Puppet Kings

Hidden gem for me found in 2024! Doesn't save progress if you bail is my warning, but it is excellent other than that. A/D/spacebar or controller to play 2 characters to choose from to start (not a paddle) and earn more as you play, so quite a bit more angles/banking shots off yours or boss parts. The drops often cycle so you pick which, other times not, and wild ride compared to tradition breakout or even Arkanoid. Got a heavy discount, but yeah even at full this one should be a blast if into Breakout/Peggle/Roundguard IMHO! I got steady 144 frames (v-sync) and never wavered, with 5800X3D/RX6800 in Windows 10 Pro.

Apparently these developers are not beyond pulling the rug out from under paying customers. Now many of these customers will be unable to play this game, the game was playable until the last update. The developers could resolve this with a relatively simple option in the betas tab. I don’t recommend wasting your money on this game.

An Breakout/Arkanoid-like game with less abstraction, instead of playing a paddle that moves from left to right to hit colored blocks, you play one of 5 available "Puppet Kings". You start with one and can unlock new characters during the game. It's a bold move reiterating such an antique game concept to an modern game and in my viewpoint, the developers were succesful with it. Instead of breaking blocks, you break bosses. This is a boss-rush game where the enemy itself consists of tons of parts you break apart, this is interesting because instead of just having to catch the ball, you also have to dodge attacks of the enemies with your paddle. If you get hit you become stunned for a while, which makes it harder to catch up with the ball. So while destroying the enemy you also make them less harmful, by making them smaller or destroy significant parts they can attack you with. The Boss design itself is superb because basically no idea becomes recycled, nothing is streamlined, every boss is unqiue and there are plenty of them (I've found 20 so far). The first boss is a funny little aversion of your expectations, because it resembles the colored arkanoid blocks, but they also have …

Puppet Kings is an interesting game... it is a breakout game except the bosses are the blocks that you have to hit to beat. The game starts off kind of slow you have to beat 5 bosses before you fight one of the new characters in a split screen battle. If you win you get a new character for your next run. Each new character is stronger then the last one. The other thing about the game is that you can not pick which way your characters can travel to, the game decides this randomly. And some times there are surprises and some times not. After 4 hours of game play i have unlocked only 3 characters and beaten the game twice. Its an okay casual game, it gives enough to be a quick time killer but that is about it. If you want a game with more meat on it then this is not the game for you. I like it, it is easy to play. But when i am hungry for a challenge I go play something else. Best to buy this game on sale.

NOT RECOMMENDED - it is an Arkanoid clone that is extremely unforgiving and is made even more difficult than the arcade original by utilizing view-obscuring visual effects and the enemies stunning you for 2 to 5 seconds, forcing you to lose. One of the bosses spawns cages that prevent you from moving for about five seconds, practically guaranteeing that you lose a life. The game is not long, something like 40 to 60 minutes if you do not game over (read: you use Cheat Engine to hack the lives to stay high). It has unlockable characters (in that split screen level that is quite difficult to beat), though they only provide cosmetic changes. It is about three playthroughs long. Yes, you have to repeat beat multiple bosses to get there. It is dull. The chances are that you are not going to enjoy this game even if you like the original Arkanoid. It has so many ploys of unfairness it feels like a game made like a person who does not play games to enjoy them. Invisible level objects are just one of the many deliberate irritations in the game. The graphical effects obscuring the view also cause frame drops. You have been warned.

Imagine breakout if it wasn't fun. So little care went into this that most boss directions (you need to do spefific things to reach a boss) are wrong. I don't know how some of these bosses got past playtesting either, like I have never felt worse than when fighting dante/god.