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Comment by nikolay | Hacker News Reader

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nikolay·

Reminds me of Xonix [0]...

[0]: https://dos.zone/xonix-1984/

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JezzBall was also pretty similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JezzBall

Jezzball was a TI calculator classic.

This is what I did instead of learning AP Calculus :D

This is so nostalgic. I remember feeling like I was so good at Jezzball. In later levels I'd start a wall near one corner of the screen, closer to one edge than the opposite edge, to ensure the shorter wall would connect, and sacrificing the longer wall. The surviving wall would create a "corridor" in which to trap balls with tiny horizontal walls, often such that they ended up completely stationary.

Yes, this game is quite similar to JezzBall, or to a more modern example, Just Fillin’, which used to be available on the iPhone. I remember playing JezzBall back in the day on a floppy disk, and Just Fillin’ during the early days of the iPod Touch. It’s no longer available, but when I mentioned it, my 11-year-old son tried to recreate it, and honestly, I think he did a pretty great job.

Just Fillin’ iPhone gameplay can be seen on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqvnk05iTbs

My son’s game, Bleachclaw Bubble Bash, is available at: https://lotsofnoise.github.io/

Xonix is listed as a remake of Qix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qix

I encountered a version of this game sometime around 1990 and played the hell out of it. Since I don’t see any remakes from around that time, and I never had a Game Boy, I might have found it on a BBS, or a discount rack. There were a huge number of people briefly playing another game in this genre sometime around 2004, with lots of pretty colors. Everyone was playing it, and then they weren’t. I didn’t because I’d already played the original enough for one life. But I can’t find it in the list either.

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