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2021 · TheRoboZ · Arcade · Puzzle

Klax

Nintendo console exclusive

This is a pico-8 port of Klax, mainly based on the Atari Lynx version, featuring:

Released: 14 March 2021
Platforms: Browser Game Boy Color Linux Windows macOS
Genres: Arcade Puzzle
Developers: TheRoboZ
Publishers: TheRoboZ
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Third person
Engine: PICO-8

About

Klax is a 1990 puzzle video game developed and published by Atari Games for arcades; in Japan, it was distributed by Namco. The game was designed and animated by Mark Stephen Pierce, with software engineering by Dave Akers. The object of the game is to catch colored tiles moving down a conveyor belt, and arrange them in matching rows and patterns to make them disappear.

Klax was originally released in February 1990 as an arcade follow-up to Tetris (1989), about which Atari Games had been in a legal dispute. It was later ported to several home and handheld systems, including the Nintendo Entertainment System, Genesis, Master System, TurboGrafx-16, Game Boy, and Lynx. The Atari 2600 version of the game, released in the UK in mid-1990, was one of the final licensed games for the console, which was discontinued in early 1992.

Keywords

demake
unofficial port
unofficial demake

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Controls consist of a four-position joystick and a button. The player controls a small paddle at the lower end of a conveyor belt. Using the joystick, the player can move the paddle left or right to catch tiles in various colors as they advance down the conveyor. Below the paddle is a well that can hold up to 25 tiles in five columns of five; pressing the button causes the topmost tile on the paddle to fall directly downward and into the well, as long as that column is not full.

The goal is to form "Klaxs", or unbroken horizontal/vertical/diagonal lines containing three tiles of the same color. Doing so awards points and causes those tiles to disappear, allowing any tiles above them to fall toward the bottom of the well. Bonus points are awarded for completing multiple Klaxs with a single tile (including lines of four or five matching tiles) and for Klaxs formed by the falling of already-placed tiles.

Development

Akers programmed Klax in just a few weeks using AmigaBASIC, then ported each line to C. In a 1990 interview, he said he wanted to "produce something playable, compact and relatively quick to develop". His influences were Tetris and tic-tac-toe. He chose the name from the sound that tiles make rolling across the screen.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Klax as the seventh most successful table arcade unit of March 1990.

On release, Famicom Tsūshin awarded the PC Engine version 30 out of 40. Klax was ranked the 26th best game of all time by Amiga Power in 1991. The NES version is ranked 44 in IGN's Top 100 NES Games.