Set in the 25th century out in the cold debths of space this game challenges you with 100 levels in the classic style of the Breakout and Arkanoid games but with much more than the original offers.
| Title | PowBall DeluXe |
| Latest Version | 3.05 |
| Price | $3.50 (other currencies accepted) |
| Game Type | Arcade |
| Author | Anthony Hamilton |
| Publisher | POW Productions |
| Platforms | Win95, Win98, WinME, Win2000, WinXP |
| Min. Requirements | 100mhz CPU, 8MB of ram, DirectX 4 or higher, 3MB hard disk space, 1MB graphics card. |
| Multiplayer | 2 player simultaneous on the same computer |
| Features | Plug-in feature allowing you to add new level sets and graphics, digital stereo sound fx, level editor, configurable levels of difficulty, 100 levels plus secret levels, save and load game options, end of level shop with many powerful weopons, 24 different enemy and level gadgets, 15 different powerups including a Super PowBall. |
| License | This game was creating using the SDL and SDL_Mixer libraries. The requirements of their license requires me to include a link to the source code for these libraries. You can access them here and here. |
Patches (also known as Mods) allow modifications to be added to the game. These can improve gameplay, add new levels, graphics, sounds, ect. Below is a list of patches you can install for free (but you must have purchased the full version of the game). To install them simply download and unzip into your the folder you installed the game (usually c:\Program Files\PowBallDX). Then select the "Load Patch" option from the main menu.
| Screenshot | Description | Author | Version | Download |
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Makes all the balls larger! This actually makes the game slightly easier. | 1.0 | bigballs.zip | |
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2 levels with custom bricks, balls, bats, weapons and enemy using the original Space Invaders arcade game as a theme.
Download the source files used to create this patch file: invaders_src.zip |
1.0 | invaders.zip | |
 |
33 new levels with custom bricks, balls, bats, powerups and backdrops all in the style of the original Arkanoid arcade game.
Download the source files used to create this patch file: arkanoid_src.zip |
1.0 | arkanoid.zip | |
 |
Spanish language patch. Thanks to Fernando Márquez. | 1.0 | espanol.zip | |
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Portuguese (Brazilian) language patch. Thanks to Thiago de Oliveira. | 1.0 | port.zip | |
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French language patch. Thanks to easymode. | easymode | 1.0 | french.zip |
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100 new levels with custom bricks. | jmf100c.zip | ||
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100 more new levels with custom bricks! | jmf200.zip | ||
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100 very challenging new levels. Read the enclosed document otherwise you don't stand a chance! | cbb1.zip | ||
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Another set of 100 completely new levels. Some are nearly impossible and reading the enclosed document is a must. | cbb2.zip |
If you wish to design levels and make sure they're bug-free. Read Doctor Johnny's Essential Notes on the Powball Level Editor
If you wish to have a go at making your own patches for Powball, download the sixth revision of this development kit.
Links
These links take you to other other websites that host and review Powball:
Freestyle
Home Of The Underdogs
GamezWord.de
GameHippo
History
Powball was a project started in 1995 by myself (Anthony Hamilton) and Roger Wong in an attempt to collaborate Roger's graphics skills with my programming skills. Early versions of the game were very basic and looked not much better than other Breakout style games ;) But as it developed by March 1996 the game was becoming good enough to market. So after many failed attempts at finding a publisher it was released to the public as Shareware in August 1996. Roger and myself hadn't actually met in person by this time. In June 1997 it was re-released by Spectrum Pacific Publishing, from which I was paid a very poor amount of royalties. Sales appered to drop suddenly and the contract with SPP was terminated 2 years later so I released Powball in July 2000 as Freeware. In April 2003 a new version for Windows was released as low-budget shareware and called PowBall DeluXe.
Myths
Powball is on lots of websites on the Internet and many of them falsely identify the author as being Spectrum Pacific Publishing, or Webfoot Games, or Lomax Software. This is a false declaration. The official author of Powball is myself, Anthony P. Hamilton. The above listed companies are merely publishers who like to rip games designers off by posing as developers of the games they are contracted to sell. Incidentally, Lomax Software even to this day is offering Powball for sale on their website at the massive price of $19.50 even though the company has no rights to sell this copyrighted software.
If any of the above companies wish me to remove them from the above paragraph then they must first pay the full amount owed to me from the sales of Powball up to the current day, remove the game from sale and remove any false claim of authorship from all the websites on the Internet. If any other games developers are reading this then please take note of the above companies and avoid them at all costs.