Breakout

About Breakout

Breakout is the brick-breaking game that followed Pong into the arcades in 1976. You control a paddle at the bottom of the screen, a ball bounces around a walled court, and a wall of coloured bricks waits at the top. Each brick the ball touches disappears. It spawned a whole family of brick-breaker games that are still made today.

This version is adapted from Jake Gordon's open-source JavaScript Breakout, which is MIT licensed. We kept its ball physics and scoring, drew five new levels, and added touch controls, a pause, dark mode and a best score that stays in this browser. It makes no sound.

How to play Breakout

1. Press Start. The ball sits on your paddle and launches after a short count of Ready, Set, Go. Press Space or tap the court to launch it straight away.
2. Move the paddle with the Left and Right arrow keys, or A and D. On a phone or tablet, put a finger on the court and drag; the paddle follows your finger. With a mouse, the paddle follows the pointer.
3. The ball bounces off the walls, the bricks and your paddle. Every brick it hits is removed and scores points; bricks higher up are worth more.
4. If the ball falls past your paddle you lose it. You start with three balls.
5. Clear every brick to reach the next level and earn an extra ball, up to five. When the last ball is lost, the game ends and your score is compared with your best.

Press P or Esc, or the Pause button, to stop at any time. Switching to another tab pauses the game too.

Aiming the ball

Where the ball lands on the paddle decides where it goes. A hit in the middle sends it almost straight up. A hit near either end sends it off at a sharp angle towards that side. Use the ends to steer the ball into gaps, and try to get it above the wall of bricks: once it is bouncing between the top wall and the back of the bricks it clears them without any help from you. The ball speeds up a little with every brick, so the late part of a level is the hardest. Keep the paddle under the ball rather than chasing it at the last moment.

The five levels

Level one is a solid wall of five rows. Level two narrows into a funnel, level three is a chequerboard of blocks with gaps to aim through, level four is a pyramid, and level five is a boxed centre you have to break into from the sides. After level five the game starts again at level one, and your score keeps climbing.