Nebunoid is a nebula themed Arkanoid/Breakout-type game. In this game, the player's objective is to bash through various colored blocks with a ball and a paddle, scoring as many points as they can while also clearing as many levels as possible.
When a campaign is started from scratch or resumed from a password, up to six (6) players may play the game, alternating turns when a level is finished or when a life is lost by dropping the last ball.
At the beginning of each life, the ball starts off slow, making it easy to rebound. Hitting the blocks, walls, and the paddle will make it go faster; making it harder to keep the ball in play.
Some blocks may explode upon contact, destroying themselves and adjacent blocks, and potentially triggering chain reactions. These block types and more can be found in the editor documentation.
As soon as all of the scorable blocks are eliminated (from a regular ball's perspective), the level is cleared, bonuses are awarded, and a new level begins. The process repeats until either every life is exhausted (although a continue may be used to gain more lives), or until the campaign has been completed.
- Life Restock (documented below) causes the game to restore one missing life upon completing a level. This makes it difficult (though not impossible) to get a game over under these conditions
- There is a "softlock" guard mechanism that causes balls otherwise stuck to become "metallic". These balls destroy any block in one hit
- Weakened Balls will negate any balls that are powered up, only truly weakening balls that are previously normal balls to have a 40% chance of not damaging a block
- Paddles are not permitted to have both bullets and missiles stockpiled at the same time. When picking up one of these capsules, it will zero out the other's ammunition
- Extra Life has a variable rarity. Its gold color significanies its very rare status under normal conditions, but it has a double appearance chance (akin to a purple "rare" capsule)
- The Shuffle Levels option shuffles most levels in a campaign, ignoring fatal levels in the process
- Grabble Paddles automatically release each held ball after 5 seconds. In addition, several capsules force release held balls. Both are intentional to counter a multiplier that exists simply for having multiple balls in play
Nebunoid supports watching an Auto Play session; just start a 0 player session. Fair warning; the computer player will neither give stars, nor award passwords for levels that the player has never played before. Any high scores it is able to submit will be auto-named as such.
Not all levels are made the same. Nonetheless, Nebunoid rewards preserverence. When the required 2 legitimate game overs in a row is reached, it will allow the player the option to skip the level. This feature is available when not on a level before a "fatal" level (a level that disallows continues outright).
Fair warning; using the Skip Level feature on a high difficulty game will automatically reduce the difficulty as if the player had fouled their way to no harder than Medium-Hard.
Nebunoid supports a difficulty scale for each player, allowing players of varying skill to participate.
| Difficulty | Rating Range | Paddle Specs | Ball Speed | Capsule Chance(1) | Continue Penalty(2) | Extra perks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Effortless | 1.0 - 1.4 | 160-360-480 | Slowed | 12% | None | No reds / Metal balls / Life restock / Bullet ammo |
| Very Easy | 1.5 - 2.4 | 160-240-480 | Slowed | 12% | None | Limit red caps / Metal balls / Life restock |
| Easy | 2.5 - 3.4 | 120-240-480 | Slowed | 12% | None | Life restock |
| Medium-Easy | 3.5 - 4.4 | 120-160-360 | Normal | 10% | None(3) | None |
| Medium | 4.5 - 5.4 | 80-160-240 | Normal | 10% | None(3) | None |
| Medium-Hard | 5.5 - 6.4 | 80-120-240 | Normal | 8% | None(3) | None |
| Hard | 6.5 - 7.4 | 40-120-240 | Normal | 8% | Reduce by 0.5 | None |
| Very Hard | 7.5 - 8.4 | 40-120-160 | Normal | 7% | Reduce by 0.5 | None |
| Extreme | 8.5 - 9.4 | 40-120-120 | Normal | 7% | Reduce by 1.0 | None |
| Insane | 9.5 - 10.9 | 40- 80-120 | Normal | 5% | Reduce by 1.0 | None |
| Nightmare | 11.0 - 12.0 | 40- 80-120 | Increased | 5% | Reduce to 10.0 | No red caps |
(1) Maximum spawn chance; achieved when there are no falling capsules in play. Diminishing Returns decreases this chance (by 1% per capsule) as there are more capsules falling.
(2) One can use the level select system (F4) or passwords to play the game from any level with a password. The need to remember passwords is virtually eliminated.
This system is unavailable if the "Shuffle Levels" option is active, or if one or more players has a continue penalty whenever they get a game over.
(3) Alternatively, players can choose to reduce the difficulty by 0.5 to make their next credit easier. A player will not drop below Medium-Easy (difficulty 3.5) this way
Nebunoid has 27 capsules of varying power, and rarity. The power-up capsules are colored green, blue, purple, or gold (depending on its rarity), and may be collected to acquire special abilities. The power-down capsules are all colored red, and will generally make the gameplay more challenging when collected. Neutral capsules are colored grey, and can cause some interesting effects when collected. In any case, powerup capsules which have a more potent effect tend to spawn less frequently than weaker capsules.
Some capsules have a timed duration. Power-up capsules (but not power-down capsules) have a stacking effect whenever multiples are collected in a short duration of time. These capsules also provide a little bit of recovery when in a boss battle.
In addition, there is a collection of 7 gem-themed capsules available outside of Effortless difficulty. These capsules are used to form 5-gem poker-style hands. If a decent hand is formed this way, extra points will be awarded once the hand is complete. Unused gems at the end of the campaign also award points based on the same mechanics.
| Hand | Value(1) |
|---|---|
| Two pair | 500 |
| Three of a kind | 1000 |
| Full House | 2500 |
| Four of a kind | 3500 |
| Five of a kind | 5000 |
(1)Default score values, based on the base capsule value set in the campaign settings file.
There are 293 levels, split into twelve (12) official campaigns of varying size and difficulty. A wide variety of blocks are available, from multi-hit blocks, to invincible blocks, to blocks that can gain hit points over time. Various obstacles may be mixed together. Rumor has it that some campaigns may have hidden levels...
Stars are earned by completing levels for the first time. Harder campaigns require a certain number of stars to break their locks open.
A level editor also exists, allowing community campaigns to be created.
Introductory Training is a much shorter 10-level campaign, geared to introduce players new to the genre. Few obstacles exist throughout this campaign, and the player is given a maximum quantity of lives.
Geometric Designs is another short 10-level campaign. Although less accomodating than Introductory Training, this set is still fairly easy in difficulty. Save points are present in every level, except for the final level.
Times of the Year is a short 12-level campaign, with roughly the same specifications as Geometric Designs. This is also the first campaign to introduce exploding blocks that bloom instead of destroy outright.
Regular Season is the most balanced campaign, containing 30 levels. A wide variety of obstacles are demonstrated in this campaign, but no bio blocks are present.
Save points are available for nearly every level in the campaign, being absent only from the last level of the campaign. Instead, players who lose their last life on the final level will not be permitted to continue, and must end their game.
Fortified Letters is decently more challenging than Regular Season. Every English letter is represented in this campaign, for a total of 26 levels. Save points are present in every level, except for the final level (which disallows continues instead).
Electric Recharge is an artistic 20-level campaign, referencing a computing themed universe. Save points are present in every level up to level 19, with the exception of level 13.
Patriarch Memorial is an artistic 25-level campaign, designed as a memory of the past. Moderate-Hard difficulty. Save points are present in every level up to level 23. No continues are permitted beyond this level.
Fusion Designs is a hybrid 20-level campaign. This campaign makes use of the newly introduced "brick fusion" mechanic, allowing for blocks of any shape. Save points are present in every level up to level 19.
The 30-level Challenge Campaign amps up the difficulty several notches by spamming strong blocks like it is hard to believe. Every level demonstrates one or more of the following: Invincible blocks, strong blocks (some will be bio-regenerative), and invisible blocks that may lead to any of the preceding elements.
Additionally, save points appear less frequently than they did in previous campaigns; appearing every three levels starting with level 1, up to level 28. As usual, the final level disallows continues.
This 40-level campaign was originally built as a trilogy of sets for a script-enhanced title. Although scripting itself is absent, this campaign takes near full advantage of Nebunoid's own mechanics in order to form an overpowering experience.
Maximum Insanity makes Challenge Campaign look easy by mixing the most dangerous elements into 30 levels worth of sinister combinations. Save points appear even less frequently; every five levels starting with level 1, up to level 26.
Celestial Journey is another long official campaign, at 40 levels. It makes plenty of cross-universe references, and is still on par with that of the Challenge Campaign.
Like Maximum Insanity, save points appear every five levels starting with level 1. In addition to a final boss at level 40, there is a mid-boss at level 20. Both of these levels disallow continues.
Endless Shuffle is a unique official campaign, technically comprised of unlimited length. Specifically, this campaign will shuffle all of the previous levels into a single gigantic experience. Because of its unique shuffling mechanism, its difficulty is naturally unpredictable. This campaign is also the hardest / takes the longest to unlock, requiring a true 100% completion to even unlock.
In addition to its shuffle, it brings forth several other unique mechanics not available in other campaigns:
- Extra lives become available at 16K points, but the threshold doubles with each milestone achieved. This is also the only way to obtain more lives.
- The minimum difficulty rises as more levels are cleared. If the starting difficulty becomes less than this threshold, then it will increase accordingly. A maximum difficulty of 6.5 (Hard) can be reached this way, achieved by reaching level 43. (If the starting difficulty is already at least this high, then this mechanic is ineffective.)
- Since the objective is to simply score as high as possible, no continues are allowed throughout the campaign. If the available lives are exhausted, then the game simply ends on the spot.
Nebunoid (C) 2023-2024 Paul Ruediger. Nebulae artwork courtesy of NASA, ESA, and/or other astrophysical observatories and stations. Please check the credits for more details.