The Zen of Alpha Bounce (page 1/6)

While this will not be anywhere near a comprehensive guide. I think sometimes we get wrapped so far up into the game we end up making it far too difficult for ourselves to actually succeed at it. Time and time again I've been playing a level and either by stupid mistake or other confluence of events I've lost an envelope. I think to myself "That could have easily been avoided." I think that this will help people make decisions during gameplay that will not only increase their enjoyment of the game, but also play better as well.

Or maybe I'm just making it all up and feel like wasting some time writing, who knows.

Your Worst Enemy
In this game there is one primary reason you die. You miss your ball and it falls below screen. There are secondary reasons, such as the skull-and-crossbones brick or several of the "falling debris" bricks. But mainly, especially if you stay near the primary planets, you die because you miss the ball.

Now, this is pretty obvious. And I'm going to state something more obvious: usually, you miss the ball because it is simply traveling too fast and you can't keep up with it. But herein lies the problem. The longer the level you are playing goes on, the faster the ball gets. This is the crux of the problem, but once it's defined a whole slew of solutions evolve from it.

Time is your enemy. In this game, the longer you play the harder it gets to continue playing. Tracking a fast-moving ball requires a bunch of attention and instead of making accurate, well-placed shots, you are simply slamming your envelope into position under the ball in hopes that it takes out those last remaining bricks, or you're able to thread the ball into that opening of indestructibles.

Knowing this, you should realize that the [ N ] (New ball) powerup, especially late in a level is your best friend. It is essentially a free envelope to start the level over with a fresh, slow-moving ball that you can better control and aim. Also, sacrificing your ball to grab an [ S ] (Safety - extra envelope) powerup is something I do commonly. I will also try to control my drilling to the point where I don't start going after the encased ball bricks until late in a level when I need to slow things down.

When multiple balls are flying around the screen it's hard to keep track of them all, sometimes, after several [ M ] (Multiball) powerups I have upwards of 8-10 balls flying around, it's nearly impossible to follow them all and some invariably get lost. What I do try to do, however, is prioritize the slow-moving balls over the fast ones. That way I'm able to scoop fast balls if possible to quickly clear bricks, but I always make sure that the slow ones come first to prolong the envelope's life as much as possible. Obviously, if the faster balls are imbued with a Volt or Halo, I do my best to retain them as long as possible.


Know which powerups are helpful.
Aside from knowing just what every powerup does and which ones are truly beneficial, it's good to know what context a powerup is good for. I've found that several times I've sacrificed my envelope scrambling to hit a powerup and my ball at the same time and then later realizing that the powerup was essentially worthless anyway. I'm not going to go over each and every powerup, but here are a few that really need to get taken into consideration.

Attraction - I don't really use this one unless there's a way to get my ball "stuck" above a wall of bricks. It's great for control, but if the level is open, this is pretty worthless.

Flame - This one is brutal on certain levels and completely worthless on others. If your level has little to no bricks that take multiple hits, don't even bother scampering for it. I've died many times going after this to realize later that there aren't even any brown bricks in the level.

Glacial - I'm not a big fan of this, I usually avoid it, in fact. Only when a level has severe congestion of dangerous (or unbreakable) bricks do a bust this one out.

Kamikaze - Get this one at all costs! Even if you don't hit your ball there's a good chance that it will curve up from below your envelope and clear the whole level for you. Just don't get any other ball powerup afterwards.

Laser - I love this one. But while it's falling, take stock of the level. If there are indestructible blocks on the level, everything above them you won't be able to hit with lasers. Is it really worth it?

Opening and Quasar - Sometimes this can make the level more difficult or, even worse, push valuable minerals off the level. It really depends on the terrain you're facing.

Regeneration - Get this at all costs! Right when you touch it, click once to generate a ball. That way, even if you miss the ball that's in play you have one safe on your envelope. Once you click, don't do anything until the red bar is full. Once that bar is full, the current ball will disengage automatically. Click again to generate another ball stuck to your paddle and bounce the other one around while the bar fills again. You literally can't lose if you use it like this.

Transmutation - See if there are any blocks worthy of transmuting before getting this. If there are indestructibles or, worse, purples, get this. It's nice to have otherwise, but it's not always beneficial. It spams the screen with color, making it hard to see your ball.

Volt - This powerup ends levels for me. Getting this usually guarantees that I'll win.

Xanax - This buys you time, get it at all costs, even if it makes your ball painfully slow.

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I have many more thoughts on this topic, but this stuff has bounced around in my head (har har, no pun intended) for weeks now while I obsess over the game. I hope this opens some eyes as to how to be more efficient while brick bustin'.

-bFusion

Excellent guide! I agree with the powerup suggestions. Volt is probably my favorite powerup, and Halo is great in the beggining of a level. Lasers and Regenerate are no brainers.

I will go after Glacier on levels that really make use of it. Right now on Balixt I like to get them because it helps out my single Drone because I can destroy the reducines myself.

Nice guide. Interestingly, that method of using [ R ] never entered my mind.

Also, something I found useful: If you have lots of balls onscreen, Attraction can be a huge help in grouping them so you can hit them all. It's its only really helpful use imo.

Has anybody else ever used attraction and watched the ball at super speed right next to your paddle and you lose an envelope.

Excellent advices.

Even experienced players may not have thought it all by themselves and may learn something new.


Attraction
Moderately useful but hard to control.
Fire it only the time necessary to change ball course (less than a second).
If you fire it constantly ball will not stick to your envelope, but instead repeatedly bounce on it until it drops.

Catch
Use and abuse towards end of level so autojavelin charges.


Indigestion
Sometimes useful if the ball went into some cavity or above an obstacle: it could close the way out and force it to rampage.
You can also try it for new bonuses on empty cells, if you feel lucky.

Javelin
Do not just destroy the biggest column, instead destroy the most annoying bricks!
It can be the ones you can't destroy with the ball, or those in the way, or those that will be hard to reach towards end of level.
If there is no clear choice, go for the side columns as top corner bricks are hard to reach.

Transform
To reduce the blinding effect, fire it far from where you will catch the ball, so that when you do catch it the rays are sideways, thus not in the way.
To reduce exhaust-reaim-refire hassle, wait for full charge then fire continuously: one full charge = one brick transformed, so no need to reaim for that one.
And remember: it harvests minerals.

Yoyo
Usefull with one ball as it slows near envelope for easier catch and accelerates when away so it saves time.
Horrible with multiball because you must stay longer under each ball.

Wow, I wasn't aware that if you Transformed a mineral, you collected it. I always thought it was gone forever. Guess I don't hate Transform as much now.

Another tip for Javelin is to be careful and take your time with it. I know I've shot it quickly sometimes without thinking it through and just got rid of some pointless brown blocks or missed entirely because I was in a rush. Using your head and not losing your cool is one of the top skills with the Javelin powerup.

Just wanna say, bFusion, that this is a really excellent post you've put up here. Great stuff! Insightful, comprehensive and you gave me a few ideas as well!

(thread reported in the Beginner's Help thread )

Controlling Control
The [ C ] (Control) powerup is one of the most effective tools you can use while drilling. It's premise is simple: Any ball that hits your envelope sticks to it. You can disengage the ball by clicking your mouse, or if you wait several seconds it will disengage automatically. One exception to note is that if your ball is under the influence of the [ H ] (Halo) powerup, it will not stick to your envelope. It is also noteworthy to mention that if you hold down the mouse button, the ball will bounce without sticking.

Control is best used to snipe certain bricks, or to line up a shot in order to thread your ball into an area. But it's much more useful than that. Since the ball sticks you can work on certain areas of the level at a time and when it's clear you can simply catch and move to another area. You are also able to better control the tempo of your game. Instead of frantically moving to catch the ball, you are able to aim, fire, and catch in a very controlled, intentional manner.

It is important with control that you are able to understand the vector your released ball will travel by. It is obvious that the closer to the center of your envelope the ball bounces, the more vertical it's trajectory. But mastering the art of sniping blocks by positioning your envelope relative to the ball on it is especially important.

The key to this is using your mouse cursor. Your envelope's center is always positioned where your mouse cursor is. This means that when a ball is stuck on your envelope, you can just bring the mouse cursor down to it and get an approximation as to what direction and at what angle the ball will fly when released.

Another major benefit of Control is crowd control. When you have multiple balls flying at once it's extremely beneficial to be able to stick them all at once and shotgun the playing field with a barrage. Doing this usually involves sacrificing about half the balls in play simply because they all come back at the same time, but sometimes it's worth it.

While you control multiple balls there is one thing to keep in mind. Balls can't go off the side of the level. A ball with automatically disengage from your envelope if it's carried off the screen. Using this knowledge to your advantage; you can disengage a single ball from your envelope simply by scooting it off the level. All the other balls will stay stuck as long as that single ball comes back before the release timer (which I think is about 5 seconds) hits. This way, you create a safety net of sorts, even if you lose the one ball, you'll have several others waiting to be used on your envelope.

I love the Control powerup late in a level when things start getting out of control. Early in the game I still get it, but I just keep the mouse button held down to hurry up progression of the level. It's one of the more basic powerups and is generally lower on my list compared to Laser or Regeneration, but it's far more common and still incredibly useful.

-bFusion

Controlling control (Addendum)

One thing I forgot to mention while using control is a solid multiball strategy for keeping most of the balls in play. You should really try to do your best to stack the balls on top of each other on the envelope. That was when they get released, they will fly all in the same direction and take out a large group of bricks in the same area. They will be more centralized and easier to catch on their way down as well.

This isn't always the easiest tactic to do, but it's one of the best ways to utterly decimate bricks that take multiple hits in a controlled fashion.

-bFusion

i have a question, why i don`t got any life`s? in all missions i have 0 life`s except when i pick up "safety" or extra life.