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Brick types

Page history last edited by kyborek 10 years, 10 months ago Saved with comment

Alphabounce Bricks

By Joozey 

 

Building blocks of the universe


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


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 a drilling ball with at least the strength of the RCD-20. 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 bricks 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 bricks are worth 0 minerals, these appear if you attempt a level twice before minerals have regenerated.

-Green mineral bricks are worth 1 mineral

-Blue mineral bricks are worth 5 minerals

-Pink mineral bricks are worth 25 minerals

 

 

  • Steel bricks                  

     

These bricks cannot be broken by a drilling ball, and only a handful of powerups is able to deal with them. [G], [O], [Q], [T], and [J] powerups will get rid of them, as well as the auto-javelin, FORA 7R-Z Mine, or a MAS-Z or stronger missile. 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 bricks will refill your missiles with by one. When you hit one, a missile will drop down and you will need to catch it. If you have a full missile supplement already, it might be wise to shoot one and destroy some extra bricks.

 

 

  • 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 a 5x5 area (with the impacted brick being the center). Handy in dense levels with lots of brown bricks, aim for these first!

 

 

  • Factory Bricks                            

 

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

 

 

  • One-way bricks                           

 

These bricks will 'open' when you hit them, and if one of your balls 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. Unusually, these bricks are even harder to destroy than Steel bricks. They can only be rid of through the use of a [G], [O], [Q], or [T] powerup (missiles and Javelins will not destroy them).  Beware, a ball imbued with the [V] powerup can open these bricks and allow the ball through, even if the Volt-ball is coming down from above! Also notice that this brick may survive effect of  [Q] powerup when it is being constantly hit by a ball after picking up the powerup.

 

 

  • Dragon bricks                              

 

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

A screencap of a dragon javelin follows below:

 

 

  • Guardian bricks                           

 

When hitting them, they will shoot a laser beam towards your pad. Quickly dodge it to prevent losing your pad! Doing this might be hard at first, but with practice, you should get 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 activate, destroying your envelope before you can dodge it. Sometimes it may be worth this loss of life, but in general, missiles are a no-go with these around. (Attempting to bait a guardian by feigning shooting a missile and then trying to move your pad away asap will not work; the guardian will hit you every time.)

These can be converted to normal bricks with the [T] powerup. Then, they will not fire.

 

 

  • Jumper bricks                              

 

The brick will jump to another spot when hit, and will crumble once hit 4 times. If hit by ball with volt powerup, it will not move to another location.

 

 

  • 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 the colors!

 

 

  • 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], [Q], or [T] powerups.

A screencap of a new missile from a '? Brick' follows below:

 

 

 

 

  •  

 

 

  • Inversion Bricks                           

 

The inversion brick is like a steel 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 an steel brick. These can get quite chaotic if there are a lot 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. They are common on the planet Soupaline.

Behavioural note: When regenerator bricks are first destroyed through drilling balls with the [V] powerup active, they will still reappear, but will instantly disappear again whenever sparks (from Volt-drilling balls) touch them again. In other words, they effectively will no longer obstruct you. This is a useful strategy to remember when dealing with regenerator bricks.

 

 

  • 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 chase your envelope and latch onto it, shaking it. You can temporarily avoid this effect by constantly moving your envelope, but the parasites will get faster over time and eventually latch onto your envelope, making your envelope harder to control. (And the more parasites attached to your envelope, the larger the intensity of your envelope shaking.) You can manually shake your envelope to detach the parasites for a short time, but they will continually chase your envelope until you have lost that life.

A good strategy against a level Parasite Bricks is to avoid them for as long as possible -- then, if you happen to break one of the Parasite bricks open, or even if the ball is getting increasingly fast and difficult to manage, you can then try to break as many of the Parasite Bricks as possible. Eventually you will lose that life anyway, but it effectively gets rid of as many parasites as possible while decreasing the number of lives lost due to the parasites.

 

 

Sentinels


Sentinels are indestructible bricks that activate a certain effect on contact with your drilling ball. Note that if you hit them with a MAS-Z (or AR-SRX) 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 (but will again continue if you get an [E] powerup)!

 

 

  • Paralysing Sentinels                    

 

Paralysing Sentinels, upon contact, electrocute 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 your envelope, then you lose that life.

 

 

  • Gluante Sentinels                         

 

This sentinel slows your envelope down, similar to the cooling effect on planet Spignysos. Being hit by these sentinels multiple times will slow your envelope down dramatically and after enough times, your envelope will become virtually impossible to move.

 

 

  • Lure Sentinels                              

 

These sentinels act like regular bricks, except that your drones will 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 as they will be allowing other, more dangerous sentinels to continue to cause trouble.

 

 

Sentinel Tips!:

-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]. Drilling balls imbued with the power of volt or glacial will not set sentinels off, and glacial drilling balls will make sentinels destroyable upon another hit (by any type of drilling ball).

 

-When you see a [N]ew ball Powerup drop from a brick, lose 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.

Comments (3)

Kinam said

at 4:35 pm on Oct 12, 2008

On the Parasite bricks section ... I've found with the parasites, when they attach to your pad, your pad starts shaking.. after 3 or 4 attach it's nearly impossible to control, as noted in the current description. However, if you manually / forcefully shake your pad, the parasites will detach for a short time. You can shake the parasites off just before the ball comes down so that you can then accurately rebound the ball again.

Strategia said

at 10:20 pm on Jun 16, 2009

From what I've found, Auto-Javs don't charge when the ball is still on the pad, so that strat probably won't work. Try losing a life when the auto-jav is partly charged, the little circle will only resume growing once the ball is fired.

Deviceing said

at 3:32 pm on Jul 4, 2009

Yes strategia, and drones don't fire when the ball is still on the pad.
If you catch a [N], it should work the same way to charge javelins as it does release drones.

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