itch.io

Just one thing, fullscreen works although with black borders, it would be great if we could set the size of those borders in a config file somewhere, or even in the menu (create an "Advanced..." sub-menu) Or make it a hotkey, whatever is easier for you.

And then there's windowed mode but it is too small. I usually make use of a tool called DxWnd to scale up games with small windows like that, but this time it did not work. What kind of renderer this game uses? Is it DirectX at all? SDL? Or even WinG32? DxWnd is able to scale-up and stretch games to fit whatever size you choose, I use that tool to play games like Simcity3000 and Caesar3, finally I can play those games in a big window without having to conform to small-unreadable text.

If there was a hotkey to resize the game's window size, it would be great as well! (I suspect this would be the less cumbersome solution)

I never even knew Powball was turned into Freeware since 2006, I still had the DOS version running in Dosbox. Thanks for this! It works beautifully on Linux/Wine! This is really a labor of love, great job!

By the way, since the original Dev is here, are there cheat codes or cheats in general for the original MSDOS version? (or the new update, not renaisance) I think cheat codes are also a good practical way of expanding replayability value and expanding the audience, instead of scarying it away. Some days people just want to play games with no challenge whatsoever with the sole purpose of unwind from a bad day, you should not make your game challenging at all times, leave that choice to the player. (example: Doom, one of the most succesful and bestselling game of all time, never restricted the player of doing whatever the hell they feel like doing)

I appreciate the ball being "slow" (could be even slower for all I care... great idea: having the ability to use slow-motion during the game) One of my main gripes that prevented me from truly enjoying the Breakout genre was mainly the ball speed, too hectic and stressful for someone that just wants a casual experience. All the effort of designing all the levels goes to waste if 80% of the players are only able to reach level 2 or 3 at most before quitting in rage. Also, another aspect that I really loved about it was the cash/upgrade system, I wish there were more games out there with a credits/upgrades system like this, so much potential yet to explore in many genres. Upgrade system expands replayability factor exponentially.

I didn't even know the original Powball had a level editor to begin with! Wow! This is really a labor of love! Would you consider making a video/stream of the levels you made in Powball? If they still exist after these many years. I'm curious to know what kind of stuff is possible to do with the level editor.