Caromble!

Essentially, Caromble! is a reworking of the Atari classic Breakout from 1976 or the more advanced Taito classic Arkanoid from 1986. Caromble! has good sound and quite nice graphics, which are cell-shaded and three-dimensional. Caromble! looks quite sci-fi, but doesn't take itself that seriously, so you are up against a cartoonish city-destroying monster and it is your job to stop it. That's all the story you get and all you need. Caromble! is fun to play and challenging but also difficult and very frustrating until you get the hang of it. It tests your reflexes and aim as you demolish the scenery to score enough points to enter a portal to the next stage and ultimately defeat the boss on the final stage of each level. It is a 'just one more go' type of game that requires skill, determination and patience. The best control method is the mouse and you may find the controller only takes you so far until you are forced to switch to using the mouse. The trick is to spin the ball and charge up your shots to score more points and collect power-ups which appear more frequently when you cause lots of destruction in a short space of time. Extra lives are particularly important. A number of the power-ups are detrimental, like the one which makes the paddle shrink, or the one which pixelates the screen. The game has high score tables and badges with honours for completion, big points score and speed.

I applaud the devs for sticking with the game for 10 years but at the same time I'm baffled it took this long to get the final version...mostly because there's glaring issues I noticed from my first time playing it way back when, and also now. The camera moves side to side when you move. The play area is extremely small giving you very little time to react. The fov and camera angle make things hard to see. I'm a controller guy, it's difficult to use. Your either going too slow or way too fast. The sound effects are awful. The red boss dude in each level has 3 shields which automatically regenerate after about 10 seconds, and if you lose a ball then all three shields come back which is infuriating. Too many power down items. And all this is up to only level 1-4. I like the art style, music is chill and how after you finish a level the camera swirls around to the next levels is cool but the actual gameplay and sound effects are not there. Combined with the tight fov and camera problems I can't recommend it.

I couldn't play the game anymore past level 5. Terrible mechanics and level design. First the Camera should be stationary and not moving all over the place. It is really easy to lose track of the ball with the moving camera. Second the distance between the ball and the paddle is too short. With the lag in the paddle's lateral movement, you have a fraction of a second to react. Third and most importantly, the directional controls that rotates and changes the direction of the ball should be controlled with the mouse wheel not the position of the mouse. 4th, making the player paddle stationary while charging was a fail. Allowing the player to charge on the go makes the gameplay more fluid. As for the level design past the 4th set of stages, Jesus himself can not fix how poorly this was designed. At one point it took me almost 10 minutes to get the ball onto the truck in order to hit the right panel to clear that portion of the stage and the next one from that was just god awful. I did the 99 mercy and i was down to 75th just trying to stay on the board because of the bad mechanics and stage design. There is just no excuse and clearly there was no playtest done.

If you are an ARKNOID or Brick Braker fan. Then check this out. It is unforgiving but soooo FkN lovely. If your worried about why its been in early access for so long read the community thread. The ULTIMATE breaker gasme. IMO Updated: Really worth a play. better mouse dynamics off the bat (from my opinion).. Love the way this is going. Light story mode Arknoid in 2.5D with play you have to play, to know it's not just a clone. The Ultimate Ball Breaker - in so many delightful ways. This game is Arknoid on a protein and mushroom shake, beefy and confusing. It won't hold your hand or give away many of it's secrets in a single play or even a play session. I will probably end up trying to find some hints later but for now am enjoying playing and being amazed at myself when the complex becomes clear. Don't be put off by 'Early Access' - it has been that way for a long time and is perfectly playable now - I think the developers have included over 80% of the planned content as of writing although with a small team that all work in other jobs and do this 1 day a week don't expect the final product next week. (edit: Yes I meant ball breaker not brick breaker - This is a ball game where you break not only bricks!) <<< I wish there was a difficulty mode to quicken?? slow the game by 5% 15% for less rewards and progression. but hey lose some more. I take this back >>>

Very good 3d breakout game, with many modern twists. Online leaderboards per stage and daily challenges are available. Worth the ten year wait for it to leave early access! (8/10)

Its not the best breakout type game ive played, but I like it!

I really love how the game turned out after the long Early Access period. It really is the brick breaker of my dreams! Every chapter introduces new mechanics and fresh ideas, what makes your curious about what's coming next. It is difficult, but fair.

Awesome game! Works and looks great on my ROG Ally X, even in 13W mode so long battery life when I am on the road. I really like the storymode they have added, the levels are really challenging but you can always increase the amount of retries. I hope more people will buy the game!

Woot Woot! Have you first positive review, guys. I've loved brick games since I first discovered Batty on a ZX Spectrum cover tape, and Caromble! continues that love. Can't wait to play some this weekend. Ten years! Time to put the feet up!

Here's a new original reinvention of the classic Arkanoid/Breakout game from The Netherlands. It has the paddle, blocks and multiple power ups with plenty of new features to make this more fun and challenging than its predecessors. [b]Powershot[/b] At any time you can charge up your paddle with your lmb (left mouse button) for one power shot but the catch is you can't move while charging up. When you release the lmb before you're fully charged, the paddle's energy level starts dropping. Once your paddle is fully charged you can let go of the lmb. With a powershot you can make the ball shoot through regular blocks and special blocks that can't be destroyed with regular shots. [b]Powerups[/b] There are the usual power ups you get from destroying certain blocks you should be familiar with like, extra live, extra ball, wide paddle, narrow paddle, speed up. New good ones are powershot and aim. Some new 'bad' ones are frog view and pixelation. They're quite fun and challenging. [b]Upgrades[/b] There are also items you can pick up that either help by slowing down time or upgrade your paddle with a weapon. They can be activated using your rmb. [b]Scoring[/b] When a block is destroyed a dot is released which you collect to score points. A dot can be worth 1 to 5 points depending on how you destroy the block in question. A direct hit scores just 1, not sure about this one, maybe a combo 2, a hit with a power shot without spin 3 and a hit with spin 5. [b]Story levels[/b] Each level consists of multiple stages with at the last stage a boss you have to defeat. Each chapter consists of 4 such levels, with 6 chapters in total. Each level has two Steam leaderboards, one for high scores and one for best times. There are 3 medals you can earn for each level; one for finishing a level, one for reaching a minimum score and for finishing the level within a certain amount of time. You can just play through the story casually. Some levels will be a bit more challenging than others but can be finished with a few attempts. If you're going for a high score you can make it as hard as you like on yourself, maximizing your score will require skill because the more risk you're willing to take the higher you will score. Going for a fast time can be challenging as well even though you can ignore the score dots you will have to play very precise and have a bit of luck on your side. [b]Skill levels[/b] In addition to the story levels there are multiple separate levels with just one objective. It can help hone your aiming, your ability to spin and other skills. I've spent hours on some of them trying to beat another gamer or just to improve my own score. [b]Bugs[/b] Since the game is still in Early Access there are some bugs present in the game. With every new chapter release most of the previously found bugs were fixed. I kind of enjoy finding and documenting bugs I find. Pretty much all bugs are gone now the game is nearly complete. [b]Video[/b] Here's a recording of a Skill level: https://youtu.be/UV33NXHIlGM Here's a recording of speedrunning level 4.2: https://youtu.be/cgDnLUixxks