Breakout

Bounce the ball and smash every brick.

FAQ

How do I control the paddle?

Move the mouse over the game area to slide the paddle left and right, drag a finger on touch screens, or hold the ← → arrow keys (A and D work too). Press Space to pause or resume.

How many levels are there?

Levels loop forever: clearing every brick takes you to the next one, the brick layout cycles through three patterns, the ball gets 8% faster each level, and every brick is worth more points (10 × the current level).

What happens when the ball falls?

The ball never leaves the board: it drops past the bottom. Each drop costs one life and the paddle and ball reset to the middle to relaunch; the game ends when all 3 lives are gone.

Is my best score saved?

Yes. The best score is stored in your browser's localStorage under the key t55k6-breakout, so it survives a refresh or restart. In private mode the write is skipped automatically and the game keeps working.

How to use

Start and move the paddle
Press Start and the ball launches off the paddle. Drag the paddle left and right with a mouse or a finger, or use the arrow keys, and keep the ball landing on it.
Aim with the paddle edge
Where the ball hits the paddle changes its horizontal angle. An edge hit sends it away sharply, while a centre hit bounces it almost straight back, which lets you aim.
Smash bricks to score
Every brick the ball touches disappears and scores points: 10 in level one, then multiplied as levels rise. Clear all the bricks in the current level and the next one begins with a new layout and a faster ball.
Do not drop the ball
If the ball falls past the paddle you lose one of your three lives. Play resumes with the ball back on the paddle, and the round ends when the last life is gone.
Pause or restart the run
Press Pause or the space bar to stop at any time and press again to carry on. Restart takes you back to level one with the score and all three lives reset.

About this tool

Breakout was released by Atari in 1976. The concept came from Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow. The hardware was designed by Steve Wozniak, who later co-founded Apple and built the machine with a famously small number of chips. You slide a paddle along the bottom to bounce a ball into a wall of bricks. Where the ball strikes the paddle sets its angle. Each brick scores 10 points at first, rising with the level. Clearing all the bricks opens the next level, and a ball lost past the paddle costs one of three lives.

It suits players who enjoy quick, reflex-driven arcade games. A round lasts only a few minutes and a new one starts instantly, which makes it ideal for a short break. The rules are simple, but clearing a full level takes steady angle control and anticipation, so later levels really test your focus. Mouse and touch both feel natural, and the keyboard works just as well on its own.

How it works

Breakout lives on one controllable surface: the paddle. Walls and bricks behave like mirrors, with the angle in equal to the angle out, but the paddle maps hit position to exit angle. A centre hit bounces almost straight up, and an edge hit bends sharply, so the paddle works as a continuously adjustable aiming device. The celebrated expert line is digging a tunnel. Carve a vertical channel through the brick wall and the ball ricochets above it, chewing through dozens of bricks unattended for a cascade of points.

Steve Wozniak built the original board, by his own account, from far fewer chips than comparable arcade machines and several sleepless nights. Soon afterwards he co-founded Apple. The game also founded a genre: Arkanoid added power-ups and bosses, and countless mobile clones reuse the same reflection physics unchanged. Paddle-controlled angle has now survived five decades of hardware change. The 1976 recipe of pure reflection plus one controllable bounce was evidently close to optimal.

When to use it

A three-minute arcade run
Three lives, a few minutes, an instant restart, no login and nothing to save. It fills a download wait or a delivery gap exactly, and one round keeps your reflexes above the line.
Hand-eye training
Ball speed climbs with every level, so the paddle must arrive early instead of chasing. That predict-then-move habit is a compact daily workout for anyone whose work involves staring at a screen.
Physics kids can see
Angle in equals angle out, and paddle position steers the rebound: two physics rules visible within a few rounds. Ask a child to aim at one chosen brick with the paddle edge and watch intuition form.

Tips & tricks

Hit the ball with the paddle edge to widen the rebound angle when you need to reach bricks on the far sides.
Try to keep the ball travelling in long diagonals instead of bouncing straight up and down, so you have time to reach the landing point.
Clear the bricks directly above the paddle first, so a fast angled ball is less likely to drop past you before you can react.

Things to watch

Chasing the falling ball
Starting to move when the ball is already dropping is usually too late. Read the full trajectory, predict the landing point, and place the paddle there early. Wait for the ball instead of racing it.
Letting the ball go vertical
Over-centre hits keep the ball bouncing straight above the paddle and shrink your reaction window to nearly zero. Use the paddle edges to stretch the path into long diagonals with real travel time.
Ignoring the speed step
Each new level raises ball speed quietly, and hands still tuned to the last level lose lives in a row. Give the ball two or three bounces to recalibrate before attempting any precise aiming.