A game by Deric Ruhl
2008


Helios is your average breakout/arkanoid/brickbreaker type game - only it's my version of one.

It's rather pretty.



You can have a copy cause you know me - get it HERE.



It has a few variations as suits my fancy.

First of all, you should know there's a config file; helios.cfg - edit it. This lets you change between fullscreen mode and windowed mode, among a lot of other things.

In Helios, you don't have "lives". You have a limited and finite inventory of balls, of various types. Hoard them, and play them well. When you are out of balls, and have no possible means to obtain more, the game is over.

Note that you may serve as many balls of as many types as you choose, at any time.

You should probably know that the mousewheel changes your currently selected ball type; left button serves a ball, and right button uses a paddle enhancement if you have one.

If you don't have a mousewheel, use the Z and X keys to select ball type.


The ball types:

- The plain silverball. It has no special power, save that you start with five of them.

- The superball. When a superball is missed by the paddle, and it leaves the bottom of the screen, it will bounce off the floor and return to play. However, doing so has a chance of reducing the ball to a silverball as above.

- The laser ball. This ball emits a beam of light along it's present vector - in effect, it is laser sighted. The laser is not interrupted by obstacles, nor does it reflect as the ball will. Thus, it provides a hint about where the ball may be in the future, but only if the ball's path is unobstructed.

- The fireball. This ball has a chance, on any impact, of exploding. The explosion will destroy a large area of bricks, and also, the ball. Note: The flames emanating from a fireball are real, and will sometimes damage or destroy bricks as well.

- The Cluster ball. This ball has a chance, on any impact, of splitting into 8 normal balls. This creates havok, but is sometimes extraordinarily useful.

- The clustered laser ball. As above, save these split into 8 laser balls, each with individual guidance. Note the first: This creates quite a light show. Note the second: The laser sighting system is inoperable while the cluster spins.

- The lightning ball. This ball is not impressed by bricks, and does not alter it's path in the slightest for them. Even steel bricks. These are a powerful tool.



There are also paddle enhancements that may drop from bricks that are destroyed. Picking them up will imbue your paddle with varied special effects, but only for a limited quantity of use. The bar gauge shown at the bottom of the screen will let you know which power, and how much use of it, you have remaining - as will the indicator light on the paddle itself.

- Flight. Hold the right mouse button and move the mouse vertically to fly the paddle wherever you choose. This might allow you to serve balls directly into interesting locations, for instance.

- Grab. Any ball touching the surface of the paddle will stick to it, until such time as you click the right button, which launches all grabbed balls in unison.

- Pyro. A powerful flamethrower is yours to command with the right mouse button - this will lay waste to all but steel bricks. Remember, short controlled bursts.

- Wide. Hold the right button to stretch the paddle, making catching balls significantly easier.

- Air. The right button gives you the power of air control, in a narrow swath directly over the paddle. Use it to influence the movement of balls and powerups.

- Deflect. This creates a force shield protecting the bottom edge of the screen from any balls you miss. Balls striking the shield deplete it's remaining energy, but until it fades you can't lose a ball in play.

- Recall. Tap the right mouse button to revector every ball in play to the center of your paddle. So long as you do not move the paddle, and the balls strike nothing on their return path, you will catch every ball in play. Note this has interesting other uses to tug balls directionally.

- Laser. Click the right button for low power shots. Hold the right button to charge your laser. Release to be firin your laser. BWAAAH. Powerful shots can destroy multiple bricks, or bore through steel.

- Capture. Hold the right button to flip open the paddle; any balls striking the open paddle are removed from play, and restored to your inventory, so that you may serve them again later.

- Slow. Hold the right button to slow the passage of time, allowing you to make tricky english spin shots with the paddle, or to return impossible flurries of balls.


Other things you might want to know:

Helios requires a fast PC with at least a 1280x1024 display. You'll also need to be running XP. I suppose it might work under Vista, if someone were hypothetically actually to be running Vista for some unknowable reason. I have, for obvious reasons, never tested this.

If you don't have a fast PC, you may be able to make it run tolerably by turning off all the eye candy in helios.cfg and upping the frame divisor to something big like 6 or 8.
Or maybe you won't.

Hit escape to access the menu.

"Nudge Table" is used when you have a ball stuck in an endless loop - it's akin to bumping a pinball table with your hip.

When playing in windowed mode, leaving the window with your mouse will pause the game. This is less than ideal, but it's better than nothing, and I found locking the mouse to the window to be really annoying when you want to go check on some other window. If it bothers you, either use alt-enter to toggle to fullscreen, or, edit the helios.cfg file to set the game to fullscreen in the first place.

I did all the art, including the animations and the backgrounds. I also did all the sound, and the programming, and all the level designs save 'Tilt' and 'Heaven and Hell'. Breakout games have been around in some form or another since I got into computers and gaming, so I can't take credit there.

That's about it. If you like it, or if you don't, drop me a line and let me know. Redistribute Helios without my express permission and I will be irritated. I'm happy to share it with my friends, but I don't want to see it being sold on some bletcherous skeezeware website.

- Deric Ruhl, 2008