Ballland Battles Legacy Recovery Thread

[Antwand T. HowardLead Developer]

So I just made a response to a thread about the differences between BBLegacy and BWorld and thought for a second that potentially like BBDeluxe, BBLegacy could also be recoverable.

I have some screenshots but as of this current point, we don't have BBLegacy and if we were able to get the .EXE, that'd be cool and maybe we could decompile it into its source data. From this we'd take the stages and recreate some or all of them in BWorld since much of those stages were fresh.

BBLegacy had a launcher just like BWorld's...



You can see that the graphics and movement dynamics are similar. Players also had the item bubble and secondary items, of which the SFX for those in Bworld are nearly identical to except for the Strong item sound effect.




Recreated stages from BBDeluxe had an entire retheme, my favorite of which was Dreamy Skies B which we’ll make again in BWorld.



BBD Blue Zone...


BBD The City Altered

The way the stages were designed were such that in places like the City, you always had unreachable places outside of the stage that made it look so much larger.

The results showed in front of the finished battle just like in BBDeluxe. Also you can see the Torrential Central background and the Yellow’s toss. The battle ending text was a sprite then, not generated like now.


The main menu had the player’s information just like in BWorld minus roles and clans but showing coins and XP. It had a grid that changed colors based on the selected button on the menu: Blue for single player, Green for 2P, Purple for Online (1P only), Yellow for Options and Red for quitting.


This was the Stars B.


Pick-up items were a thing and were definitely exploited. Also the warps had color to them and spanned multiple blocks.

There was a career mode but it was barely worked on before the game was lost. Characters had dialog boxes and the story started in Bluey’s house, the stage from BBD.


In the Career Mode, there was a training area and an Advisor that would help you along the way. The Career was going to be a set of tournaments to allow you to reach the top of the top in Ballland Battling.


The website had a homepage, a blog, and a forum all under "bblegacy.com"


This was the Techy Tech A.


The battle results screen was highly similar in layout to how it is now.


It was actually a meme for Bluey to get either last place or absolutely shred everyone.


This was where Stock Mayhem was born.

The City Outskirts, which has the same main music as BWorld but a different alternate music. In the Outskirts, the sun rose just like in City Sunrise backgrounds. BWorld though has city lights that turn off when the sun rises over the horizon. Also, the player is trapped from the red puzzle blocks.

The Sunset B, which shows how the tileset itself darkened after sunset.


Notice how congruent the styling of the tiles were. We plan to get at least back to this level with the revamp.


The City B...


The Stars A and showing off the smooth trails. This code was originally outsourced but in BWorld I created it from scratch because the source was gone. (Other outsourced code involved the launcher's update functionality which was created in-house for BWorld.)


The Coin Gathering mode on the City Outskirts.


Online multiplayer had a maximum of 8 players in a room at once. Because 8 is less than 32, there was more screen space to show the players off. We're thinking about how to design it similar like this in BWorld.


There were around 15 stages before the game was lost, and this captured 10 of them. 


I actually had fun making this game and kind of regret it vanishing in such a dumb way. All cloud backups were erased, and the Internet Archive could not capture the .EXE itself because the link to that was hidden in an .XML file (the file for capturing all the current update information) that was only directly fetched by the launcher.

[Antwand T. HowardLead Developer]

What I want to do here for future members is lay out the differences, since I may as well take the opportunity and since BBLegacy didn't last very long for people to lay eyes on it:

Characteristic	BBDeluxe	BBLegacy	BWorld
Resolution + Zoom	640 x 480 (no camera zoom)	1920 x 1080 (plus camera zoom)	Scalable (plus camera zoom)
Frame Rate	30	60	Uncapped
Graphics Base	Raster/Pixel	Raster/Pixel + Shaders	Vector
Playable Characters	4 (Bluey, Pinky, Yelly, Greeny)	8 (BBDeluxe + Purpz, Cyana, Renji, Blacky)	10 (BBLegacy + Magister, Custom Character)
Multiplayer Stages	44 + Custom	15 (Incomplete)	14 Planned + Custom
Online Play	Up to 4, had to port forward	Up to 8 players	Up to 32 players + Spectator mode
Items	Many + Specials, some OP	Many	Many + Planned Specials and Custom Items
Character Stats	Speed, Recovery	Speed, Attack, Defense, Powerup	Same as BBLegacy + Planned Clothing
Upgradable Stats	Temporarily with Potions	Permanent Shop Upgrades	Planned Item-Based + Shop
Launcher	None but Game had Version Detection	Self-update	Game Version Detection Self-update Launcher, Stage Install
Clans	Name-only	Name-only	Clan Field + Server Verification
Player Icons + Roles	No	Icons only	Icons + Roles
Modes	Classic Mode, Coin Gathering, Bomb Chase, Mixed	Classic Mode, Coin Gathering, Stock Mayhem, (Incomplete)	Classic Mode, Stock Mayhem, Zombie Chase, Key Hunt, Planned Coin Gathering, etc.
Social Features	Chat in room lobby and in-battle	Chat in room lobby only	Add and join friends, Discord, Planned pre-made messages in lobby
Custom Music	File-based music	Game-based	Game-based with planned File-based (planned custom-stage based)

Other things of note, the tileset of BBLegacy would've been really nice to have as it was itself a total revamp of most of BBDeluxe's tileset. However, we had to revert back to BBDeluxe's or risk starting from scratch and are in the process of revamping the tileset again, which will give benefits to your custom levels and the official stages.

The backgrounds from BBLegacy and how they're translated to BWorld:

Background	BBDeluxe	BBLegacy	BWorld
City	Buildings were layered in floors, background was static with clouds.	Buildings were flat and patterned, no night variation. BBDeluxe's Blue Zone was converted to a blue city.	Buildings like in BBDeluxe, plus nights during nighttime. Sunrise and sunset versions. Blue and alternate versions.
Sunset	Unanimated background, the Sun didn't set.	The Sun actually sets.	The Sun actually sets.
Dark	The dark was a void.	Multi-colored void with squares shooting out.	Multi-colored void with squares shooting out.
Stars	Plain background with some parallax stars.	Plain stars background with parallax falling purple stars.	Dynamically generated star field with colorful planets and animated galaxies.
Basic	A grid of squares.	Background whose color changed based on location.	(this stage will recreate BBLegacy)
Techy Techs	Grids and themed tiles.	A light-based grid with tiles that danced with the beat.	A grid of multicolored squares with dynamic coloring and other elements.
Torrential Central	N/A	An actual thunderstorm with rain and lightning.	An actual thunderstorm with rain and dynamically generated lightning.
Dreamy Skies	An etheric sky with stars and clouds.	BBDeluxe + A sun shining	BBLegacy + The sky color animates

There's other backgrounds with BBDeluxe having the largest variety for now, however there's 20 created backgrounds for BWorld with a maximum current support of 256, with a planned custom background feature.

Fun fact, we actually recently created BBLegacy's menu music and intend to put that in somewhere currently undisclosed, and the title screen music of BWorld is identical:

BBLegacy Play Menu Recreation