines I was about to complete, but make it hit the blocks that clear a line, how I could reshape (or even remove) the tetriminos I didn't like, how I sometimes had to dodge the ball with my tetrimino, how there were in total 3 losing conditions, but they all felt very natural. There was quite a lot going on, but everything was so intuitive! So, great job on that!

Also, your Tetris implementation was pretty good. Compared to many clones that I have played around the net at least.

The multitasking aspect was very nice, and very natural too.

So yeah, it was super, super fun and I love the idea and implementation.

Let me give you several comments about some minor issues I had.

- E for rotating should have been W. I found it quite annoying.

- I would prefer for the tetriminos to have colors, preferably according to the standard Tetris color scheme. I see that it doesn't fit the retro style you were going for. I didn't like the overall aesthetics.

- I didn't like the way the ball bounced off the bar. It kind of "snapped" to a position several pixels from where it should be

- When I had a broken tetrimino falling, I couldn't rotate it near a wall even though I should have been able to, because the checker assumed that the broken off cubies were still there and should not get beside the wall

- Of course, some difficulty rise after a while would be nice. But I may be the only one to have this problem.

- Super minor issue - how the shades on the blocks were not all in the same direction.

So yeah, that's all. Best game I played so far this LD. Also, sorry for sweeping the competition, I guess I may stay at the top for a while :smiley:.

@BoltKey Okay, yeah, I'm not challenging your score for some time, lol. Maybe eventually I will try to dethrone you, but you beat me pretty handily. Excellent job!

Good job! Cool game!

I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape

Hey Dan! Really well polished game despite its simple concept. Gameplay is solid, well executed and could lead to very interesting stuff when expanded upon!
Only downside to me comes from the difficulty difference between both games, breakout being much, much more difficult and demanding than tetris (since tetrominos get destroyed by the ball so easily)
Really well done!

This game was super fun. I thought I was the greatest and then I realized I need 240 more points until I got a free ball. Dreams were crushed.

Brilliant combination of two of the greatest arcade games ever made. I have noticed lots of people wanted to mix Tetris with other games this game jam, but none have done it with the elegance and polish of this game. Well done.

@honest-dan @BoltKey I did it. I got a trout. I believe it's the world's first trout. Here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuYLONPxtp0

It was not easy at all. Seriously, I had to up my game substantially, but also get extremely lucky. Before, I jokingly said a trout should give 5k points. But no, I think it should give about 15k points more realistically, because no competitive player in their right mind would try to accomplish this for the points. It took me longer to get the trout than it did to get to the top of the scoreboard, and quite frankly, I had to get a lot better at the game too.

This is really good. If i was to be picky i would say maybe the two genres aren't really 'incompatible' as such, but either way, it's a cracking game you've made, a lot of fun to play, very nice job!

The most fun game this LD.

@radmccool thats the beauty of it. A true trouter grows to respect the ball, not swear at it each time it ruins your wonderful tetris plans. I am still not a true trouter :(

@Lyrcaxis thank you dude :)

@Corbak you aren't the first one to not know that! I've watched two people play this who didn't touch the dropping pieces for the first minute or so! Not sure if I should directly tell people, or just make the arrow keys control things too?

@BoltKey really sorry about your experience with web version high score. I did have a note in bold under the web player trying to warn players, but understand most people will not read that. Can I ask what you meant by infinite state? And glad you could master it, I think a real version of the game would have some increased difficulty or different difficulty modes perhaps - it's nice to see there are people who are really good at this who enjoyed working out the added challenge that breakout added to tetris. I'm really really pleased to hear you felt it was an elegant combination - I feared my idea would be too simple for a game jam, but really pleased I went with it now. Thanks for the feedback also - I thought Q and E would give players control of both directions, is this not something competitive tetris players tend to care about? I could add it so W rotates clockwise in addition to the existing controls perhaps. Fair enough about the colour preference. and Yes the blocks shading is off as my implementation was based around rotations and I didn't code anything to compensate the sprite rotations. It surprises me about the rotation point though - are you positive about this? My implementation basically turns it, checks if any active parts of the piece are out of range / colliding, then reverses the rotation if so. Perhaps I checked out of bounds before I checked the block was active - I'll check the code some day :) How do you feel powerups would add to it? I considered making negative powerups that you get as you get more score, like faster ball, bigger ball, double ball - as all would make it more difficult. but then not sure if it would be too much.

@Talops indeed there is a difficulty, yet to really mess with players I designed it so you must focus on tetris to get more time / better score, meaning you need to neglect the more challenging aspect :D sorry!

@Brent dreams can be crushed, but you can always dream again. My mother never understood when I told her I wanted to grow up and be a trout, but I never stopped dreaming.

@OhFiddleDiddle very nice comment, thanks for letting me know <3

@David Boeger you may not have the highest score, but you have claimed the trouts virginity! :D

@JuicyBrucey Thanks for your feedback juicy! I wish not to argue, but just to present my perspective on the theme. It is fine if we don't agree on it, but wasn't sure if you saw what I wrote about incompatibility in the game description section - will paste it here for convenience: _With regards to the incompatibility - my definition of compatible is ability to co-exist without any problems or conflict. From my perspective, both of these games-types cause problems and conflict for the other. You struggle to make lines because the ball destroys your existing lines and pieces as they drop. The dropping pieces also interfere unexpectedly with the movement of the ball. Also you are not able to simply clear the blocks and win like in breakout, instead the high-score approach of tetris forces you to try and keep blocks. You need to make rows of blocks to extend your remaining time - thus increasing your potential high score._

@King Kujito <3 so pleased to hear this!

Great mix of games that are completely incompatible, I was never sure what to be focusing on which made it really challenging but still fun at the same time! I think I only managed to get one or two lines in about 10 or so games as that pesky ball kept on ruining my combos!

@Carvster that pesky ball. at least you're still calling it a ball. I have a special name for it, but it may get censored if I write it here... :D thanks for playing bud, glad you enjoyed!

I really like how the the two aspects of this game fight against each other in a very explicit way, but in a way that makes it more fun rather than less, it's very clever. The graphics are clean and readable, which is what you really need in this kind of game. I like that you put the effort into making a logo for it! The music is really great - I thought it was going to be quite simplistic, and then the deep bassy version kicked in! Really great entry overall.

**Graphics**

The blend of simplicity and that classic Tetris looking UI were fantastically put together. This definitely felt like I was playing it back on my gameboy as my mom was yelling to clean my room

**Audio**

The music was really well done and fit perfectly. It never felt too repetitive, and and was the calm needed to counterbalance the stress from that ball screwing over my line clears. The sound effects were spot on for the style.

**Controls**

The controls were good, but one thing I found frustrating was that if I hold down S to move the block down, it detects that I'm holding it down and continues to move it down. Where as with A and D, if I wanted to move multiple spaces over, i had to press them repetitively instead of holding them. This felt off to me from what I'm used to with Tetris games. I'm mostly think of the current Puyo Puyo Tetris on the Nintendo Switch as I can't remember exactly from the earlier entries (NES/Gameboy/Arcade), but in those, holding the movement direction (left or right) will keep moving it in the direction instead of having to press it over and over. I kept doing this instinctively and it was messing me up.

**Overall**

I really enjoyed this overall and will keep playing it after LD ends, just because I want a better score.

@ManBeardGames I played a round this morning mate, and thought the exact same thing. I didn't think to add the hold control mechanism to the left and right movement - but if I could go back I'd add it in. A few small changed I'd make - but I'm making an effort not to do any updates! Thanks for detailed feedback man

@randomhuman Thanks for that man, and the logo looks tacky but I wanted something that was a bit retro :D I agree about the music, upbeat music wouldn't be right in this mash up!

My brain can't handle the awesome and all the mechanincs. Holy shmoly.

Wow never would have put Tetris and brick breaker together. good job.

Really nice! I really enjoyed it! I saw you work on it on stream too <3

I really enjoyed this game! I cannot think of two more incompatible games than those (and they are both classic ones!) Also I found so challenging to keep track of the ball while I was trying to place the tetris blocks in the correct spot and i loved it. Such a solid game with such a good theme! Congratz Dan!

@marioman68 @PatrickRMC @NorthernHawk Thank you all for your kind words. Northern, maybe you can collaborate with me on music next time... :D

I'd loved to @Honest Dan ;)

two good old classics, I really like the overall graphic style, works great with this 'old' genres

@david-boeger @honest-dan I just got a trout without losing a ball, which was a new challenge, completion of which ensures **Trout Platinum Club** membership. It took a lot of tries. It was pretty much all about keeping the ball above the blocks most of the time, because whenever it got below, it messed it up. I got lucky with how the ball started to bounce horizontally.

Also, the dropping of the pieces seemed much faster than in previous version, that helped a lot.

https://youtu.be/8mX8bq7jebo

(sorry for no sound)

@BoltKey You legend! That celebration paddle dance, will be known as the Platinum Dance <3 I am flattered by you and @David Boeger 's dedication. You've made me feel this gamejam was definitely worthwhile, regardless of how the ratings turn out. I worry because of 100 votes I've received it's going to be hard to do anything but get an average rating, but now I don't really care - I know some people have got some real enjoyment out of it.

Club Trout Members: David Boeger, Boltkey.
Platinum Trout Club Members: Boltkey.

Really really difficult, but also kinda fun when you realize how it works. Loved the way you can hit the tetromino while it's falling to make it exactly the shape you need it to be. Also loved the music.

Everything is clean and eye-candy, the sound design is really cool and fits the game well. I'm addicted to both Breakout and Tetris so that was a game for me, this mashup is a good idea and is well executed.

Truly fantastic! There are few LD games I genuinely want to keep playing so long! Totally addictive and a genuinely exciting and interesting twist on classic tetris! Couldn't make a trout but I think I'll come back and try later! Very very solid entry with nostalgic graphics and audio.

This is great! Definitely the best Tetris mashup I've seen. It's really hard, but it all works so perfectly. Great aesthetic and sound design too.

Amazing work!

@Dovakla, @Pietro Ferrantelli, @Bauxite Thank you for such kinds words :)
@Rebecca Kremer appreciate your feedback and was really good to see you experience it on stream! hope you continue to stream after ludum dare, we have a nice community of game devs active and I think people would like your personality.

Wow this was an amazing entry. I loved your interpretation of the theme. The gameplay was very fluid and I really liked that extra depth of having the ball affect falling pieces. I imagine people with more coordination than I will be able to take advantage of that mechanic to rack up those lines haha. Personally I found the game very difficult but once I did get a line, it felt very rewarding. As another person who went with a breakout genre mash, I'd really love to hear your feedback on my version of it. Please give it a try if you'd like: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/city-blocks

And thanks @rebecca-kremer for sharing this entree in your post, otherwise I might've missed it

Interesting mix but very (too much) hard to master :smile: ! I managed to make like 5 lines for 7 game overs and i ragequit ^^.
Destroying a line doesn't seem very interesting. I mean i was hoping of a big reward i could see for that (because it's very hard) but nothing like that appared. Maybe because i was insaneley focused on positioning my bars to avoid the ball and i saw nothing.
Realization is neat.

Terrific! Great combination and great idea... I really love every aspect of your game. You are the overall winner for me. Great Job!

perfect 5/5 :)
great game to train multitasking

Very well done. Loved almost everything in it. Too bad I'm really bad at multitasking. Good job.

Loved the concept, it's simple but it works really well. Plus it's super polished. This is one of those games that I kept playing for a while. Well done! :-)

@legavroche Thank you :) it is a difficult game indeed, but some have been able to master it somewhat. I think an easier mode with more time and more time rewarded when completing a single line, perhaps lower the amount of points needed to earn an extra ball too, could make it more accessible.

@visumecadroide shame you found it too hard, but it was the intended design. Once you get your brain handling both aspects of the game, it is very rewarding surviving longer. I did consider some big fancy graphical "trout" when yuo get 4 lines etc, but you compare to the inspiration of tetris, there is only a small sound when you get 4 lines, and nothing for a single line. I decided to follow that style, but as a result for players used to "modern" games, I can understand why you thought it was boring. These sort of games aren't about entertaining people with visuals and sounds though, its about overcoming a challenging and letting your concentration, precision and focus have time to shine.

@Jin9310 and @ooku super kind words, thank you very much <3

@Tero Laxström Yeah... it's definitely one where you can't afford to take your eye off the ball for too long!

@ludipe I'm pleased to hear that! I was concerned about the concept being simple when I decided to go with this idea, but for once I finished a jam game without half of the planned content missing :D I think I'll do the same next game jam, but this time try not to start a new idea at the end of day 1 :D

A very polished game that fits the theme well. I wish it was on my tetris-thing when I was 5 years old:)

Wow! Great entry! Feels really polished, beautiful use of b&w palette! Exceptional 8bit music! Just fantastic!

One on best entries on LD41 that i played so far :)

Can you say what engine this was created in? And which soft did you used to make music and sounds?

You can check out our game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/educational-beat-em-up-punches-delivered-with-math

Great game, love it!

Really good game ! Very good use of the palette, nice audio and it does fit the theme, well done !

Brilliant idea, great execution. 5/5 entry!

I liked the classical stylization and idea. Very fervently play!

I also have a [game about Tetris](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/last-stand-1), it's important for me to hear your opinion

Fantastic! This is my top pick for LD41. I'm amazed how well these two classic games fit - mostly, I believe, due to how well you've put this all together.

Complicated honest fun. I thought it was a well rounded and finished entry. I like the monochrome treatment too. Good job

@LemonBalmGames @MagmaFortress Such kind words, really flattered and proud - thank you!
@MaximBegunov @Tayrnarion @krammetje @arron-fowler thank you!
@Darkwing00Duck I will give it a go when I play a few more LD entries and leave you some feedback
@Bartosz Hey, thanks! The game was coded using C# within the Unity game engine. I used PyxelEdit to do the art. The music was composed and created in ableton.

@Honest Dan : "The music was composed and created in... " ?? :)

@Bartosz sorry, fixed it now :)

Really cool game! Except for somewhat janky ball collisions I like everything about it! Really hard too, it took me some minutes to get my first row done.

Good idea for a mashup, and - more importantly - great execution.

@mortus Hi, thank you for the feedback - can I ask what sort of janky collisions you mean? I tried doing my own physics but it started going bad and reverted back to unity based physics, but would like to know what stuff you find janky so I can try and make it less game-affecting?

@Houruck thank you <3

Wow, never realised I was so bad at multi tasking. This is great. probably the best use of theme I've seen. (I've seen good ones, but this... clever) To be fair I'm not sure those two games count as "genres" but I get it, and its amazing. Surprisingly hard, slightly frustrating too, but in a good way. The ball always ruin everything and yet its how its meant to be. I was also surprised by how often it also create perfect slots or perfect random shapes.

Good going!

@joh appreciate your detail review my man, good to hear your feedback. Thanks!

Really cleaver idea, but even a SC2 pro might find its multitasking requirements too demanding. I would love some sound improvements myself. But even so it was a great combination with a marvelous execution. Omega good job.

@TheSheepster thanks for your feedback man! I think to begin with it's definitely hard, but like juggling - once you begin to let your brain multitask, it starts coming together :) The sounds I would agree were not my strength, something I hope to learn more about in future. Thanks again

Interesting combination. I thought I had seen "breakout" based ideas already, but this one was still original. I liked the "heureka" moment when I realized, I basically have 2 paddles. Very thematic entry.

@jamfella thank you <3 very pleased to hear it was original and the game provoked those moments of "Ooooohh I can do *this*!"

amazing game!

Cool idea! I found it hard to play the "tetris" part while still focusing on the ball. Well done!

Yeshhh this is pretty awesome. Wish the Tetris part was a little speedier in terms of controls, with autorepeat or faster fall speeds, but I understand that's part of the difficulty of the game as well, so not really a bad thing.

Nice combination of Tetris and Breakout. I seemed to do better if I focused on hitting the ball with the pieces as they dropped. I think a little bit of color would have helped a lot. Overall the gameplay seemed to feel solid and the mechanics worked well together. Sometimes the paddle felt a little too sensitive but maybe it was just my mouse.

Really interesting game! Having the ball destroy pieces made it really difficult to clear more than a couple of lines, especially when my piece would become nearly destroyed before it was fully dropped :stuck_out_tongue:

This was really great...really cool combination of game types but also really great execution!!!

@honest-dan I mean that sometimes the ball doesn't go where you'd expect it to go. It deflects at a (seemingly) wrong angle, especially at the corners. I can't describe it better. Also sometimes it snaps a bit to the side when contacting blocks. Honestly, I don't think a game like this needs "real" physics engine, it's probably better off with simple rules of the same angle deflection.

Possibly the best game of this jam, perfect combination, funny, good graphics, good song... my favourite! amazing work!

@mortus thanks for explaining in more detail. Will be things I can think about if I ever find a way (due to controls) to port this to mobile.

@HagamosVideojuegos thanks so much, so pleased you thought so!

@Tim Ruswick Thanks bud <3 cheers for playing it.

@Nuthen indeed, the ball is not a friend. more a beast to tame!!

@LeviDSmith Yeah I really liked the mechanic of using the dropping pieces to deflect the ball - hard to execute correctly but adds scope for some hard-core plays.

@DDRKirbyISQ Yeah I wanted the "hold down" controls to not move on to the next piece, as to beginners it can end up in accidental shifting down of the next block, and with the ball moving around too I decided to have to repress down on a new piece would be a good middleground. I would have added the "hold" controls for left and right too - but didn't think about it til after the jam!

@lonewookie @Mau thanks both for giving feedback <3

Great combination of genres, makes it very challenging, I enjoyed it a lot. The retro graphics and sounds go well together. Overall a very polished and fun experience. Great work!

Wow, that was a funny mix of games! And frustrating that the ball wrecks all my plans for getting rid of rows! :-)

It's a very cool game :D

I would totally buy this. Like. This is an excellent game. Seriously. Well Done! Great Job xD

Holy moly, are you kidding me. This is great! Great use of the theme, excellent execution. Just well done, I love a good multitasking game and this works out in so many ways. Definitely one of the best I've played this jam. Sorry I can't come up with any constructive feedback! :grin:

Feel free to check out my web "game" [Story Collab](shttps://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/story-collabs), I'm in dire need to ratings!

Really fun and polished!The thing that impressed me most was the attention to detail on the ball bouncing. The ball never got stuck bouncing horizontally and it always bounced in predictable, but dynamic ways.

It is pretty hard to operate the mouse and keyboard at the same time for something like this, but you get used to it quickly.

The challenge of the game is obvious and exciting. The scoring seemed well balanced to me. I can only imagine the skill it takes to actually get a trout.

Great Work :)

This game is absolutely amazing. So well polished, such simple gameplay that takes real skill to master. Gotta go show this to my non dev friends now.

You did a good job making sure this plays smoothly. Loved the aspect of knocking bits off the tetris blocks to make them fit your needs.

Lol, great catch with theme, and game is surprisingly playable. I was slightly doubt about timer, but it make gameplay more tense and that good.

@Rosik Yeah needed an end game, and wanted to steer good players to complete lines to extend the timer and get higher and higher scores - so it becomes a game of planning and execution rather than purely who can control it the quickest!

@huminaboz Thank you man, I really enjoyed it too, was more satisfying than I envisioned when designing it :)

@Lost Dutchman Software Let me know what they think! I'm not sure the rules on trying to monetise this on app store etc, since its based on two existing well-known games.

@veztron thanks for that! I had to add some small variance to it to avoid the stale mates. You can still get some long horizontal loops, but I liked them - a rare chance to focus just on the "tetris" element, yet you still need to time the moving of the pieces down to avoid knocking the ball out. Oh and I've never got a trout. 2 people have recorded theirselves getting one and sent it to me :D

@Maakep really pleased you enjoyed playing it <3

@Ratherjolly thank you! If I ever get a decent port to mobile I'll let you know :D

@Crimson @Akadream cheer guys :)

@vilcans the ball is a foe, not a friend :D some say it can be tamed... but I am not so sure about it myself!!

Holy cow this is brilliant, nice job!

I just loved the little pain that happens to my brain when i play it. thanks for developing it! A++

@Ballin thanks bud!!
@rkoshino if it continues, please see a doctor. Otherwise - glad to hear it :D

Wow, great job on your game! Trying to control both things at the same-time made my brain hurt a bit lol. I might have to have another go at this with a player 2 to control the breakout ball! Put this on the app store!

I think your title is clever, TetRis+breakOUT = TROUT.

Very interesting and well done. It's just about impossible to clear a line in Tetris when the ball and paddle continually dismantles the line you're trying to build, plus any time I tried to focus on manipulating the falling Tetris block, I only lost track of the ball and died quickly. So this is a very challenging game. It would be interesting to see it played as a 2P co-operative game, where one player controls the falling block, and the other manages the paddle, and they work together.

I quickly fell into a play style of ignoring the falling blocks and just playing Breakout, essentially. But you cleverly prevent this style of play from working by introducing the time limit mechanic, which forces the player to try to complete lines in order to play for longer than 2:00. But since I can't even keep the Breakout game going that long before I lose all my balls, it doesn't limit me -- yet.

It seems from your scoring that it's about 2x as rewarding to clear lines as it is to destroy blocks 1 at a time. But given how challenging it is to actually clear a line, I almost wonder if the reward should be more like 4x or 10x.

My own LD41 game, [InvadTris](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/invadtris) combines Tetris with Space Invaders, and I think it's interesting to compare and contrast these two entries. I invite you to give it a play if you haven't seen it already, and let me know what you think.

Oh wow. That is a brainmelting experience.
Well done !

The ultimate!! 2 games that made the biggest impression on me growing up - made into a sandwich by one of my favorite honest devs. :-) <3

Hey!Good work!The mechanis are pretty good and original!The music and sound FX are very good too!Godd work!Godd job for 72h :)

Here is our game if you want to try it !
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/me-da-miedito-la-oscuridad-i-get-goosebumps-in-the-dark

lol the Trout Platinum Club....I actually came into this comments section to figure out what % of people could even get trouts and now I feel bad. Really great merger of 2 genres. I've noticed that there are a few games that are merging 2 somewhat close genres and coming up with some really unique stuff out of it and you are one of those people (rather than the typical dating sim + platformer or all those games popping up this LD). Really well done and the game really stands out in this crowd.

Wow, this's super cool and the amount of polish is nuts. The best I got so far was 880, so I've no idea how/if can someone get 40k... (Unless the player can hit a perfectly straight ball, keep it to the side and just tetris away or some players got the bug mentioned in the description).

Suggestions/nitpicks:
* more space at the bottom would be nice as the ball can be somewhat unpredictable
* would be nice if the blocks collapsed after the ball creates a space inbetween
* when the player moves the paddle into the ball at the last second it results in the ball going down away - being able to save the ball at the very last moment would probably feel baller (teehee)

Great concept, great gfx, audio, a very polished entry!
And also a very well working combination of tetris with another game. I also used tetris (+ J&R) but unfortunately the whole thing is not neary as polished as what you guys managed to do.
Good job, one of my favourite entries of all LD's i have seen :)

A fine combo! It was too hectic to see if making tetris lines or removing blocks with the balls was more worthwhile, but I guess just staying alive is prio #1. :smile:
Splitting attention is a good skill to master over multiple plays, so that works really well. I liked the hint of extra balls every 1000 points (maybe a nice 'extra ball' message in the middle of the screen?)
Only thing I kinda missed is the tetris side-slide when on the bottom row to just fit a shape in - but that is minor details.
Nice entry!

The combination of the two genres is just lovely, they're very incompatible :smile: but it turned out very fun as well! Love the retro style graphics :wink: Good work!

When the ball bounced and destroyed the falling blocks, I felt interested! If you continue to develop this, when I saw that I would get points for making a puzzle line, I didn't know how I could keep the ball away from the blocks long enough to stack a line.

This is my favourite game of the jam!

@Lucas Hoffmann <3 <3

@Ethan Kennerly Glad it made you feel interested! I think the trick is to use the "down" control (S) to move the blocks down faster, so you can stack more blocks quicker.

@AlejandrodeCea Really really pleased you feel they are incompatible!

@Joror I completely agree, lacked some polish and juice - message on UI for life up, line clear and a trout was planned but never implemented.

@larzan @LittleStone Games thank you! If you want me to try out yours on stream, I'm doing a finale stream in the hours leading up to rating deadline.

@SecretPocketCat thanks for suggestions. There is a formula to the direction ball bounces off paddle. Regardless of travel direction, if hits left side of bat it will bounce left, middle it goes straight, right it goes right. Regarding blocks falling down, I decided to go with the "tetris" style, where they don't fall down unless you've cleared an entire row. Otherwise you'd run into combos which really isnt tetris style - it'd be more like a match 3 game. The lack of distance between bat and tetris board is something I will consider.

@PeachTreeOath really pleased you felt the gameplay stood out. Yeah, I've not entered the trout club :( only two people have achieved so far to my knowledge.

@jenninexus you are too kind <3

@Poio hopefully the melting was enjoyable at least!!

@Darkphnx have really thought about two player, could be done as coop or vs - where you try and make it harder for
each other. Dont think I can put on app store, tetris are pretty tight on their IP.

@csanyk really appreciate your detailed review, and am pleased you were able to pick out some of my design decisions. in hindsight I agree with you that the difficulty of achieving a trout (and lines, to a less extent) means the points rewards should have been greater. If you want me to check out your game, pop by to my LD41 finale stream I'm hosting in the hours leading up to submission deadline <3

It's a really interesting and original concept, combining 2 of the most famous 2D brick-based games ever, what I'm wondering is... how does this combination serve gameplay? Feels rather counter productive - either you prioritize the tetris aspect of the game and all you do with your arkanoid ball is try to avoid stuff while keeping it in the air, or you prioritize the arkanoid game and there ain't anything left for you ro play tetris with... In my playthrough the arkanoid ball for stuck on the left corner 'cause I lowered a tetris block into it and it just stayed in the ad without movine, which enabled me to just 'burn' annoying tetris blocks onto it when I didn't wanna deal with them - which is a nice perk but... it sorta removes the interest both of the tetris game and of your game... So nicely done, nice graphics and sound and execution of this concept in general, you did good work in this respect for sure - not as for choosing the concepts to combine... maybe there are some improvements to be done in that area for next time ^^# Thanks for sharing anyways and take care, see you next time around ldjam.com perhaps ;-)

@StrangerYann

Regarding the gameplay - I'd encourage you to try playing again and think about the conflicts with the two "approaches" you highlighted in your review.

*1) Play just Arkanoid and have no Tetris pieces to play:*
This is correct. They give you the lower amount of score, and never extend you time. The game is labelled as a "high score game", so essentially if you play this way - you're choosing not to try and score well or extend the time in which you have to score. I'd say the game is designed to encourage you away from this game play, since it's a high score game and it is expressed on the UI and the "how to play" that you get more points for lines and extend your time.

*2) Play tetris and avoid stuff with arkanoid ball*
Well, that is kind of the point of the game. The difficulty is, the nature of arkanoid means it is near impossible for you to avoid stuff with the ball. Meaning, it conflicts your ability to make tetris lines and to do any serious planning. When Tetris lines are the way to score more points and extend your timer, then it is about managing the conflict the combination of these genres give you. You have to be selective about what blocks you break. You can use the arkanoid ball to change the shape of the puzzle landscape to fit pieces in. You can change the shape of a tetris piece as it falls so its more useful. You can use the falling tetris piece to deflect the arkanoid ball to protect your puzzle landscape from being spoiled.

So on the question of how does the combination serve gameplay, I'd argue that infact the combination makes you think different about how to play two classic games that you are likely already familiar with. I'd remind you that the theme was about INCOMPATIBILITY. By definition that means that two things coexisting causing problems or conflict for each other. I'd argue that trout encourages you to play the games differently than you normally do, because the problems and conflicts they casue each other. A by product of that is a different type of game play and strategy, which requires not only mastery of the two original base mechanics, but the ability to react to the problems they cause each other. I am happy with the two concepts I have combined and believe they produce interesting gameplay and decisions for people to make.

I do wonder how much time you gave my game while doing your review. Part of your analysis on gameplay is based on a rare bug that I had highlighted in the game description page. Perhaps you should have restarted the game if you had sensed something had gone wrong, to allow yourself to spend time experiencing the game as intended.

Nice work combining two classic games! It was pretty challenging to focus on both the breakout and tetris aspects at the same time and it took me awhile to understand that you don't necessarily want to break every block since you can get more points for finishing lines. The audio was great!

This is pretty amazing. I don't know why there are people saying they're not incompatible genre - breakout and tetris is about as incompatible you can get. I'd argue it's too incompatible to the point it becomes counter-productive for its own good (since the goals of the two games are basically the opposite - arranging the bricks and breaking the bricks). But you pulled it off very well - props.

God damn, one of the best games I played this jam. I got stuck on this game for almost hour! I love those themes mixed together with original graphics and logic. Great job!

That's probably the best I've played so far. So elegantly designed, well executed and polished. Huge congratulations for you.

I kept sabotaging my own strategy and it was driving me nuts. It's really challenging to complete tetris lines and the one time that I managed to get it right was amazing.

Thanks for that game and keep it up the amazing work! If you have some free time, please check my Compo entry, its a mix of RTS and Bullet Hell. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/last-stand

Cheers!

I streamed myself playing your game. You can watch the vod of it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeVofreh9pA

(Starts at 38:00)

Really fun multi-tasking game! i really enjoyed the art style of it. And the sounds were quite decent. definitely enjoyed playing it!

I feel that Dan made a really great idea of a game, that really makes you work hard to do good.. Loved it

This is definitely one of the best theme mashups I've seen. It definitely fits the theme really well, and I love the black and white gameboy aesthetic that you went for. Bravo!

Super cool genre mix. Very harmonious, especially with the retro graphics and music.
Unfortunately I'm very bad at coordination games.
Nevertheless, I have played this game for a long time and had joy.

If you have still some time, I would love it if you could test our game.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/astropover

@puppetmaster rating now closed my friend - sorry

@honest-dan np, you have mine :thumbsup:

Darn you @BoltKey ! I'm now 3rd on the leaderboard! I suppose I shall likely remain there for a while, lol.