About Brick Breaker
Brick Breaker gives you a paddle, a ball and a wall of 40 coloured bricks. Keep the ball in play by bouncing it off your paddle, aim it into the wall, and clear every brick to bring in a new, faster wall.
How to play
- The wall has 5 rows of 8 bricks. Bricks are worth more the higher they sit: 50 points for the top red row, then 40, 30, 20 and 10 for the bottom blue row. A full wall is worth 1,200 points.
- You have 3 lives. Letting the ball fall past your paddle costs one, and the game ends when all three are gone. Lives are not restored between walls.
- The ball rests on the paddle until you launch it, both at the start and after each lost life.
- Where the ball hits the paddle sets its angle: the centre sends it straight up and the ends send it off at up to 60 degrees.
- Every paddle hit makes the ball 2 percent faster, with no upper limit within a wall.
- Clearing all 40 bricks builds a fresh wall and resets the ball to a starting speed that is higher for each new wall.
Controls
- Mouse: the paddle follows the pointer left and right. Click to launch.
- Touch: drag your finger along the board to move the paddle; tap to launch.
- Keyboard: hold Left or Right arrow to slide the paddle, and press Up arrow or Space to launch.
Tips and strategy
- Aim for the top rows when you can. A brick in the top row is worth five times one in the bottom row.
- Clear a gap through one side of the wall. Once the ball gets above the bricks it bounces between the top wall and the high-value rows, scoring without any risk to you.
- Use the ends of the paddle to steer. Hitting the ball off-centre is the only way to change its direction, so do not just catch it in the middle every time.
- Long rallies make the ball faster and faster. If it is getting hard to track, losing points matters less than losing a life, so play safe and centre your paddle under it.
- The mouse moves the paddle instantly while the keys move it at a fixed speed, so the pointer is the better choice once the ball gets quick.
Background
Ball-and-paddle brick games began with Breakout, released by Atari in 1976. It grew out of the paddle games that followed the success of Pong, turning the opponent into a wall of bricks to demolish. In 1986 Taito's Arkanoid added power-ups, enemies and designed level layouts, and the genre has remained a staple of arcades, home consoles and phones ever since.
Questions
- Does the ball speed up?
- Yes, in two ways. Every paddle hit adds 2 percent to its speed, and each new wall starts the ball faster than the last one did.
- Do I get extra lives when I clear a wall?
- No. You have three lives for the whole game, so a life lost on the first wall is gone for good.
- Where is my best score saved?
- In your browser's local storage on this device. Clearing your browsing data or using a different browser will start you from zero.