Blast Thru

A Break-Out style DX-Ball clone with bonus power-ups that change the game experience for the better or for the worse. It also has a level editor.

Sub-Page#

Bugs

Unused Graphics#

The game data file "ball.glo" contains the following unused images:

bibleballc.png#

"BibleBall" is the name of an alternative version of the game. The "Blast Thru" logo is stored as "bibleball.png", without the "c". As BibleBall was never published according to the game developer, this logo remains unused:

[...] I had actually made two products: Blast Thru and Bibleball. Both were meant to be marketed independently. I can't remember what ever happened with Bibleball. I think the publisher picked up Blast Thru but turned down Bibleball.

— Nathanael M. Weiss, May 18th, 2023, e-mail exchange with Ray Koopa

fontlarge2.png#

This medium size font only contains lower case letters. The corresponding letter mapping table also still exists.

wincorner.png#

User interface parts which were probably meant to be used for a level selection list in the editor and a scrollbar needed for such a list. However, the final editor only contains a textbox in which the level name can be entered.

Unused Music#

The game data file "ball.glo" contains the following unused music:

exmil.mds#

Could have been used as an "Excellent!" screen showing when the player finished all 40 levels - like in Adventures with Chickens which also used a short flourish after all levels were completed.

Unused Sounds#

The game data file "ball.glo" contains the following unused sounds:

chompgo.wav#

Judging from the file name, it might have once played right after the paddle-eating choppers start moving from the left.

Unused Text#

The game data file "ball.glo" contains the following unused text:

verses.txt#

This plain text file contains three quotes from the New Testament, used by the unpublished BibleBall version of the game. Code to render them still exists but is never called.

rom_8:1;Therefore there is now no comdemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of Life set me free from the law of sin and death.
rom_8:16;The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
joh_9:39;And Jesus said "For judgement I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see may become blind."

[...] The Bible verses were meant to be hidden behind the bricks. As you eliminated the bricks the message would appear.

— Nathanael M. Weiss, May 18th, 2023, e-mail exchange with Ray Koopa

Unused Abilities#

Turning Bricks Into Iron#

The game can set a "status" to each brick cell in the level to apply special transformations on them in the next frame. The "Make Iron" status is not used and was possibly meant for a bad variation of the "Expand Fire Bricks" powerup, but no code remains determining on which bricks it would have been set:

Status	Description	Effect on brick in next frame
0	No status (default)	None.
1	Explode	Destroyed as if hit by fire.
2	Remove	Removed as if hit by a normal ball.
3	Make Fire	Turned into fire brick as if an "Expand Fire Bricks" powerup has been collected.
4	Make Iron (unused)	Turned into strongest 3-hit iron brick. If this cell is empty, places the weakest 1-hit iron brick.

Debugging Material#

Legacy Pause Screen#

The activated pause screen.

The game features a leftover pause screen similar to the one available in the other RockSolid game Adventures With Chickens. It is almost fully removed in favor of returning to the main menu to pause the game with Escape, but can be inconveniently accessed by hitting Ctrl and Numlock once at the exact same time. The otherwise unused "paused" sprite with cut off letters will appear above a darkened screen and the music pauses. Erroneously, the music does not resume playback when leaving this screen with Escape or Enter, but will resume immediately if minimizing and restoring the game.

Additional Settings#

In the main directory is a file called bt.ini where the game settings are stored. Some of these cannot be changed in-game, but by editing the settings file directly.

Changing "gsilence" from "off" to "on" allows the player to play the game without any music or sound. This was used internally by the game if it couldn't start up often enough (it also counts the number of game starts in "runcount" and the success in "runsuccess") - and then asks the player to disable sound output if that could be the problem.

Changing "gshowframerate" from "off" to "on" will make the game show the frame rate at the bottom-right corner of the screen. The frame rate displayed is actually one too less, as the game optimally runs at 40 FPS, but only displays "39".

Hit Zone Logging#

When a ball hits the paddle, a hit zone is calculated which determines the new direction the ball will move afterwards. In case of a miscalculation, "Zone: %n" will be written to the game's log file (log.txt) and the game closed, where %n is replaced with the erroneously computed hit zone number. This does not happen in the release as the calculation works correctly.

Level File Boundary Exploit#

The in-game editor does not allow editing the top and bottom most rows of bricks to avoid bricks being placed over the game score and life display or creation of weird levels with bricks in the height of or under the paddle. However, the level files can be opened inside a hex editor and these rows can be filled with any bricks.

This even allows bricks to be placed which are not available in the in-game level editor, as every brick ID is encoded with 8 bits, resulting in 256 different bricks (yet the game provides only 64 "real ones").

Single frames of the "fire brick" animations, acting like normal bricks (one hit required).
A black brick reading "Invis", and not becoming invisible when the game starts (one hit required).
Invisible bricks which disappear after one hit and are required to be destroyed to complete the level. All brick IDs not matching known ones result in these.

Hidden Cheat Features#

The activated cheat screen, also showing an enabled frame counter at the bottom right.

During a game, pressing Alt+H will bring up a textbox (displaying a title "Cheaters never prosper...") where the player can enter codes and submit them with Enter. Two of them provide additional level select and level state manipulation features, beyond the possibility to select any level to start with from the main menu; others might have also been used for debugging as they basically apply the effect of power-ups.

Cheat	Corresponding Power-Up	Effect
detrimental abundancy	Question Mark	Triggers the rain of red power-ups.
funyons	-	Makes the ball bounce back from the bottom border of the level, thus it becomes impossible to lose it.
i never prosper	-	This sets a game state flag for checking if this is the last out of 40 levels to be played (10 in the Special Edition), causing the game finishing sequence to trigger after the current level has been finished (or skipped with the inc me cheat).
inc me	Explode Last Brick	Skips the current level.
let me hear you say fired up	Fire Ball	Converts all balls into fire balls.
my velcro shoes	Tractor Beam	Gives the player a full tractor beam bar.
no ska no swing	Magnet	Gives the paddle magnets to hold balls as they touch it.
not a small thing	Paddle Width Increase	Increase the length of the paddle.
sidewinders	Rockets	Gives the player a full set of rockets.
sweet	4-Split Ball	Splits all balls into four.
through holy faith	Extra Life	Gives an extra life, including the side effects of disabling several level states (see the bugs page).

Version Differences#

BibleBall#

Unpublished full version, remains unreleased
Original "BibleBall" branding in the menu and instructions
Reveals bible verses behind destroyed bricks

Blast Thru 1.0#

Full version
Packed in a 16-bit setup

Blast Thru 1.1 Special Edition#

Shareware version
Only allows up to 10 levels to be played
Removes Load and Save buttons from level editor and logic to open the corresponding dialogs
Rebrands publisher from RomTech to eGames, updates copyright and website

Blast Thru 1.1#

Full version, no technical change to 1.0
Packed in a 32-bit setup
Replaces Galaxy Software logo with eGames logo
Game directory is dirty, including bogus "level 41" and "lev42" custom levels and a "Copy of bt.ini"
Sometimes labelled as versions "1.2" or "1.3" on media and game browsers

Feature	1.0	1.1 Special Edition	1.1
Intro Screen
Outro Screen
Number of Levels	40	10	40
Load / Save Levels	Yes	No	Yes

Playtime-Restricted Versions#

Newer shareware releases pack the game inside a time-bombed container, which allows the game to be played only for 60 minutes. The game itself is a fully functional 1.1 version with all features available, and can be unlocked by purchasing the game from the publisher.