Lost In Translation/Arkanoid

This page is a stub for arcade games that are part of the Lost In Translation series using information based on MAME (version 0.113u2).
For an example of preferred content and layout please refer to Out Run or The Ninja Warriors.

Arkanoid
Manufacturer	Taito Corporation Japan
Released	1986
Control Method	Dial 1 Button(s)
Main CPU	Z80 (@ 6.000 MHz) M68705 (@ 750.000 kHz)
Sound CPU	Mono AY-3-8910A (@ 1.500 MHz)
Video Details	Raster (Vertical) 256 x 224 pixels 60.00 Hz 512 Palette colours
Screens	1
ROM Info	9 ROMs 167,424 bytes (163.50 KiB)
MAME ID	arkanoid · arkangc · arkatayt · arkatour · arkbl2 · arkbl3 · arkbloc2 · arkblock · arknoidj · arknoidu · arknoiuo · paddle2

About The Game

After a sudden alien assault, the Arkanoid spaceship has been destroyed and the only survivor, the small 'Vaus' space vessel, has been mysteriously trapped in another dimension by an unknown enemy. The player is charged with helping the 'Vaus' overcome the security systems, as well as the many enemies that guard them, before finally finding and destroying 'DOH', the alien responsible for the attack.

Arkanoid is an update of the early ball and paddle video games - and specifically of Atari's 1978 classic, "Super Breakout" - in which the player takes control of a paddle at the bottom of the screen and must use it to deflect a ball into rows of bricks at the top of the screen, thus destroying them and, eventually, clearing the screen to progress to the next level.

As well as impressive and colourful graphics, Arkanoid introduced a number of new elements to the classic bat 'n' ball gameplay. Certain bricks, when destroyed, would release a power-up - in the form of a falling capsule. the player had to catch the capsule to retrieve the power-up. Among the many enhancements the power-ups provided were an increased 'bat' size, multiple balls, 'sticky' ball (which would stick to the bat and could be released when the player chose) and even a laser, which allowed the player to shoot the bricks.

Trivia

Licensed to Romstar for US distribution (December 1986).

Arkanoid has remained a popular game and is commonly cloned by aspiring game developers in freeware and shareware titles. Many companies have also regularly cloned the game in arcades.

Arkanoid's popularity led to it being featured in "Rainbow Islands - The Story of Bubble Bobble 2", which has a whole level (4 stages in all) dedicated to the game, including DOH as the level boss.

Nick Mollison holds the official record for this game on extremely hard settings with 1,156,930 points on September 7, 2008.

Zack Hample holds the official record for this game on normal settings with 1,658,110 points on March 13, 2000.

2 bootlegs of this game are known as "Block" and "Paddle 2". There is a hack made by Two-Bits score known as "Arkanoid Plus".

Updates

Bootlegs version don't use the M68705 @ 500 Khz :-)

The Japanese version supports cocktail mode whereas the others don't.

Scoring

Points are scored for destroying bricks and killings aliens.

Tips and tricks

Pill descriptions :

Pill Letter	Description
(S)low	Slows down the energy ball
(L)aser	Enables the vaus to fire laser beams
(C)atch	Catches the energy ball and shoots it when you want it
(B)reak	Allow player to move to next playfield
(E)xpand	Expands the vaus
(P)layer	Gains an additional vaus
(D)isrupt	Splits the energy ball into three particles

• The power pills are not quite random. There are essentially two types of games. One has lots of light blue multi-ball pills and the pink warp pills - this is a low scoring game. The high scoring game gives you more of the other pills.
• On each level, the ball will not speed up completely until it hits the back wall, so :

1. Try to remove bricks from the bottom up, or punch a hole through thicker areas of bricks rather than go straight through (e.g. take out the left side of level 2 rather than the single block at the right as you will catch far more pills).
2. If you have collected a lot of S pills and the ball has been in play for a bit of time, be prepared for a sudden speedup.

• Also, the D token speeds up the balls and is pretty useless on most levels (the one with the enclosed diamond is the only good example I can think of).
• As only one pill can fall at a time, multiple balls can reduce your potential score quite drastically. Every pill is worth 1000 points. For the first few levels, get every pill you can, but do not use the special powers. You will get a lot of extra ships and should get a gray P or two - thereby starting early with 6 or 7 ships.
• In the final level, where you face DOH himself, you should get 15 hits (1000 points per hit) on DOH/per man until you defeat DOH with the 16th hit on your last man to end the game.

Series

1. Arkanoid (1986)
2. Arkanoid - Revenge of Doh (1987)
3. Arkanoid - Doh It Again (1997, Nintendo Super NES)
4. Arkanoid Returns (1997)

Staff

Game Designed By

Akira Fujita (AKR)

Programmed By

Yasumasa Sasabe (SSB)

Director Of Hardware & Co-Programmer

Toshiyuki Sanada (SND)

Assistant Programmer

Toru T. (TOR)

Graphic Designer

Onijust H. (ONJ)

Sound Composer

Hisayoshi Ogura

Sound Effects

Tadashi Kimijima

Pattern Designer

Akira Iwai

Cabinet and Artwork

• 

  Arkanoid arcade cabinet.

• 

  Taito's Arkanoid flyer.

• 

  Romstar's Arkanoid flyer.

Ports

Box art for the Discovery Software International port of Arkanoid.

Alternate box art for the Discovery Software International port of Arkanoid.

Consoles

Nintendo Famicom (1986)

Nintendo Super Famicom (1997)

Computers

PC [MS-DOS] (1986)

MSX (1986)

BBC B (1987)

Thomson TO7 (1987)

Tandy (1987)

Commodore C64 (1987)

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1987)

Apple II (1987)

Atari 800 (1987)

Atari ST (1987)

Commodore Amiga (1987)

Amstrad CPC (1987)

Thomson M05

Thomson TO8

Soundtrack Releases

Album Name	Catalogue No.	Released	Publisher	Comments
Taito Game Music	28XA-110	1987-01-25	Alfa Records	CD version.
Input 64: Commodore C64 Game-Music 1984 - 1989 [Public Beta]	LADO-17080-2	2001-03-05	L'Age D'Or	CD version.
Taito Game Music	SCDC-00156	2002-03-06	Scitron Digital Content Inc.	CD version.
Taito Game Music	ALC-22908	1987-01-25	Alfa Records	Cassette version.
Taito Game Music	ALR-22908	1987-01-25	Alfa Records	Vinyl version.
Back In Time	C64CD1	1997-01-01	High Technology Publishing Ltd.	CD version.
Arkanoid DS Audio Planet	SRIN-1036	2007-12-29	Sweep Records	CD version.
The Z-Show Gold Collection	CZCD 021	2007-07-13	Binary Zone Interactive	2 CD version.
Output64 - Delete All Data - Input64 Remixed 3/X	N/A	2001-01-01	N/A	CD version.
Input 64: A Collection of Commodore 64 Game Music	LADO 17080-2	2001-01-01	L'Age D'Or	CD version.
Arcade Ambiance 1986	N/A	2004-08-27	Andy Hofle	Digital download only.
Arcade Ambiance 1992	N/A	2007-09-14	Andy Hofle	Digital download only.
Input 64: A Collection of Commodore 64 Game Music	LADO 17080-1	2001-01-01	L'Age D'Or	Double vinyl version.
Output64 - Delete All Data - Input64 Remixed 2/X	N/A	2001-01-01	N/A	Vinyl version.
ARKANOID Live! ORIGINAL SOUND TRACKS	ZTTL-9018	2009-06-10	Zuntata Records / Taito Corp	Digital download only.

Sound Comparison

Platform	Song Titles					Sound Source
Arcade	Intro	Level Intro	DOH Level Intro	Game Over	Hiscore	MAME 0.125

External Links

• Sinclair ZX Spectrum version of Arkanoid at the World of Spectrum

References

The contents of this page are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The sources used include MAME (version 0.113u2) and history.dat (revision 1.28 - 2008-10-18).
Please see http://www.arcade-history.com for credits.