What is Breakout? A brief history, how to play it, and more

Have you ever heard of the popular 1970’s arcade game Breakout? If not, you must live somewhere in a cave (that’s very, very, very far under the water.) Lol, I’m just kidding. Breakout is a relatively older arcade game that was initially developed by the popular arcade game producer Atari. To be more specific, Atari allowed Steve Bristow and Nolan Bushnell to build the game themselves – with them receiving their influence for the game from Pong. However, that’s a bit too much information for an introduction paragraph – let’s get into the rest of the article right now.

Video of Breakout gameplay

History

So, we mentioned above how Breakout was created by both Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow but, we didn’t mention that Steve Wozniak also played a large part in the game’s production. The idea for Breakout was developed using the hardware for Pong, as mentioned (mainly so that it could act as a direct competitor against all of the individuals who were using Pong’s design to make clones). The idea behind Breakout came from Bushnell’s desire to make a 1-player version of Pong that allowed players to use paddles to bounce a ball off a wall of depleting bricks. *the ball would destroy bricks as they came into contact with one another.

The prototype for Breakout was actually developed by the late Steve Jobs (just an interesting piece of information). Because Jobs understood that he had little to no chance at developing an arcade game with as few transistor chips as Bushnell (the person who assigned the prototype for Breakout to Steve Jobs) wanted, he decided to try to (and successfully managed to) get Wozniak (a person who was able to develop a game with as few as 30 transistor logic chips. To get the game developed in as short a time as possible (as well as with as few transistor chips as possible) Bushnell offered a base award of $750 with an additional award for each number of chips less than 50 included in the game. To get Wozniak to agree to help him develop the prototype of the game Jobs offered him half of the game’s award. After working at the game for the entire 4 nights they were allotted Wozniak and Jobs were able to get the game’s development down to a whopping 42 chips, which was said to equate to a $5000 bonus.

*the game they ended up delivering to Atari ended up using 44 chips instead of the 42 the initial prototype included.

Due to the game’s compactness and interesting design characteristics Atari was unable to use the prototype version (the manufacturers at Atari said that it was too difficult to replicate and wasn’t really feasible to create. *they did still end up getting paid though.

How to Play

The gameplay for Breakout  is actually fairly straightforward. It starts with an 8 row level of bricks – each row is a different color. The colors of the rows are all different colors – you’ll find that they all go in this order of color: Yellow, Green, Orange, Red. The goal of the game is to knock as many bricks down as they possibly can by utilizing the surrounding areas to bounce the ball off of or by using the paddle (the thing you have control over) to bounce the ball back upwards. If you end up missing the return of the ball you lose one of your turns (it’s very simple).

You have 3 turns to attempt to destroy or clear at least 2 screens of bricks with each cleared brick offering you a point in return. Points for bricks are offered in the following order:

1. Yellow Bricks are 1 pt
2. Green Bricks are 3 pts
3. Orange Bricks are 5 pts
4. Red Bricks (Top-Level) are 7 pts

After you break through the top-level of red bricks the paddle will be shortened to about half of its original size, effectively making it harder to land on the paddle. After a certain number of hits the speed of the ball will also increase.

1. After 4 hits
2. After 12 hits
3. After touching both the orange and red rows of bricks

The highest score that a single player can reach is 896 pts which can be achieved by destroying 2 screens worths of bricks which will award a player with 448 pts each. The ball will simply bounce off empty walls after the second screen of bricks is destroyed and will continue to do so until you, the player restarts the game.

There is a way to score beyond the 896 point maximum – this will be shared in the below section.

Play Breakout (arcade game) online

Tiebelcity Arcade

Tiebelcity Arcade

Fun Facts about Breakout

• To get past the 896 point limit all you have to do is play the game in the 2-player format. As the first player completes the 2 screens (and if they do so with their 2nd or 3rd ball) all they have to do is let their ball drain. Once the ball drains (whatever that means) the screen will be moved to player 2’s screen as situation that allows the 2nd player to get up to 1344 pts (as long as they’re able to play without losing their 1 and only ball). After this last screen is finished the game will be done.
• The arcade cabinet of Breakout featured somewhat prison-esque artwork which signals that it was supposed to be designed after a prison escape – which is interesting as the name signals that as well.
• *this one’s kind of funny. While the prototype of Breakout was said to have awarded Steve Jobs and company a whopping $5000 (and the money was to be split evenly with Wozniak) Wozniak said he only received $350 of the expected $700 reward. Basically, this rumor says that Steve Jobs didn’t tell Wozniak the entire story and pocketed a large majority of the payout.
• The first ever ipod had a design flaw/easter egg where if users held the home button down while the about menu was open the game Breakout would show up. Cool right?

Conclusion

And there you have it guys/gals. Breakout, the game that was supposed to be modeled after a prison escape has a rather interesting history. It has straightforward gameplay as well as a few (not-so-hidden) secrets that make it something to look into. For more, check out the resources below.

Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakout_(video_game)