Gem Ball – Ancient Legends:

In Brief:
Gem Ball – Ancient Legends is a 3D Breakout/Arkanoid clone that was originally released about 16 years ago. We were given this way back in March 2007 HERE, where the then community gave it a positive 87% thumbs up from 329 votes with 83 comments. (I often wonder how many of the present community were present back then; I'm always curious, especially after the numbers of votes and comments have dropped off significantly over the years)?

You can see a few videos of game play HERE, HERE and HERE.

Introduction:
Gem Ball – Ancient Legends requires 'strategic placement of the balls in the early start to most of the levels contained within this game as often many of the lowest bricks are undestructible from the side the bat is adjacent to. This often also leads to you requiring a quick response, otherwise you'll lose your ball to the abyss. You can't allow the ball to drop below the bat where it exits the arena and destroys the bat; which also loses one of your lives. Depending on the difficulty level you have chosen, you can start with 2, 3 or 4 balls. To be able to access some of the bricks you have to trigger a chain of events as you play. As you make your journey, you will follow several myths of Ancient Egypt that will lead you through 'perilous dangers' in order to restore the long-lost gifts of Amon Ra.

The above introduction was 'inspired' by Big Fishes description of the game with significant changes to the original text HERE , which I accessed on the 5th February 2022

Features

10 artifacts to uncover.
100 Arcade levels.
50 Adventure levels
2 gameplay modes
3 difficulty modes
18 power ups.
Collecting coins to add new lives
Collecting gems to increase your score
Lots of different brick types

The Game:
Gem Ball: Ancient Legends has the same level design, power-up's and mechanics as Egypt Ball that we were given November 13th 2021; except, today's game includes three difficulty levels and two modes of play; i.e. Adventure and Arcade modes. Egypt Ball only had one mode called Arcade; which incidentally, is exactly the same as Gem Balls Arcade mode. In Gem Ball, you gain access to the Arcade mode once you've completed the first myth which is the first five levels unlocked and completed. InGem Ball, we get 100 levels in arcade mode and 50 levels in the adventure mode making a total of 150 different level designs; where new brick types are introduced gradually. The adventure mode is divided into ten myth sections where you unlock various Egyptian artefacts, each of these introduces a myth, for example the artefact named after the god Thoth unlocks the ability of the people of Egypt to write, or the goddess Ma'al the goddess of truth law and universal order. As you progress through each temple, you'll find information about what each of the gods or goddess' gives back to the people of Egypt.

Each of the ten myth sections includes five levels to complete. To progress you have to complete each arena before you can proceed to the next level. You can see your progress in Adventure mode via the level map. Unfortunately, you cannot play previous levels in this mode unless you start a new game; in that scenario you lose all previous progress and have to start right from the beginning again. In Arcade mode each level can be visualised via a small thumbnail image, divided into five pages of 20 levels. All levels after the one you are playing are locked until you've completed each level in turn. Once a level is unlocked, you can return to it in arcade mode at any time to replay it, but only after you have selectected new game first; otherwise, you will be taken directly to the next level you have unlocked and not the level grid page. Doing this will lose all the points you have earned while playing the arcade mode; though you still have access to any level that has previously been unlocked, so you can start from any of the unlocked levels. At the end of each level, in both Adventure and Arcade modes, you are shown your level statistics that shows how long you took to beat the level as well as other facts like how many coins you collected, the number of different colour and type of jewels, an accumulated total of your score, plus the score for the level.

Gem Ball: Ancient Legends has the usual number of decorative bricks of different types used in the construction of the various levels, with the occassional new one being introduced later in the game. There is also a wide selection of ball types that can help in varying degrees. Some balls will only destroy bricks that match their colour, but can be changed by first hitting a different coloured brick. This actually makes it a little more difficult to destroy bricks because you first have to hit the correct colour then hit the same-coloured bricks before they are destroyed; often different coloured bricks are adjacent, so you need to be deadly accurate when directing a ball to the coloured brick you want to destroy; if you hit alternate colours on each rebound nothing is destroyed until you eventually hit the same-coloured brick twice. Other types of balls can destroy every type of brick with or without the help of an explosion (Explosive Ball); while there are also special balls that destroy everything in their path, including walls or other seemingly permanent obstructions (Power Ball), or have the ability to fire arrows in every direction (Shooting Ball). The multicoloured ball can destroy any colour ball.

There are eighteen power-ups included with the game, these include extra lives (looks like an Ankh and is (obviously) called 'Extra Life'), those that enlarge or shrink your paddle (Expand & Shrink Bat); allow you to hold and aim a ball at a specific spot (called Accuracy of Light) that in most breakouts is called the magnetic bat, though this bat power up has two effects, i.e. magnetic and a direction of travel indicator. There's also Triple Ball that triples the number of balls currently in play. If you already have more balls in play, this can often increase the number of balls in play significantly. as it affects every type of ball in play. If you pick up the Normal Ball power up, it will cancel any special ball effects previously gained, transforming all the balls into the chequered normal ball. Some power-ups are time limited and disappear after a short period, but can be extremely useful while active. There's one that creates a barrier at the bottom of the arena that will stop your ball from exiting the arena if you miss the ball with your bat; though once touched the barrier will disappear, (it's called 'Safe Rays'). There are also useful brick breaking weapons added to the paddle such as the Darts Fire and Mega Laser. Some power-ups affect the ball as mentioned above; for example, the Explosive Ball, Power Ball, Multicolour Ball and Shooting Ball plus the Balls Thrower power-up that throws several mini-sized balls into the arena. Then, of course there's the very negative power up that destroys your bat if you touch it, that looks like a blacksmith's anvil called Killer.

As well as the variety of power-ups that are released by destroyed bricks there are special artefacts that redirect you ball if you pass over them, and other portal like structures that move your ball invisibly to another portal on the arena and then special artefacts that can split your ball into two similar balls. You'll also find treasure chests that can be hit three or four times, each time releasing a gold coin and on the final hit, will release several coins, that all go towards creating another way to gain a new life; you require twenty of these gold coins per life gained. You can also collect jewels that add significantly to your final level score.

You can have several balls in play; (or a lot more if you pick up one or more of those triple ball power ups). I've had as many as 30+ ball in play, which accounts for one of my complete level times at 32 seconds {see the fourth image above}) . However, having more than a few balls in play can become rather confusing and you can often lose decent power up's by trying to save all of the balls in play rather than picking up the power ups. Often the game requires you to make quick decisions while in the middle of a level. I've sometimes picked up a negative power up by mistake and have paid the price for it. I've found it advisable to lose some of your extra balls in preference to losing power ups (unless it's a negative one) at least unless you are looking to get a better time score in your end of level statistics.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen an option where you could turn ball deflections on, or include deflections between balls in an extra difficulty level This would have made the level a little more random; unfortunately, there is no option to do this.

One of the-power ups that is really useful, especially to those new to the genre, is the 'Mega Laser'. This weapon will destroy every brick (but not stacked bricks) in its line of sight from the top to the bottom of the arena (but not stacked bricks) and usually appears just before a level is almost completed and enables you to get those last few bricks quickly. Though there's also an 'End Level' power up (not listed in the bonus page) that allows you to end a level if the Mega Laser didn't appear or if you missed picking it up. Personally, I like to try and get every brick by catching the ball at the correct place to get the perfect angle for hitting specific bricks (not easy to do). Hitting the ball centrally will reduce the angle of attack the ball hits the bat. The nearer to the edges of the bat, the greater the angle of attack (reflection). Some breakout clones are better at this than others. Gem Ball is middle of the road with respect to this.

Finally, I would dearly loved to have seen the ability to curve a returning ball by spinning it with the bat and more importantly include a level editor with this game. Some of my favourite breakouts include the ability to curve the ball (you can in Breakquest, the game I mention below that is now freeware) and others include a level editor e.g. the 2D breakout version Ricochet Infinity, Acky's XP Breakout and Quadranoid, and the 3D version, Hyperballoid 2.

Conclusion:
Gem Ball: Ancient Legends is an excellent 3D breakout game that in my opinion is well worth downloading (I am a little biased because breakouts have always been one, if not my top favourite arcade game genre, ever since the very first one was created back in the mid 1970's by Atari (I spent a small fortune in the arcades putting 5 pence and 1 Mark pieces into the arcade cabinets and later the one created by Taito in the early 80's called Arkanoid and it's sequel, Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh (via a console machine) and where the often used genre name of 'Arkanoid' comes from.

I started a thread over in the forums almost 15 years ago that lists lots of free and commercial breakouts HERE (some of the links may be dead, but you should still be able to find them via Google. I have been slowly updating the thread, but haven't finished doing so yet). I've recently reposted a link to one of my all-time favourite breakouts called 'Breakquest' that the developer converted to freeware several years ago. It has 100 amazing levels. Every level is 'totally' different from its predecessor in the types of bricks and level design it uses as well as the ability to configure the game in so many different ways. This gives the game virtually unlimited game play potential e.g., you can choose which power-ups will drop throughout the game and select different ball types (triangle, square, round etc) as well as different bat shapes that makes rebounding easier or harder; plus, several difficulty levels that use different configurations. You can find details of that game HERE; (you can see some of the level designs and the configurability of the game via some of the images I've posted over in the game discussion forums {specifically in the new Free Game Project forum section} ).

Oh yes, I've just remembered, another of my all-time favourite 3D breakouts called Action Ball is going to be released on Steam on the 14th March next month HERE . The developer released Action Ball 2 back in Feb 2020 (I reviewed that game on Steam HERE (I've linked to several free and decent Breakouts in the comments section of that review); and, via Steams activities feed, I've asked the community if they were interested in seeing the first one; which, although older than the first, I still think is as good, if not better than the sequel. The developer requested 100 votes before he would release it. That never happened as two years later, the votes stood at around 64 (and quite a few of those were probably because I regularly posted requests to my Steam friends to vote as well as here on the giveaway site back in 2020). Still, he decided to release it anyway. :)

Notes on Security

I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game using Virus Total and it found 2 hits (VBA32 & Jiangmin) from 61 antimalware engines. Both these are amongst only several antimalware suites that often tag TooMKY Games compared to most better known and more reliable antimalware engines, so it's very likely to be a false positive; so, it's very likely to be a false positive. My own security did not flag any issues with the game.

One the game giveaway zipped file is unpacked, the executable used to install the game 'may' include some low-level adware that opens your browser to TooMKY Games home page after the game has installed and may place some shortcuts onto your desktop; these can be safely deleted once the game has installed.

The installation does NOT inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to TooMKY Games home page following the games installation, it earns TooMKY Games some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. The giveaway version of TooMKY games version has had most of the adware disabled.

You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/e3dd7284b066840238f19ae1630d2ace6cd4877ce5869bf1367e64dd0e08cb33?nocache=1