Antonball Classic
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Antonball Classic (previously known as Antonball) is a 2D puzzle platformer developed and published by Summitsphere. This is the debut entry in the Anton franchise, starring Anton and Ballbuster before the characters were fully developed. According to the game's plot, Anton struggles to find his way back home after a long night out, and has to use his balls to break bricks and kill Ballbusters that come in his way[1]. The game was developed as part of the seventh annual GBJAM, which ran from August 17th 2019 to August 26th 2019[2].
In 2020, a major update was released, adding Annie as a playable character to commemorate the game's anniversary. In 2021, an expanded version of the game featuring all of the game's stages would be released as Antonball Deluxe.
Gameplay
In the game, Anton has a ball at his disposal to destroy bricks he can't reach. This ball can be dispatched by pressing K and randomly changes directions with each hit. The player can jump by pressing K and run by holding J. Once all bricks on-screen are broken, the game will move to the next stage, of which there are six in total. Along the way are bricks that move in certain directions and Ballbusters that will spawn in stage six. Once the player clears all six stages, a screen will display congratulating the player and asking them to try again. The player can lose lives by making the ball go off-screen or getting hit by a Ballbuster, which can be killed when touched by a ball. Once the player loses all three of Anton's lives, the game is over and the player will be sent back to the title screen. Across the whole game, the visuals and music work within the limitations of the Game Boy.
Enemies
| Enemy | Description |
|---|---|
 |
Only spawns in stage 6 from a manhole every ten seconds. Kills the player if touched. Can be killed when taking a hit from a ball or bumped by a bouncy block. |
| Ballbuster |
Soundtrack
Antonball Classic's soundtrack is composed by Tony Grayson, and was released on SoundCloud on September 6th, 2019.
| No. | Track title | Runtime | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Title Screen | 0:06 | Plays on the title screen and the completion screen. |
| 2 | Level Theme | 2:08 | Plays during gameplay. |
| 3 | End of Level Theme | 0:02 | Plays after finishing a level. |
Development
Development on Antonball Classic supposedly started on August 19th 2019 as a solo project by Tony Grayson. Some early ideas included Anton holding a paddle and gaving the title be Brickball before eventually being changed to Antonball. An early playable version was uploaded on August 24th.
The game was submitted on August 26th 2019, 5 hours and 9 minutes before the deadline[3].
Revisional Changes
Version 3.0
Version 3.0 was released on September 1st 2020 to commemorate the game's anniversary.
- Annie Bell is now playable and accessible by pressing Shift on the title screen.
- The player can now return to the title screen by pressing R while in-game.
- The game's audio has been lowered by 50%.
- The game's executable has been renamed to "ANTONBALL". This was previously "Antonball Classic".
- The project file that this version was compiled from was retitled to "Antonball Classic". This was previously kept under "super anton ball", the game's work in progress name.
- Several unused assets were removed:
- An empty script was removed from obj_logo, which would've triggered something when pressing the enter key.
- sprite21, an empty 64x64 sprite, was removed.
- spr_backgroundtemp, a background from Donkey Kong (Game Boy), was removed.
- A color background from Mario Bros. Classic (which doesn't appear to gave a sprite entry) was removed. This background was a leftover when doing style tests for Antonball Deluxe.
Reception
| Criteria | Rank | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Gameboy-ness | #1 | 4.913 |
| Overall | #5 | 4.272 |
| Fun | #7 | 4.043 |
| Audio | #8 | 4.130 |
| Graphics | #27 | 4.0 |
Antonball Classic ranked on 5th place for the seventh GBJAM and received positive reviews with an overall rating of 4.3 out of 5 based on 23 ratings. The game ended on first place under the Gameboy-ness criteria, which critiques how close the game looks to an actual Game Boy game. Fun and audio ended on seventh and eighth place respectively, while graphics landed much lower in the ranks on 27th place[3].