RetroHub games
Brick-Breaker
The whole wall, and not one ball too many.
Send the ball back with the paddle.
Break the whole wall to move on to the next board.
Hit the fish: one more ball.
What is on the field
The paddle
That is you. It only moves left and right. The closer to its edge the ball lands, the steeper it bounces off.
The ball
Five to start. It bounces off the walls, the ceiling and the bricks; only the bottom loses it.
The brick
One hit, and it falls. Its colour changes from one board to the next.
The two-hit brick
The first hit does not bring it down, and nothing shows it was hit. No crack, no points: you have to remember.
It has two faces
Two slabs on the first board, one slab marked with a bone on the second. Always two hits.
Concrete
It never breaks, and it does not count: the board is done without it.
The ball brick
Marked with a small ball. Broken, it lets one more ball into play.
The fish
It swims between the wall and you. Hit it with a ball: one more ball on the counter.
The glue
It hops across at paddle height. If it touches you, the paddle gets stuck.
The serve
Before each serve, the ball strolls along the floor from one side to the other, and an arrow swings above it, left to right and back.
✓ launches the ball from where it is, in the direction of the arrow. Two things to pick, then: the spot and the angle. The paddle moves freely in the meantime.
Points
A brick is worth more the higher it sits: the higher, the better it pays. The first hit on a two-hit brick scores nothing; it pays when it falls.
The fish and the glue
The fish comes by every thirty seconds, right to left, leaving bubbles behind. Halfway, it stops for two seconds and turns to face you: that is the moment to aim. Hit by a ball, it gives you one more ball.
The glue comes by every minute and a half, left to right, hopping along the floor. It touches neither the balls nor the bricks: only the paddle. Let it hop over you, or keep out of its way; if it touches you, it shrinks the paddle by half for fifteen seconds.
Facing you, it stops
A narrower target, but a still one.
The stuck paddle
Half as wide, and stained with glue while it lasts.
Balls
The counter only loses a ball with the last one in play. As long as one ball is still up, letting the others go costs nothing — which is what makes the ball brick so precious.
When the last one drops, the counter loses a ball and the serve starts over. The game ends when none are left.
Boards
Once the wall is down, the game says Board done: ✓ for the next one. The first six walls are always the same; after that, they are built at random — all bricks, with blocks of concrete, two-hit bricks hidden among the others, and three ball bricks. The ball keeps the same speed from one board to the next.
Controls
Phone and tablet
| ◀ ▶ | held, move the paddle |
| ✓ | serve, go to the next board, play again |
| ✱ | leave the game |
One half on each side of the screen. Touching the field does what the check mark does.
Computer
| ← → | held, move the paddle |
| Enter Space | serve, go to the next board, play again |
| Esc * | leave the game |
5 also does what Enter does.
Television
| the arrows | held, move the paddle |
| OK | serve, go to the next board, play again |
| Back | leave the game |
Brick-Breaker is ranked: your final score goes to the masters' board, and the best one shows to the right of the field, under Grand master.