Bounce, smash, clear in Breakout
Move with ← →, mouse or drag · space to launch / pause.
Breakout is the timeless brick-breaker: a paddle, a ball, and a wall of glowing blocks. Slide the paddle to keep the ball in play, angle each bounce to chip away at the bricks, and clear the whole wall to roll into a faster, tighter level.
How to play
Breakout in 4 steps
Move the paddle
Steer the paddle left and right with the arrow keys, by sliding your mouse, or by dragging on touch. The ball ricochets off it.
Aim your bounces
Where the ball hits the paddle changes its angle — strike near an edge to send it sharply sideways and reach awkward bricks.
Smash the wall
Each brick the ball hits is destroyed and adds to your score. Stronger top-row bricks may take more than one hit.
Clear and advance
Break every brick to finish the level. The next wall arrives with a faster ball — keep three balls alive as long as you can.
Controls
- Arrow keys / A D
- Move the paddle
- Mouse / drag
- Move the paddle (slide to position)
- Space
- Launch ball · pause / resume
- R
- Start a new game
Strategy
Tips to play better
Catch, don't chase
Position the paddle under where the ball will land, not where it is now. Tracking its future path keeps your returns calm and accurate.
Work the angles
Deliberately hitting the ball with the paddle's edges sends it diagonally, letting you carve into the corners that a straight bounce never reaches.
Tunnel up the side
Punch a gap up one flank and the ball can rattle along the top wall, clearing a whole row from behind while you barely touch it.
Stay centred
When you are not committed to an angle, drift the paddle back toward the middle. From there you can react to a bounce in either direction.
About Breakout
Breakout was created at Atari in 1976 — famously prototyped by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs — as a single-player descendant of Pong. Instead of a rival across the table, the opponent became a wall of bricks, and a genre was born.
Its appeal is pure, readable physics: every bounce is something you can predict and therefore master. The paddle is the one variable you control, so good play is about anticipation — reading the ball's trajectory several bounces ahead and setting up the angle you want long before the ball arrives.
Arkanoid expanded the formula in 1986 with power-ups and indestructible blocks, but the core loop never needed them. This Unicode edition renders the paddle, ball and bricks entirely from characters and box glyphs on a neon field, animating only transforms so it stays buttery smooth on phone, tablet or desktop. Your best score is saved locally in your browser.
FAQ
Breakout questions
How do I control the paddle?
How do I change the ball's angle?
What happens when I clear all the bricks?
How many lives do I get?
Is my high score saved?
Keep playing