Alphabounce Bricks

By Joozey 

 

Building blocks of the universe

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All the levels in Alphabounce consist of plain, normal bricks, bricks which you have to perish down with your drilling ball in order to clear your path and move on to the next area. You hit them, they break. You hit them all, you win. Sounds easy enough? Especially around the center coördinates [0][0] you may find it easy to progress through the levels, but the further you get away from the origin point, the more tricky the levels become.

 

 

Brick types

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There are many different kinds of bricks, performing various actions when you hit them. The normal bricks are the only bricks you really need to hit in order to clear the level. All the other types will help you, tease you or make you rich. With powerups, drones, missiles and lots of practice you will eventually be able to beat them all.

"So, what are all the different types of bricks?", You may ask. Below follows a list of bricks and information about their actions.

 

 

• Normal bricks          

 

These bricks are the most common in Alphabounce. You will need to destroy all of them in order to complete the level. Once you have completed it, you will leave the area, whether you finished your mission or not. So watch out destroying them all when you are not finished yet in the level!

 

 

• Brown bricks (Called "Ferrous Conglomerates" In-game)       

   

Brown bricks can only be broken when you have the RCD-20 drilling ball. This ball can be obtained by completing the Drilling License mission. Brown bricks can have a various thickness, and have the same effect as normal bricks when you grab a [B] powerup. You need to hit them multiple times in order to destroy them.

 

 

• Minerals                                  

   

Mineral blocks are valuable bricks which provide you with minerals once you hit them. These minerals can be used at merchants to obtain new items. Collect these before you lose or finish the level! Once you played a level, the minerals wont return for a long time. The time for a mineral to regenerate is estimated at around 200 plays. Drones will automatically collect minerals for you when you buy the Collector drone extension. Be careful; if they are struck by [G], [O], or [Q] powerups, the minerals will be destroyed and you will not collect them! Interestingly, using a [T] powerup on a mineral brick will collect the minerals rather than transform them.

 

-Grey mineral blocks are worth 0 minerals, these appear if you attempt a level twice before minerals have regenerated.

-Green mineral blocks are worth 1 mineral

-Blue mineral blocks are worth 5 minerals

-Purple mineral blocks are worth 25 minerals

 

 

• Unbreakable bricks                  

   

Those metal looking bricks can not be broken by your ball. Only a handfull powerups is able to deal with those. [G], [O], [Q], [T], and [J] powerups will get rid of them, as well as the auto-javelin and MAS-Z missiles or better. But think twice before removing them. They seem to make the level difficult, but can come quite in handy when you manage to get your ball on top of those bricks. Let them do the bouncing for you!

 

 

• Healing bricks                           

 

Hitting a healing brick will give you one extra life during your play.

 

• Missile bricks                               

 

 

These blocks will refill your missiles with by one. When you hit it, a missile drops down and you'll need to catch it first. If you have a full missile supplement already, it might be wise to shoot one and destroy some extra blocks for free.

 

 

• Extra ball bricks                         

 

When hit, they will release an extra ball. Often a welcome surprise, but sometimes can make the level twice as hard when many death or laser bricks are around.

 

 

• Destruction bricks                      

 

Upon impact, destruction bricks will destroy all surrounding blocks. Handy in dense levels with alot of brown blocks, aim for these first!

 

 

• Factory Bricks                            

 

Hitting a side of a factory-brick makes a normal block appear on the counter-side, pushing (or shifting) all other blocks in it's way one place up. Green factory-blocks need to be hit three times with a normal ball before it becomes yellow. The yellow factory-block needs to be hit two times, and the red only one. After that the brick will crumble and it will be gone. Factory-bricks can be quite annoying, but using missiles or powerups like [V], they can be damaged and removed without letting them spawn any normal blocks.

 

 

• One-way bricks                           

 

These bricks will 'open' when you hit them, and if your ball moves above the brick's height it will close again. Try navigate your ball 'through' this brick and it will stay above it. This brick may be helpful, but it's often not easy to get your ball twice at the right spot. Interestingly, with a [V] powerup, these will open and allow the ball through even if it is coming down from above.

 

 

• Dragon bricks                              

 

Dragon bricks will shoot a horizontal javelin at the direction the dragon is facing, destroying every single block in that way.

 

• Guardian bricks                           

 

When hitting them, they will shoot a laser beam towards your pad. Quickly dodge it to prevent losing your pad! They might  be hard in the beginning, but practice will get you the hang of it. Firing missiles with these around is a risky strategy - the missile will fire normally but upon its launch a random guardian in the level will set off, destroying your envelope before you can dodge. Sometimes it may be worth this loss of life, but in general missiles are a no-go with these around.

These can be converted to normal bricks with the [T] powerup. They do not fire.

 

 

• Jumper bricks                              

 

The brick will jump to another spot when hit, and will crumble once hit 4 times.

 

 

• Death bricks                                  

 

These bricks are fearsome, and you need to avoid hitting them at all costs. If you happen to hit one, you will immediately lose the ball that struck it. If you lose the only ball onscreen, you will lose a life. This is the one brick that makes [V] a negative powerup - as soon as the sparks even touch it the ball is destroyed, and the death brick is still there! However, you can destroy the brick with anything that the envelope itself can fire at it. (That includes missiles, lasers and javelins.)

 

 

• Molecule generator Bricks           

 

Molecule generators will generate a fixed amount of molecules every few seconds. When the maximum amount of molecules is reached, they will stop producing. Once you destroy a few molecules by hitting them with a powerful enough drilling ball, the bricks will start generating new molecules again. These are not hard to remove however, the ball is strong enough to destroy them as well as all the conventional destructive methods like javelins and missiles. Their difficulty ranges depending on the molecule inside, so take note of those colours!

 

 

• Mission Bricks                              

 

Mission Bricks contain various items usually required to complete certain missions. Once you smash the brick the item will fall and you must collect it with your envelope. If you miss, you will have to return to this level to try again. Note that mission items will not drop if you destroy this with the [G], [O] or [Q] powerups.

 

 

• Inversion Bricks                           

 

The inversion brick is like a unbreakable brick, except for when you hit it the screen flips upside down, so your envelope is now at the top. To destroy it you can use all the methods you would use for a unbreakable brick. These can get quite chaotic if there are lots of them or lots of fast-moving balls!

 

 

• Regenerator Bricks                      

 

Regenerator bricks will get destroyed on contact with your ball but will reappear again after a certain period of time. These are common on the planet Soupaline. Behavioural note: once these have been destroyed once with a [V] powerup active, they will instantly disappear again when the sparks touch them. In other words, they effectively will no longer obstruct you, so that's a useful strategy when dealing with these.

 

 

• Orbital Nut Bricks                         

 

These bricks require two hits to destroy, and on the second hit a nut will fall out of the brick. If this hits your envelope it explodes and you lose a life.

 

 

• Parasite Bricks                              

 

These bricks throw out parasites every time you hit them, which latch onto your envelope and shake it. The more you have, the more the effect of the shaking, and these can eventually make your envelope very hard to control.

 

 

Sentinels

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Sentinels are indestructible bricks that activate a certain effect on contact with your drilling ball. Effective counters to these are [G] and [V] capsules, drones, as well as MAS-Z Missiles and various other powerups such as [Q], [O] and [T]. Note that if you hit them with a MAS-Z missile, they will fire one last shot before dying.

 

• Reducine Sentinels                     

 

Reducines are most commonly found on the planet Balixt, and upon contact shoot a laser beam at your envelope. Should it hit, your envelope will be shrunk one level. These sentinels eventually stop shooting if your envelope reaches a stage where it cannot shrink anymore!

 

 

• Paralysing Sentinels                    

 

Paralysing Sentinels, upon contact, electricute your envelope for a few seconds, stopping it from moving.

 

 

• Kashuat Sentinels                        

 

This sentinel fires 8 red balls at your envelope, and if one of them hits it then you lose a life.

 

 

• Gluante Sentinels                         

 

This sentinel slows your envelope down, similar to the cooling effect on planet Spignysos.

 

 

• Lure Sentinels                              

 

These sentinels act like rgular bricks, except that your drones think they are dangerous sentinels and will attempt to dismantle them. Your drones will continue trying to dismantle this brick until you destroy it. The bonus is that like normal bricks, a simple hit from your drilling ball is all it takes to destroy these! However, there's often quite a few of these in levels, sometimes making life more difficult.

 

 

Sentinel Tips!:

-When you see a [N]ew ball Powerup drop from a brick, loose a life on purpose and catch the [N]. This means that although your ball won't be launched until you click, your drone WILL be launched. You can give your drone as long as it takes to dismantle the sentinels, but be wary of lure sentinels. Note that the [M]ultiball powerup doesn't work for this tip.

 

-Although this hasn't been tested, with this trick you SHOULD be able to charge up your javelins in the same way and win the level easily with them. Remember that if you click to fire, your ball will be released, so wait for the auto-fire to fire them.

 

-When you see your ball heading towards a sentinel move your envelope away from where you predict your ball will hit your envelope so that the shot goes to that place instead of your envelope. This is particularly helpful in Balixt with all the reducines there.