Arcade

ASCII Breakout

Bounce a ball off a paddle to knock out a wall of bricks, clearing the screen before you run out of lives.

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Every game plays locally in your browser. Nothing about your play is uploaded to a server. Your high scores are kept in this browser on this device only, and you can clear anything these games have saved from the privacy page.

Controls

Left and Right arrowsSlide the paddle left or right.
A and DSlide the paddle, the same as the arrow keys.
On-screen arrowsSlide the paddle, on a touch screen.
PPause and resume.
R or EnterStart a new game.

How to play

  1. Press R or Enter, or press an arrow, to start. The ball launches from the paddle on its own.
  2. Slide the paddle left and right with the arrow keys, A and D, or the on-screen arrows, to keep the ball in play.
  3. Where the ball strikes the paddle sets the angle it leaves at, so aim with the paddle rather than just blocking.
  4. Clear every brick to win. Bricks nearer the top are worth more, and the ball speeds up as the wall thins out.
  5. A ball that gets past the paddle costs a life. Lose all three and the game is over.

About Breakout

Breakout is the game that taught a generation that a ball, a paddle and a wall are enough. You cannot touch the ball directly; you only move the paddle under it, and the angle it leaves at is set by where on the paddle it lands. That one rule turns a reflex game into a game of aim, because a good player is not reacting to the ball so much as deciding, a moment early, where to send it next.

The wall here is five rows of bricks, and the rows nearer the top are worth more, so there is a reason to dig a channel up one side and let the ball rattle along the top. The ball speeds up as the wall thins out, which is exactly when the gaps you have opened make it hardest to cover. You have three lives, the ball resets on the paddle after a miss, and your best score is kept in this browser.

Frequently asked questions

By where the ball hits the paddle. A hit on the left end sends it up and to the left, a hit on the right end sends it up and to the right, and a hit in the middle sends it more or less straight up. Moving the paddle just before contact is how you steer the ball rather than only catch it.

The rows nearer the top are worth more points per brick than the rows nearer the paddle. It rewards the harder shot: reaching the back of the wall takes a cleaner angle and a longer rally than picking off the front row.

Yes. The ball speeds up as you clear the wall, so the game is at its quickest when only a few scattered bricks are left and they are the hardest to reach. Keeping the ball under control late in a screen is most of the challenge.

While you are here

BNS Data Tools

The same team builds a set of free, privacy-first data and developer utilities - formatters, converters, validators and calculators - that run in your browser the same way these games do.

Open BNS Data Tools