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Timeball

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Timeball
TurboGrafx-16 cover art
Developer(s)Tonkin House, Hudson Soft
Publisher(s)TurboGrafx-16:
NEC, Hudson Soft
Sharp X68000, Game Boy:
Brøderbund, Tonkin House
Programmer(s)Manuel Constantinidis (original game)
Platform(s)TurboGrafx-16, Game Boy, Sharp X68000
Release1990
Genre(s)Puzzle
Mode(s)Single-player, Two-player (Game Boy)

Timeball is a puzzle video game released by NEC for the TurboGrafx-16. The object of the game is to guide a ball along pieces of track by moving tiles like a sliding puzzle. The game's name in Japan is Blodia, an anagram of Diablo, the title of a computer game upon which Blodia is based. Versions of Blodia were released exclusively in Japan for the original Game Boy and the Sharp X68000. A spin-off titled Blodia Land: Puzzle Quest was released for the Famicom, replacing the ball with cartoon dinosaur-like characters. These versions were developed by Tonkin House and published by Brøderbund.

Gameplay

Players must arrange the tiles so the ball traverses all pieces of track.

The grid on screen is composed of tiles. Some tiles have a piece of road, and a black tile represents "the void", an area where one can drag the tile nearby in order to complete a road which will be taken by a ball that will follow the path. Players must arrange the tiles such that the ball traverses all sections of track. The ball can be sped up by pressing a button. If the ball reaches a tile without a piece of track, it falls out of play.

The game also includes a level editor which allows for the creation of custom puzzles. An earlier "prototype" version without the level editor was published for the TI-99/4a and other computers as "Diablo" in 1985.

See also

References